Yet another "did I get infected thread".
I'm brewing an Irish Draught ale. At 2 weeks post pitching and after visible fermentation activity in airlock and in fermenter had stopped I checked my gravity the same way I always have for my past 7 batches by floating my sanitized hydrometer directly in my wide mouthed fermenter and spraying the mouth of fermenter with star san as well as my hands. Since I do small batches I can't afford to throw away hydrometer reading samples. Instead of pulling sample into hydro test tube risking infection from hydro test tube and my SS turkey baster I float hydrometer directly in the beer. The temp corrected F.G. was 1.020 (O.G. was 1.043); still high. 2 or 3 days after doing that check I noticed activity in the airlock (a bubble every 2-3 secs) and many small bubbles forming on top of beer similar to what you get at beginning of fermentation before the full krausen appears. I just assumed during my gravity check I kicked up trapped CO2 in the trub and didn't sweat it. 2 or 3 days after that (3 weeks post yeast pitch) I went to check gravity again to see if it was time to bottle. Wow! I got blown away by a strong smell of green apples (acetylaldehyde) I didn't get during previous gravity check. My first thought was I infected the beer doing my previous gravity check. I pulled a sample to taste. It was cloudy with a bitter taste, not horrible, but, not great either. The gravity reading was now down to 1.011, right were I'd expect it to be for this beer.
I pitched a WLP004 irish ale yeast I'd harvested from a Guinness clone batch 3 weeks prior using WLP004 from the vial by storing the slurry in sanitized beer bottles capped and refrigerated. The Guinness clone has turned out fine and taste as expected.
I made a 700ml starter to pitch into my 2.7G batch. Pitching temp was 70F. Once fermentation started I put fermenter in swamp color and for first week kept wort around 64-66F which is right in the sweet spot for WLP004. After first week and once visible fermentation had subsided I pulled fermenter from swamp cooler and let temps settle at room temp (about 75F) to allow the yeast to do their clean up.
As noted above my first gravity reading to check for ferm complete was 2 weeks after pitching, so, beer was at 75F for a week. At first gravity reading there was no "green apple" smell. At 2.5 weeks the smell blew me away!
Could this be a case of late stage yeast cleaning up which I understand acetylaldehyde is part of that process and I just need to give this beer another week or two in fermenter followed by appropriate bottle conditioning time?
I'm brewing an Irish Draught ale. At 2 weeks post pitching and after visible fermentation activity in airlock and in fermenter had stopped I checked my gravity the same way I always have for my past 7 batches by floating my sanitized hydrometer directly in my wide mouthed fermenter and spraying the mouth of fermenter with star san as well as my hands. Since I do small batches I can't afford to throw away hydrometer reading samples. Instead of pulling sample into hydro test tube risking infection from hydro test tube and my SS turkey baster I float hydrometer directly in the beer. The temp corrected F.G. was 1.020 (O.G. was 1.043); still high. 2 or 3 days after doing that check I noticed activity in the airlock (a bubble every 2-3 secs) and many small bubbles forming on top of beer similar to what you get at beginning of fermentation before the full krausen appears. I just assumed during my gravity check I kicked up trapped CO2 in the trub and didn't sweat it. 2 or 3 days after that (3 weeks post yeast pitch) I went to check gravity again to see if it was time to bottle. Wow! I got blown away by a strong smell of green apples (acetylaldehyde) I didn't get during previous gravity check. My first thought was I infected the beer doing my previous gravity check. I pulled a sample to taste. It was cloudy with a bitter taste, not horrible, but, not great either. The gravity reading was now down to 1.011, right were I'd expect it to be for this beer.
I pitched a WLP004 irish ale yeast I'd harvested from a Guinness clone batch 3 weeks prior using WLP004 from the vial by storing the slurry in sanitized beer bottles capped and refrigerated. The Guinness clone has turned out fine and taste as expected.
I made a 700ml starter to pitch into my 2.7G batch. Pitching temp was 70F. Once fermentation started I put fermenter in swamp color and for first week kept wort around 64-66F which is right in the sweet spot for WLP004. After first week and once visible fermentation had subsided I pulled fermenter from swamp cooler and let temps settle at room temp (about 75F) to allow the yeast to do their clean up.
As noted above my first gravity reading to check for ferm complete was 2 weeks after pitching, so, beer was at 75F for a week. At first gravity reading there was no "green apple" smell. At 2.5 weeks the smell blew me away!
Could this be a case of late stage yeast cleaning up which I understand acetylaldehyde is part of that process and I just need to give this beer another week or two in fermenter followed by appropriate bottle conditioning time?
