How badly did I screw up this time?

[whovous]

Timetable
1. Eight days ago - Brewed a single hop pale with HBC-438. Pitched US-05 at 62F.
2. Seven days ago - Brewed a Mosaic=Simcoe APA and pitched San Diego Super at 62F.
2. Five days ago - Increased temp in the FC to 65F.
3. Three days ago - Increased temp in the FC 68F.
4. Six hours ago - Increased temp in the FC to 71F, or so I thought.
5. One hour ago - Went down to the garage to check the gravities on both brews. As near as I can reconstruct, when I scrolled the temp up from 68 to 71F, I failed to completely back out of the setting function on my Fermostat. As a result, the little lizard heater in the fridge simply turned on and stayed on. When I opened the door, the Fermostat said the temp inside was just under 120F and the temp strip on one brew said 93F.

It was pretty cold in the garage, so simply opening the door got the temp into the 70s into a matter of minutes, even with the two fermenters radiating 90+ heat.

Both brews were close to their target FGs, and they both tasted pretty good. What long term consequences can I expect from this screw-up? Is there anything else I should do right now?

 

[okbecker]

If you like the taste, bottle and drink! Generally those high temps lead to a lot of fusels and ester production.....which you would probably taste if present.

 

[FatDragon]

If you like the taste, bottle and drink! Generally those high temps lead to a lot of fusels and ester production.....which you would probably taste if present.

After a week of fermentation, there will be little to no issue with this. Odds are good that the beers were already finished by the time the temperature spiked.

As for other potential issues, I'm not all that well-versed, but some brewers intentionally allow their brews (particularly saisons) to reach those temperatures later in fermentation, so I doubt that you're going to get any kind of heat damage from them. Heck, some brewers even make ~non-alcoholic beer by heating the finished beer to ~180 for half an hour, and apparently it can turn out pretty tasty even after hitting those temps.

 

[whovous]

Should those tastes be obvious right away, or do they develop over time? I don't really know what the 438 is supposed to taste like, but neither of these had any sharp or off flavors. The latter one was a little further from being done and was a bit on the sweet side, but I expected that anyway from mashing high (~156F).

 

[whovous]

OK, I am feeling better about this. Not happy about the design glitch that led to this cock-up in the first place, but I think these should be OK.

 

[TurnipGreen]

RHAHB! While that is pretty warm, I bet your fine. I'm pretty sure most of the esters and other off flavors come out in the first few days of active fermentation. You could get some off flavors if they are sitting on a big yeast cake and that yeast started dieing, but I bet that takes more time than your talking about.

I think back to when I lived in AL making beers with no temp control. I still made some pretty decent beer and it got hot there in the summer.

 

[jrgtr42]

The only thing I'd be worried about, presuming it tastes OK now (and you said it did,) would be wondering if the heat had any issue for the yeast if I was bottling. I would think about adding a half-pack of S-04 or 05 to the bottling bucket to make sure.

 

[TriggerHappy]

Well Luckily most of your ferment was done probably before the temp increase. That being said I bet it is fully fermented out now, the yeast were having a crazy beach party in there. Give it a taste, once it cools down a bit so you don't burn your mouth It may not be what you planned for but it may be ok or what Bob Ross would call "a happy accident."