Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:19 pm
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?.
