Ask The Brewmasters

Hello all, 

Heres a first for me. Brewed a pale ale recipe with KO temp at 64F and temp control panel set at 68F as usual for this brew. Came in this morning and the FV is chilled reading 35F!!  Clearly there is a glitch somewhere with the control panel/glycol chiller.  Anyone have any quick advice? IS this beer salvageable or got to be dumped? 

Any help is welcome. 

Take care

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Zachary Mirosevic
Mighty Peace Brewing Co
Fort Saint John BC
(778) 538-3472
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Hey Zachary

You need to re warm the brew and re pitch.  This will give you a variant of what you were brewing.  Sensory evaluation will eventually tell you what you will call it.

As the yeast has flocculated try to remove as much of it from the cone as you can.  If you were to recirculate the fermenter back through the heat exchanger and then back to the fermenter using hot water from the HLT rather than from the CLT you should be able to achieve a normal temp eventually. Re pitch at some point.

An alternative method would be to keep the yeast in the cold brew and just oxygenate and recirculate per the above method of warming.  If the yeast growth was stunted in the first 20-24 hours you should be fine.

You wouldn't be the first person to go through this.  I remember...once....Lol

Jim

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James Holden
Brewing Consultant
Retired but Busy
jholden007@hotmail.com
Canada/US/Mexico
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Another option, if you don't want to handle the beer too much, is to split the cold wort into 2 FVs. Brew another batch and use that to warm up the 2 tanks. Just be careful you split them evenly. I would dump off any of the yeast that has dropped out and repitch both.

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Sean Goddard
Brewmaster
Whitewater Brewing Co. LTD.
Cobden ON
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If you have solenoids controlling flow of glycol, sometimes a piece of shmutz will get into the solenoid and keep the diaphragm from closing completely, leading to too cold tanks. We've had instances where just opening the solenoid body was enough to dislodge the particulate and correct the problem. 


Cheers,
Jazz Aldrich

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Jazz Aldrich
Director of Operations
Great Basin Brewing Co.
Reno - Sparks, NV
(775) 856-1177
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This message was posted by a user wishing to remain anonymous

Hello,

I have had this happen to me recently. I got in and saw the tank I brewed into to was 31F. I would have to agree with the statement from Jazz about solenoids sticking as I have this problem from time to time. Simply cycling these valves a few times should clear up any issues. Also, check on your oil separation in your compressor. I would suggest recirculating and letting this ride and see what you get. Ours ended up being the same. Good luck!

I would guess that the product is salvagable.  Split and top with warmer wort, try to get it as close as possible to your normal starting temp, pitch for two brews.  It would be good practice to blend this batch with normal product, maximum 50% deviated brew, and lower rate if your brand mix and tank space allow it.  It is unlikely your taste panel would be able to pick up a problem unless you had a really bad infection, but any deviation like this would not be harmed by blending. 

You need to find what caused the glycol valve to let glycol pass and chill the fermenter.  It doesn't take much to cause it to cool down quickly....we used 3/4 inch valves to maintain temperature on 6,000 bbl fermenters.  Cycling the valve is a good idea; we had a control system that only 'knew' what the valve was supposed to be doing...if it got out of sequence and the fermenter went into alarm for low temperature deviation, the first thing the controller would do is cycle the glycol valve open and then immediately command it to close.  That took care of most of the temperature deviation problems, unless the valve had a bad seat/sheared pin/air line leak.

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Joseph Caracausa
Retired
Joshua TX
(817) 933-3545
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Yes, you are not alone in this experience! I like the solution James suggested. Another method to warm up the wort would be to run warm water through the glycol jackets of the tank. Requires more work and may not be the best depending on your system configuration.

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Aaron Brodniak
Consultant
Edmonds WA
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I did this once as well with a batch of pale ale and using US-05. Amazingly enough, there was a little action thru the blowoff the next day, even as cold as it was. I let it rewarm and the yeast took off, although I did pitch another batch of the same. Turned out fine.

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Michael Brant
Distracted Brewing
Corvallis OR
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