Duh!
Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 10:17 am
I know it's only been in the bottle for three weeks but I just couldn't resist bringing up one bottle of my "Going To California" IPA and trying it. On top of being "green" I only let it chill in the fridge for two days. Well, I was disappointed.
It tasted good for still being a bit green but it was flat as a pancake. Just a little "phifft" when I popped the cap and no head and no bubbling when I poured it into the glass.
I spent all of last night and this morning going over my notes and procedures trying to figure out where I went wrong. In the mean time I went down to the cellar (twice) to swap out the hot water bottles in my fermentation box - where I have a second batch of my "Heart Of The Country" English Brown Ale fermenting - to keep the fermentation temps up.
Then it hit me like a brick in the head!
If I have to heat the fermentation box's temp up to keep within fermentation temps then it's too cold for my beer to condition outside of the fermentation box. So I brought a sixer of the IPA up to the kitchen and I'll let it sit at upstairs room temps for a week and see if that doesn't make a difference. When it's really cold outside like it's been for the past friggen month the cellar can get down into the fifties. So I might have to let the bottles start the entire four week conditioning process over again.
It tasted good for still being a bit green but it was flat as a pancake. Just a little "phifft" when I popped the cap and no head and no bubbling when I poured it into the glass.
I spent all of last night and this morning going over my notes and procedures trying to figure out where I went wrong. In the mean time I went down to the cellar (twice) to swap out the hot water bottles in my fermentation box - where I have a second batch of my "Heart Of The Country" English Brown Ale fermenting - to keep the fermentation temps up.
Then it hit me like a brick in the head!
If I have to heat the fermentation box's temp up to keep within fermentation temps then it's too cold for my beer to condition outside of the fermentation box. So I brought a sixer of the IPA up to the kitchen and I'll let it sit at upstairs room temps for a week and see if that doesn't make a difference. When it's really cold outside like it's been for the past friggen month the cellar can get down into the fifties. So I might have to let the bottles start the entire four week conditioning process over again.
Just those "well duh, the answer was staring me in the face" moments.
