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Author Topic: Trippin' about my dry hopped IPA  (Read 6987 times)

Offline johnnyb

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Re: Trippin' about my dry hopped IPA
« Reply #30 on: July 16, 2015, 10:40:22 am »
Yeah if the closet is at 80o the beer was probably fermenting at 85o or 90o at its peak, which is about 30o higher than I would want to do for a west coast IPA.

The terrible taste is likely fusel alcohols and other off flavors from the high fermentation.

 

Offline narcout

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Re: Trippin' about my dry hopped IPA
« Reply #31 on: July 16, 2015, 06:41:49 pm »
I have absolutely no control over it and live in sunny San Diego.

An inexpensive solution is to pick up a rubbermaid container for a few bucks at Target or whatever, fill it up about halfway with water, and keep your fermentor in there.  Fill a couple of 2 liter bottles up with water, freeze them, and add them to the container.  Swap them out a couple of times a day as you are able.

That should allow you to keep your fermentation temperatures down a bit.  For most ales, try to keep the temperature of the fermenting beer below 70, especially for the first few days. 

Try googling beer swamp cooler for further info.

Sometimes you just can't get enough - JAMC

Offline SeymoureButts

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Re: Trippin' about my dry hopped IPA
« Reply #32 on: July 29, 2015, 07:14:57 pm »
Yeah if the closet is at 80o the beer was probably fermenting at 85o or 90o at its peak, which is about 30o higher than I would want to do for a west coast IPA.

The terrible taste is likely fusel alcohols and other off flavors from the high fermentation.

I bottled and served my West Coast IPA this past weekend. A buddy of mine said he liked it, but I've always suspected he's had bad taste, I absolutely do not (although I drink it or else my fiancee would give me endless s*** for pouring out 5 gallons). It tastes like no IPA I have ever tasted before, although some people tasted the hops, I don't. The beer is also fairly cloudy, I would prefer it much clearer. I do not think it is infected, I definitely believe that you guys hit it on the head, the fermentation temperature was much too high.

I have looked into the fermentation bags where one places the frozen 2 liters in it to cool it. They are $62 on Amazon, do you guys have experience with these?

I have absolutely no control over it and live in sunny San Diego.

An inexpensive solution is to pick up a rubbermaid container for a few bucks at Target or whatever, fill it up about halfway with water, and keep your fermentor in there.  Fill a couple of 2 liter bottles up with water, freeze them, and add them to the container.  Swap them out a couple of times a day as you are able.

That should allow you to keep your fermentation temperatures down a bit.  For most ales, try to keep the temperature of the fermenting beer below 70, especially for the first few days. 

Try googling beer swamp cooler for further info.



Thanks, brother. I am pretty limited on space, I have a Man Cave where I ferment, but it's really just an outdoor closet where I keep my tools and stuff. I will look into options for a cooler because clearly I need one if I want to continue brewing.

Thanks all for the advice!
« Last Edit: August 04, 2015, 11:37:22 pm by SeymoureButts »
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Offline dilluh98

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Re: Trippin' about my dry hopped IPA
« Reply #33 on: September 09, 2015, 03:24:33 pm »
Yeah if the closet is at 80o the beer was probably fermenting at 85o or 90o at its peak, which is about 30o higher than I would want to do for a west coast IPA.

The terrible taste is likely fusel alcohols and other off flavors from the high fermentation.

I bottled and served my West Coast IPA this past weekend. A buddy of mine said he liked it, but I've always suspected he's had bad taste, I absolutely do not (although I drink it or else my fiancee would give me endless s*** for pouring out 5 gallons). It tastes like no IPA I have ever tasted before, although some people tasted the hops, I don't. The beer is also fairly cloudy, I would prefer it much clearer. I do not think it is infected, I definitely believe that you guys hit it on the head, the fermentation temperature was much too high.

I have looked into the fermentation bags where one places the frozen 2 liters in it to cool it. They are $62 on Amazon, do you guys have experience with these?

I have absolutely no control over it and live in sunny San Diego.

An inexpensive solution is to pick up a rubbermaid container for a few bucks at Target or whatever, fill it up about halfway with water, and keep your fermentor in there.  Fill a couple of 2 liter bottles up with water, freeze them, and add them to the container.  Swap them out a couple of times a day as you are able.

That should allow you to keep your fermentation temperatures down a bit.  For most ales, try to keep the temperature of the fermenting beer below 70, especially for the first few days. 

Try googling beer swamp cooler for further info.



Thanks, brother. I am pretty limited on space, I have a Man Cave where I ferment, but it's really just an outdoor closet where I keep my tools and stuff. I will look into options for a cooler because clearly I need one if I want to continue brewing.

Thanks all for the advice!

I have experience with the insulated fermentation bag you are talking about (Cool Brewing I think is the brand name). They work extremely well for a $60 investment. For a 5 gallon batch that's in the early stage of fermentation, i.e., it is generating heat, you can easily get to mid-60F by swapping out two 1L bottles of ice every 12 hours or so in a 80F room. Once the fermentation slows down after a few days you can switch to swapping out 2 L once every 24 hours. Being well insulated and having the high thermal mass of all that beer with the solid liter bottles of ice in there, the temperature fluctuations are minuscule if you do consistently change the ice every 12 hours. Out of curiosity I monitored the temperature every 2 hours over a weekend and got +/- 1 degree fluctuation. What helps even more is if you can put the bag in the most interior closet in the house as the temperature fluctuations will be further minimized there. The other plus of that bag is that there is room for two 6 gallon carboys (a bit tight but it works). Way less messy than a true swamp cooler in my opinion. It's also soft-sided so if you aren't brewing you can just fold it up and store.