Brewing Paint Thinner ?

[LorenzoJ]

Think I might have been really dumb !

Brewing a batch of "Aussie Ale", running late for a family thing up North, temp still pretty warm ( 80 + ) but pitched yeast anyway. Eight hours later returned to a furious fermentation - airlock cycling about 160 / minute. Things got pretty quiet about 24 - 36 hours later.

SO ............ am I staring at a likely disaster or should I wait and see ? ? ?

[Beerconnoisseur]

Wait and see. You may be pleasantly surprised.

[Wilson]

Same thing happened to me, I'm still giving it a shot. Bottling this weekend. If it doesnt make anyone go blind and tastes remotely good, I'll be happy.

[brewmonkey]

Originally posted by LorenzoJ
Think I might have been really dumb !

Brewing a batch of "Aussie Ale", running late for a family thing up North, temp still pretty warm ( 80 + ) but pitched yeast anyway. Eight hours later returned to a furious fermentation - airlock cycling about 160 / minute. Things got pretty quiet about 24 - 36 hours later.

SO ............ am I staring at a likely disaster or should I wait and see ? ? ?

What did the temp stay at during the fermentation?

80 degrees is rather warm and you are most likely looking at fusel oil production and possibly some diacetyl depending on the yeast strain you used.

Pitching at 80 is not a bad thing if you are able to bring the temp down to within the range of the yeast you are using within 4-8 hours.

Give it a taste and see what you get.

[badogg]

80 degrees is rather warm and you are most likely looking at fusel oil production and possibly some diacetyl depending on the yeast strain you used.

I think this explains what happened to my octoberfest... I putched yeast at about 90 degrees, I figured that if it was under 100 it was safe. I know better now.

[BucksBrew]

I try to pitch at around 5 degrees or so above ferment temp to kick start the fermentation. Then I get it down to where it should be.

[LorenzoJ]

Replies to various posts:

Temp stayed close to 80 throughout the highest fermentation activity. Looked like a raging swirlling blizzard in the wort when I got back here 8 hours +\- later.

Honestly didn't occur to me to try to cool it down at that point.

Used 14g of Coopers dry Ale yeast, rehydrated

Yeah I was wondering if I should pull a bit with the Wine Thief and check it out.

Also wondering if I should transfer to a secondary carboy.

It's now been 3 1/2 days and zero visible activity plus much of krausen has sedimented out.

Thanks to all for the input.....

[GunNut76]

Wait and see! Drinking a brew as I type this that did it's entire fermentation (primary and secondary) at 78-80. It will probably turn out OK.

[LorenzoJ]

Well I took a sample with the "Wine Thief"..... sanitized of course.

Smells like beer......... Tastes like beer......... No noticeable off odors....... Maybe I got lucky. ! And the fermentation activity truly was an impressive thing to see.....

I'll have to try again at the "right" temp as a comparison though