Beer Forum

I brewed a 10 gal. all grain batch of blonde ale (10.5 gallons in the fermenter). For yeast I pitched 200ml (maybe a little more) of WLP001 slurry from a batch of Pale Ale I had brewed 6 to 8 weeks earlier. I ferment in a 14.5 gallon Blichmann Conical in a 13.7 cu.ft freezer with a Ranco controller. The temperature probe was in a stainless thermowell I got from B3, so it was measuring beer temperature. I did not think it possible to over pitch but at a controller temperature of 67F the yeast exploded through my air lock with such velocity that it hit the top of the freezer. Yeast was everywhere. I assumed that as long as things were exiting the fermenter, I probably did not have to worry about infection, so I waited two weeks and kegged the beer. Since my previous try at a blonde ale never cleared to my liking, I held the blonde at 35F for two weeks with the idea that I would get a filter and filter it. As such, I did not connect the kegs to my CO2 bottle as I usually do. After two weeks, my wife wanted some blonde to take to a party. I connected the CO2 and filled a two liter soda bottle, with the idea that I could force carbonate it quickly. Now for the problem. The beer has what I would describe as a phenolic taste and odor. Could this be the result of high fermentation temperatures, evidenced by the explosive nature of the fermentation, or is the beer infected? Any ideas or suggestions? Dump it or try and pass it off as a Belgium?.

I did not see a way to edit my prior post, so I am adding this reply. After completing my post, I thought of another potential source of the problem. I aerate with O2 rather than air. Is it possible that I overdid the oxygenation? Is it even possible to do so?

oh yes, it's possible to over aerate with pure o2. how long did you aerate?
I remember the pope just talking about this on a BS episode, I think Shat was the culprit.

I was not aware you could over oxygenate, so I never measured the time. But my guess is 1.5 to 2 minutes at 2L/min for a 10 gallon batch.

Since my medical O2 regulator will go down to 0.5 (I assume this is 0.5L/min), how long should I oxygenate at this rate? I'm thinking that if 75% of the O2 is absorbed at this flow it would take about 45 seconds to hit 10ppm and 70 seconds if only 50% is absorbed. How does this sound?

Bob