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Strrong alcohol flavor

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Barrel Char Wood Products
M

mcgratb

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 28, 2012
11
1
0
Daytona Beach, FL
First batch, 6 months in secondary. Has a very strong alcohol taste.

12 lbs of local Orange Blossom
5gal of water.
Crosby & Baker LTD Distillers yeast

OG 1.082
Current reading 1.000

Any suggestions?
 
Age will heal that wound. It may have taken a blow by using distillers yeast. Its my understanding that that stuff is just made to plow through sugar and not really contribute in terms of complexity. I would use a wine yeast next time and you'll most likely like the results better. But age this for another 6 months or so, and see where you're at then.
 
mcgratb said:
I left it at room temp. 70-76 degrees. I did not have a cooler for it at the time.
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I suspect that Medsen is alluding to possible fusels being produced?

Yet I'd suggest the same as the others and just clear it and age it. The taste that's often described as "alcohol hot" often mellows with ageing. 6 months will give you a clue as to the likely result......
 
Yes, high temp fermentation can produce fusels that are very hot. Aging can certainly mellow them, but I have a batch that I've been aging for 5 years that still tastes like "fire water" so don't hold your breath.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
Medsen Fey said:
Yes, high temp fermentation can produce fusels that are very hot. Aging can certainly mellow them, but I have a batch that I've been aging for 5 years that still tastes like "fire water" so don't hold your breath.
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Thought so. Temp control is less of an issue for me as the house rarely gets above about 70 here.

Yet you being in Florida its gotta be a pain having to factor in temp control too......
 
I can't say how important it is for meads, having very little experience yet with them, but with beer having temperature control of some sort is an absolute necessity, even if it's only a matter of choosing the right season to brew. Some ale yeasts top out at as low as 71F before they start spitting out excessive esters, and most will produce a lot of fusel alcohol if they get into the mid 70s, especially early in the ferment when there's still oxygen around. And the problem with fusel alcohols is that once they're produced they just stay around. I've seen wine yeasts with a much higher temperature rating -- into the 30s -- and have been wondering if perhaps those don't produce fusel alcohols for some reason.

I've seen a lot of different approaches to fermentation chambers. The easiest is to just buy a chest freezer and add a temperature control switch to it, though if you have the space you could buy a normal fridge and replace the door with a fermentation chamber. I went a little bit overboard on that myself -- my fridge powers a lagering chamber that gets down to about 2C, a serving chamber that holds 3 kegs around 10C, and a ferment chamber that can get two fermentation buckets or carboys down to 15C year round and below 10C for making lagers any time but mid summer. It's a great DIY project.
 
kuri said:
I can't say how important it is for meads, having very little experience yet with them,...
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Temp control is really important.
Wine yeast throw a lot of fusels at high temp and even though these higher alcohols may mellow with long aging, they can wreck a mead. The best yeast I've seen if you have to brew above 75F are K1V and D21.
 
Medsen Fey said:
Temp control is really important.
Wine yeast throw a lot of fusels at high temp and even though these higher alcohols may mellow with long aging, they can wreck a mead. The best yeast I've seen if you have to brew above 75F are K1V and D21.
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Both of which were isolated from the south central/south western area in France......

I wonder if there's any Spanish origin isolates that might be good at higher temps too ?
 
kuri said:
I've seen a lot of different approaches to fermentation chambers. The easiest is to just buy a chest freezer and add a temperature control switch to it, though if you have the space you could buy a normal fridge and replace the door with a fermentation chamber. I went a little bit overboard on that myself -- my fridge powers a lagering chamber that gets down to about 2C, a serving chamber that holds 3 kegs around 10C, and a ferment chamber that can get two fermentation buckets or carboys down to 15C year round and below 10C for making lagers any time but mid summer. It's a great DIY project.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hijack, but this has me quite intrigued as being in South Texas, and about to get some kind of setup for fermenting in the summer. Could you post pictures of your setup for us to oooh and aaawww over? (in another thread of course.)

-- Steve
 
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