Troublesome batch. Missed all the numbers on brew day, lost temp control on day 3 and got hot, hoping to recover. Need some advice. Hope to serve in it exactly 4 weeks. Homebrewing

Two weeks ago I brewed a Kolsch, and I got 85% efficiency. A week ago I brewed Janet's Brown Ale from the Brewing Classic Styles book. At 85% I would have gotten a 8.5-9% brown. Not really what I wanted, so I adjusted the malt bill to account for my efficiency. When I brewed it, somehow I miss-counted my batch sparge and only collected exactly 5 gallons of wort. Also, I only got 65% efficiency! I should have had about 1.068, and I only got about 1.058.

I pitched my original 265 billion cells of W1056 even though I only really needed 213 billion.

Then, disaster in the fermentation chamber: On day 3 (Tuesday) I noticed that the trusty Inkbird apparatus was reporting 3 degrees below target, and was in heating mode. Many hours later, I noticed it was still in the same position. I had the probe insulated and taped to the side of the bucket. The tape had failed and the probe had fallen to the bottom of the temperature chamber. I had heard there was quite a temperature differential in there, but I didn't realize how much of one there was. The bottom of the chamber was reading consistently below target, but my desk-lamp heater had been on for hours. I replaced the probe onto the side of the bucket, and watched while the reading went up to a bit over 80f. I set it back to 66 and have left it there ever since.

Today I took a sample: 1.010. FG was supposed to be 1.015. Tastes very bitter. It was supposed to be a 7-7.5% ABA with about 60 IBUs, but I guess it's closer to a 6.5% Brown, but it still has 60 IBUs, and it tastes a bit out of balance, and I'm not sure WHAT else I'm tasting.

It calls for 2oz of Centennial as a dry hop.

So, I could rack it to a keg now, put it under some CO2 and put it in the basement for the next 4 weeks, adding the dry-hop about 5 days before the party.

I could dry hop it now in the primary for 5 days, then keg it out and let it cold-condition for 3 weeks. (I assume I don't dry hop it at refrigerator temperature?)

I could do something else.

Thoughts?

Submitted June 26, 2016 at 05:38AM by AgedAardvark http://ift.tt/28TB5qb Homebrewing