I think that I read somwhere , Maybe here, that fusels will ester out in time, any truth or experience to this premise?

I just brewed a barley wine using US56, my home temp has been close to 72D F. most of the time. Did I develope fusels with this temp?

Ty Eric

I don't know...I can't taste it from here!

I have a paper from Dr. Bill Pengelley, former Deschutes head brewer, where he talks about fusels aging into esters. I'll try to remember to dig it out and see if I can find any relevant info.

Thanks Denny, I plan on aging this brew for a tasting at 6mo. but to try to drink some after 1 year or more, as I understand,with barley wines time is on my side as far as taste goes.
Ty for your reply Eric

Ps. I would be happy to send you a bottle after 6mo. if U are interested...

I had a mead that once had fusels and now doesn't.

Ya Bryan, me too. after over 2 1/2 years is still tasted like moonshine and then finally after about 3 years it was gone. Now it's fine. I had 10 gallons of it so I felt like I had to hang in there, but I was beginning to loose faith. I still have 12 bottles and everytime I try to offer a drink to a guest she scares them with the moonshine story. Makes it hard to get an objective opinion from them. Women.

i really don't know the ``science'' behind any of this but i've experienced both ends of the spectrum - fusels that disappear with time and fusels that don't. obviously many things are at play here and many different compounds porbably factor into what are percieved as fusels.

i've made many BWs that start with fusel alcohol flavors but then, with aging, they slowly disappate. OTOH, a couple years ago i made the much reveared rochefort ABT 8 clone by herman and, despite fermenting close to the suggested temp, i ended up with an incredibly fusel product. with time, even 8 months later, the fusel taste persisted and even seemed to worsen! the only keg i've ever poured down the drain

of course, YMMV

ben

I made N8's Ah Choof recipe and fermented the Wy3522 into the high 80F's. It was absolutely LOADED with fusels; drinking a pint resulted in a flushed face, and a splitting headache. The beer was hot, solventy, etc. I almost threw it out but I consulted with Denny and N8. I lagered it for 3 weeks or so, and it turned out fairly well but would have been much better if I fermented lower in the first place. But the aroma! I'd smell the beer as much as I drank it. I love esters.

I'm a firm believer that most(not all) beers greatly benefit from some period of cold storage. Something magical happens.

So....I bottled my Oatmeal Stout last night and detected some fusels. I remember the temperature creeping into the mid-70's during fermentation. After carbonation has reached in the bottles, to help get rid of the fusels, should I age longer @ conditioning temps, or age in the fridge? I never realized how much temperature played a factor in the taste....My Wit is going @ 68 right now, which I hope is perfect.

Eric, sure, send me some!

Chris, I'd age at cellar temps (55ish) or as close as you can get.

This may be a silly question, but what exactly do fusel alcohols taste like? That MAY be the off flavor I've had a problem with on my last few batches. Thanks!

I had to see for myself FB heres what I found out:
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, are higher order (more than two carbons) alcohols formed by fermentation and present in cider, mead, beer, wine, and spirits to varying degrees. The term fusel is German for ?bad liquor.?

Excessive concentrations of these fractions may cause off flavors, sometimes described as "spicy," "hot," or "solvent-like.Some beverages, such as whiskey, Siwucha and traditional ales and ciders, are expected to have relatively high concentrations of fusel alcohols as part of the flavor profile. In other beverages, such as vodka and lagers, notable presence of fusel alcohols is considered a fault. Very high concentrations ? usually caused by incompetent distillation ? can cause acute illness, including headaches, nausea, vomiting, clinical depression, or coma. Such a liquor may be referred to as rot-gut

Joe I believe N8 gave you the recipe for Siwucha by mistake or maybe it was a Belgian Siwucha IPA

Thanks for the research Greg - I appreciate it. I think that may describe the flavor in my last batch - a cream ale fermented at about 72 degrees with US-56. It's been in the bottle for about 2 weeks, and it was only a 1.040 gravity beer to begin with. I stuck it in the fridge tonight, and I'll try it in 2-3 weeks to see if the flavors mellow out.

Fb,sometimes young beers have a winey type flavor to them, not to be confused with Fusel flavors, and they subside with a little age specially if at a lower gravity... US 56 is IMO a pretty flexible yeast and does well in your temp range but does better bewteen 65F and 70 for a cleaner flavor profile...

I definitely rush my beers before they're ready...I need to give them more time in the fermenter for sure, and then more time in the bottle before tasting. Patience is something I'm learning slowly with homebrewing.

Up here in Wisconsin, I've had a hard time keeping my basement below 72 - 74 degrees, so I think I may wait to brew again until early fall. If I use US-56 again, I'll experiment with the lower temps.

Yeah , Thats the hardest part in the brewing process, (patience),
I wouldnt wait til fall again, you'll be fine with that beer, keep brewing.. you know if you cant wait to get the next one brewing so just brew it up.. I have learned that uS 56 works really well at lower temps but that doesnt mean at 72 you wont produce good beer, in fact it will be excellent.. As long as we all stick to the basics,sanitation.. consisant fermenation temps, proper priming etc,, its hard to F up a brew

I might have some fusel trouble in my latest brew. I went on vacation for almost a week and it was about 100F plus and the person watching my cats and house said when she came in it was MAD HOT! and when got home I felt the side of my fermenter even after the air conditioner was turned on for a day it was MAD WARM! I guess I'll find out in a few weeks. The beer still smells good coming out of the air lock when I press on the lid. It is an american amber ale.

I've lost a few batches to heat lately. A N. German pils that had already lagered for 4 months got left outside in a shed while I was in Orlando and now it tastes like a Belgian pale ale. A 10 gal. batch of rye IPA got ingored at the end of primary for a week when the temp was over 100. It tastes and smells liked a smoked banana rye IPA now....

Undrinkable, or just different than expected? Do you sit and wait it out, or into the drain it goes? Are there any rescue tactics?

Sorry to hear that Denny.

Is fusel when you open the fermenter and you 'burn' your eyebrows?

Well, right now it's kinda unpleasant to drink. I guess undrinkable depends on your tolerance level... It's kegged and I'm goona let it sit in the fridge for a month or so and see what happens. It's got a smoky aroma and banana taste riding on top of the normal rye IPA taste. No noticeable fusels, though. I think I was late enough in prmary to avoid those. But LOTS of esters and phenolics. I seldom amke a 10 gal. batch, but I was so low on beer I went for it on this one. Wouldn't ya know.....

I'm not sure what it's like up your way, but the weather here in Texas sucks. It's not just hot, but we can't get any rain either. I told my wife it was too hot to brew beer. She got a kick out of that.

I had a hefe in secondary when it was over 100 here in L.A. I guess if you're gonna have warm weather, its better to be brewing a hefe or saison, etc... I thought I might have lost it to fusels and such but, actually it got better! really nice banana and clove with just a touch of the hallertau bitternes coming through on the back end. trying to keep a blonde ale cool enough to be clean tasting now...

This spring I had a pale ale that got caught in the sudden heat of a day out of the blue. It must have gotten to about 85. I had just put finings in and was going to rack in a day or 2. I have never had this taste in a beer before or since and have no one to give an opinion but it tasted like butterscotch or something near that. I kegged it and it tasted like crap after a few weeks still. Then I let out the pressure reracked to fermentors dry hopped with 1 tablespoon of cascade and crashed for 2 weeks at 35 degrees in my lager tank. Then rekegged it and it was better. I still didn't like it so I drank other beer for about a month with this in the fridge. When I tried it again it was almost what I would consider good. Seems like time can heal many wounds.