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What's in Your Fermenter? 2018


Otto Von Blotto

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Where are your blokes getting your NEIPAs from? I have tried several from local microbrewers and they don't look anything like this description.

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

 

Hey Scottie, I've been fortunate to try mostly local NEIPAs on tap here in Sydney. There was a NEIPA tap takeover in October, and a brew-off between Pirate Life, Mornington and Akasha where there were 3 or 4 NEIPAs on tap too.

 

Haven't yet tried one from a can. But they generally look like the Cooper's Session Ale photo you posted, right through to a lighter shade of yellow. Always as murky.

 

I suspect if they aren't as murky, they have cheaped out on the hops! The Modus Operandi brewers said they used 1.5kg of hops per 50L keg for that batch; the most expensive beer they have ever made!

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Photos I've seen of NEIPAs from actual New England have had varying levels of haze from a lot to looking like mud, or soup.

 

Not mocking the flavours of them, I'm sure they're very nice. But if someone put a beer that looks like the one in Scottie's photo in front of me I would be asking them to change the keg and pour me a proper one. It looks exactly like the yeast sludge that I sometimes pull up from the bottom of my kegs when they blow dry and there ain't no way I'm drinking that crap.

 

I'm all for big flavors and aromas and whatever, but I'm sorry I won't drink what looks like pond sludge to get them. Appearance isn't everything but my enjoyment of a beer would certainly be diminished if it looked as shitty as that.

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The home grown Cascade experimental pale ale has a nice krausen on it now, about 26 hours after pitching the yeast. I checked it this morning when I woke up (about the 19 hour mark) and the krausen was in the process of forming, and looked like it probably had been for about 2-3 hours, so a nice shortish lag time once again. I'm fermenting this one at 19C and will test the SG on Thursday, when I'll likely bump up the temp to 22 for the remainder of fermentation and cleaning up before the cold crash.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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dislocated my shoulder at work just before christmas. the boss came around to check how i was going & to have me sign some paperwork. i told him i just wanna get back to work coz i'm going nuts with boredom - he saw my lemon tree & said i could carefuly pick some of the lemons with my good arm. i thought why not - they could go in the brew bin with some sugar & yeast for some hard lemonade ;-)

bottled my first batch today & started another lot using the "mother" from the first batch

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I put down a wheat beer a few days ago with Coopers Brew Enhancer 3.

I looked at the Beekeeper recipe and thought it sounded worth trying, but only too late.

I wanna ask you Kraft Beer Professionals what is the deal if I am wanting to add some honey a few days into the fermentation?

Is it too risky or not likely to have a good result?

Would I need to dilute the honey now before dropping it in? And if I added it, should I stir up the wort before putting the lid back on and closing the door on the Brew-erator?

 

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Hello SonofaHermit.

I wanna ask you Kraft Beer Professionals what is the deal if I am wanting to add some honey a few days into the fermentation?

Is it too risky or not likely to have a good result?

Would I need to dilute the honey now before dropping it in? And if I added it' date=' should I stir up the wort before putting the lid back on and closing the door on the Brew-erator?[/quote']

If it were me I'd boil 250-500mls of water & dissolve the honey in it. Allow this to cool down to around the low to mid 20 degree mark & then pour this directly into your fermenter ASAP.

 

Conversely you could wait & bulk prime the honey after primary fermentation is complete (for carbonation purposes) instead of using sugar or carbonation drops.

 

@ Scottie: I went down to the Coopers Ale house yesterday for lunch & tried the Session Ale while I was there. It certainly wasn't the muddy looking beer they poured for you, as mine was quite clear boarding on slightly cloudy like it should be. I thought it was a nice beer without being anything sensational.

 

@ Kelsey: Good luck with the home grown hopped pale ale!

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

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If it were me I'd boil 250-500mls of water & dissolve the honey in it. Allow this to cool down to around the low to mid 20 degree mark & then pour this directly into your fermenter ASAP.

 

Conversely you could wait & bulk prime the honey after primary fermentation is complete (for carbonation purposes) instead of using sugar or carbonation drops.

 

 

Cheers' date='

 

Lusty.[/size']

 

Thanks Lusty, I keg my beer and force carb.

I've decided I'll just let it run now, and I'll give the Beekeeper idea a go next time if the wheat beer turns out nice.

 

I've already had dramas with it during the first 24 hours because the yeast I added which was Brew Cellar brand Wheat Beer yeast I got from the local home brew shop was dead!

I hydrated it before adding, but didn't proof it.

I'll do that in future.

So my wort sat for almost 20 hours with dead yeast in it before I added the packet yeast which came with the tin.

It quickly started fermenting after that and I'm hoping that the first little hiccup hasn't badly affected my final results.

 

Cheers,

Glen.

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It may have been dead or may have been just a slow starter, maybe that's unusual for a wheat yeast I don't know, I don't like or brew wheat beers. There's no real benefit to proofing yeast before pitching it; if you want to you can add a little wort to it after it has already properly re-hydrated in the plain water which can help with bringing the temp of the yeast and wort closer together, but otherwise simply re-hydrate and pitch into the wort.

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Took my usual 3 days SG sample from the home grown Cascade brew, sitting around 1.026 currently so probably still a couple of days out from FG which I'm expecting at 1.012 give or take. It's overly sweet at the moment but that's not a great surprise given the SG. I can taste the hops in it though, they're quite prominent already and also displaying that distinctive Cascade flavor happy.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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My current 335gm hopped Pale Ale is now in cold crash mode in the brew fridge. I squeezed the liquid from, & then removed the second dry hop addition mix of Simcoe, Columbus, & Chinook. They smelled sensational actually, so have put that dry hop combo in the memory bank. wink

 

I cleaned & sanitised the keg in readiness as well. On track to keg & fast carb it up this coming Sunday. I can't wait to try it.

 

Cheers & good brewing,

 

Lusty.

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I have a Saison with Sorachi Ace in the fermenter. Using Belle Saison dry yeast in this one.

I normally don't dry hop saisons but I decided to do so with 20g of Sorachi Ace. It is down to 1003 and around 7.5% ABV.

Anyone for a spicy' date=' lemon scented Mt. Franklin? [img']tongue[/img]

 

biggrin

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I have a Saison with Sorachi Ace in the fermenter. Using Belle Saison dry yeast in this one.

I normally don't dry hop saisons but I decided to do so with 20g of Sorachi Ace. It is down to 1003 and around 7.5% ABV.

Anyone for a spicy' date=' lemon scented Mt. Franklin? [img']tongue[/img]

 

biggrin

I will be bottling these in the pop top Pump water bottles. Nice and easy to slam it down. Perfect for sport and for public transport. No more dirty looks from the other passengers and no more hiding the brown paper bag when the guards come around.

 

I don’t have to worry about my behaviour after a few of the 7.5% waters; I’m in Western Sydney. Just part of the usual crowd wink

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I will be bottling these in the pop top Pump water bottles. Nice and easy to slam it down. Perfect for sport and for public transport. No more dirty looks from the other passengers and no more hiding the brown paper bag when the guards come around.

 

I don’t have to worry about my behaviour after a few of the 7.5% waters; I’m in Western Sydney. Just part of the usual crowd wink

lol

 

That was a pretty low FG. surprised

 

Cheers' date='

 

Lusty.[/size']

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I used up my last can of mexican cerveza and some leftover hops and yeast to make an ale.

1 mex cerveza coopers

1 kg of dry malt extract lhbs

200g of carapils

2 packets of kit yeast, only because they both were over a 1 year old

25g of citra, galaxy and azacca at flameout and steeped for 30 minutes. I set it in sink of ice and water to cool down which should still up the IBUs a little which is fine for me.

Will dry hop with left over citra galaxy and azacca on day 11 when I cold crash.

I pitched the 2 packets at 5pm and there was airlock activity at 9pm and was going strong at midnight, I am always impressed with the coopers ale/lager yeast.

 

I had 1 hiccup, when I went to pour it into the fermenter I had the tap open from the cleaning, lost at least 1 liter of the 4.5 liters used to steep!?!@# All I thought about was how much flavour and aroma did I just lose?! The hardest part was keeping the dog away, she didn't get any but while keeping her away it spread across the floor quickly and made my mistake harder to clean, but way better than poisoning our dog, so afterwards I proclaimed myself a hero and ate the last cookie (I guess I mean biscuit) in the house, which caused me to lose that status.

 

Cheers,

Norris

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My Black Rock Whispering Wheat beer is still in the FV, but I'm concerned it may have stalled.

SG readings 3 days apart both show 1.016 and I feel that is probably too high.

However this is my first time brewing this beer and I completely forgot to take the OG at the time, so that's no help.

It tastes ok to me but I'm not a taster who knows what to expect...

 

I have another sachet of "Premium Brewers Yeast" which came with the Black Rock brew cans, I could pitch in again and see if I get any more out of it... or just crash chill it until my keg is ready.

 

Any advice?

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I have my new house IPA. The only time I have brewed it was in a 12L batch but it was an absolutely great drop so I decided to upscale it to 24L. My brew day was a disaster but it is now fermenting away at 18 degrees. Hopefully it will be awesome too.

 

Youngie

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My Black Rock Whispering Wheat beer is still in the FV' date=' but I'm concerned it may have stalled.

SG readings 3 days apart both show 1.016 and I feel that is probably too high.

However this is my first time brewing this beer and I completely forgot to take the OG at the time, so that's no help.

It tastes ok to me but I'm not a taster who knows what to expect...

 

I have another sachet of "Premium Brewers Yeast" which came with the Black Rock brew cans, I could pitch in again and see if I get any more out of it... or just crash chill it until my keg is ready.

 

Any advice?[/quote']I can't tell you what to expect in terms of FG although it does sound high for a wheat beer, but if you're using kegs it's less of an issue because you're not gonna blow them up or anything like bottles might. The only real issue with an FG too high is that the beer might be too sweet. Perhaps try warming it up a bit before you resort to pitching more yeast.

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Checked the SG on my home grown Cascade pale ale, it's down to 1.0128, about 1 point off predicted FG so it's probably finished really considering it's been in there 7 days already. I'll check it again in a couple of days though to get a final reading, and begin the temp drop for a week of cold crashing.

 

Taste wise it's coming along nicely, the over sweetness has gone as I expected it would, and it's tasting nicely balanced. It will have some ageing time in the keg before it gets tapped so hopefully the hop influence doesn't fade too much in that time.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just pitched the WLP-566 starter into my Saison which i have decided to call, Funky Town. I ended up getting 21.5 litres into my fermenter with a gravity of 1.056. That amounts to about 72% efficiency. Pretty pleased with that. I pitched at 20°C and will hold there for a couple of days, then just let it free rise. Im hoping to get a nice dry, tart finish

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I took a gravity sample of the 3rd version of my little kit based 'Mid-strength Nirvana' beer earlier today. Bang on 1.009 where it should be, so threw the 90gm dry hop mix of Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, & Columbus in that should round the beer off nicely.

 

The sample tasted nice & balanced with the hint of added bitterness I want in this little mid-strength beer. I'll lift, squeeze, & remove the dry hop bags in about 4 days time then crash chill in preparation for kegging.

 

I have a very interesting beer (from my perspective) planned for my next brew & will reveal details about that in due course as I will be looking for input & thoughts from anyone & everyone on the forum interested in what I have planned.

 

I think it will make for a very interesting discussion. wink

 

In the meantime, cheers & good brewing.

 

Lusty.

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About to throw in the next batch of my red ale. I noticed the oak chips I bought ages ago sitting on my brew stand yesterday, still unopened - I keep forgetting to throw them into a batch of this beer so I'm planning on it with this one.

 

Should they be boiled or something first or just chuck em in, and at what point should they go in?

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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My FunkyTown Saison has been sitting at 20°C for 2 days now, so this morning i set my temp controller to turn the fridge on when it reaches 32°C. I will just let it free rise for the remainder of the fermentation. If it gets too cold, ill bump up the heating side to about 25°C or so. Keen to see what sort of flavours i get from this yeast strain

 

Cheers

 

Rowbrew

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My red ale was up and going by the 18 hour mark when I checked it this morning, with a thin layer of bubbles on top of it. Now about 5 hours or so later there's a nice 15-20mm or so krausen sitting on it. Fermenting this one at 18C, 25L batch and 1.0436 OG so hit all my targets which was good. I'll check SG and raise the temp on Thursday which will be 3 days since pitching.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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