What's in Your Fermenter? 2018

[Rowbrew]

I just chucked in the biotransformation dry hop of 20g Rakau and 20g Vic Secret. I usually use a bag to contain them, but this time i was feeling adventurous and went commando style!

[tja1980]

Oh thank god, I got my original account back.

The Capital Pilsner I did came out a cracker, cloudy, I over carbed it, 8.5% ABV very smooth me mates want more, could only Keg 19L  feel sad wasting 4L not a bad rushed Pilsner.

Have a Coopers Session Ale Clone just finishing up, smells a lot better than Coopers Session Ale, so that to me is a good first sign.

Tristan

[Otto Von Blotto]

Threw a 40g Rakau dry hop into my Rakau pale ale just now. This time I decided to use a tea strainer ball. Yesterday I tested the SG and it was sitting around 1.030ish, so I left it until I woke up this morning and raised the temp controller up to 21.4 or something. It's just reached 20C as I type this, and I'll be taking the first FG test on Monday and the second on Wednesday. If they're the same it'll get crash chilled and kegged the following week.

Cheers

Kelsey

[Beervis]

On 3/24/2018 at 2:29 AM, No_vice said:

Doing a Coopers Bootmakers Pale Ale.

 

Did the 23 litre option with 1.5kg of LDME. Added Coopers yeast from the can but nothing was happening after a day and a bit, so figured I would experiment. I had a sachet of Morgans Wheat Yeast in the fridge, so pitched that at around 22C and slowly dropped it to sit around 19C.

 

Went absolutely crackers, then went from 10cm Krausen to 1cm after 6 days. SG down to 1007 from an OG of 1051. I will check over a couple of days but it tastes, and looks, great.

 

I am tempted to dry hop with 25gms of Goldings for a few days for some more hoppiness - had them left over from an imperial IPA. Thoughts and suggestions please. Also do I wait for the Krausen to completely drop or cold crash it once the SG remains stable? Then again maybe the addition of the hops will cause the Krausen to drop.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm interested to see how this turns out.  I've decided I don't like this kit but I'm wondering if the 30gm Chinook hop steep I added to it ruined it.  Maybe the wheat yeast + Goldings will make a difference!

[Beervis]

I'm doing a 'get rid of ingredients I don't really want or need' brew today.

Toucan Coopers Wheat + Canadian Blonde on a T-58 + Coopers Ac+L yeast cake.  

I've got 25gms of Hallertau I might add as a hop tea but not really sure if it would suit the style, if this thing has a style  

[No_vice]

5 hours ago, Beervis said:

I'm interested to see how this turns out.  I've decided I don't like this kit but I'm wondering if the 30gm Chinook hop steep I added to it ruined it.  Maybe the wheat yeast + Goldings will make a difference!

Came out pretty good. Great head retention with very fine bubbles as you can see from the pic and it is strong (5.8%).  I put that down to the wheat yeast which in the end I reckon was a good move.  I didn't end up going with the dry hopping but I reckon it would have benefited from it.  I will try it again with the hops. Love experimenting.

[Beervis]

looks good! Do you find it quite heavy, flavour wise?  I taste tested mine again this morning while bottling the latest batch, I'm not up on the correct tasting terminology, but it's sorta quite thick and rich, heavy.  More towards the style of a 4 Pines Pale than some of the lighter, hoppier styles.  I liked it, but find it hard going to have more than a glass or two.  

Which wheat yeast did you use, btw?

[Spanky1525230265]

Have recently put down a "pekko pilsner" , it's a hop I've seen about but never used till yesterday. The IBU's and EBC might be a touch high for a pilsner, but here it is. 

1x 1.7kg morgans golden sazz pilsner

1.5kg light dry malt

300gr Vienna & 200gr Munich 1 (minimash at 60 to 66°c)

5gr pekko @ 60mins 

10gr pekko @ 15mins

10gr pekko @ 5mins

15gr pekko @ 0mins

2 x 7gr rehydrated kit yeast

Made to 21l and OG of 1.053

Currently fermenting in the Laundry sink between 14 and 12 degrees, looking forward to this

[Hermoor]

Watching the football with a Thomas Coopers Pale Ale.

[No_vice]

On 5/5/2018 at 2:26 PM, Beervis said:

looks good! Do you find it quite heavy, flavour wise?  I taste tested mine again this morning while bottling the latest batch, I'm not up on the correct tasting terminology, but it's sorta quite thick and rich, heavy.  More towards the style of a 4 Pines Pale than some of the lighter, hoppier styles.  I liked it, but find it hard going to have more than a glass or two.  

Which wheat yeast did you use, btw?

I used Morgans Wheat Yeast as that was on hand   Mine is not that heavy to taste but that may be because  using the wheat yeast changed the profile somewhat.

 

On 5/5/2018 at 2:26 PM, Beervis said:

looks good! Do you find it quite heavy, flavour wise?  I taste tested mine again this morning while bottling the latest batch, I'm not up on the correct tasting terminology, but it's sorta quite thick and rich, heavy.  More towards the style of a 4 Pines Pale than some of the lighter, hoppier styles.  I liked it, but find it hard going to have more than a glass or two.  

Which wheat yeast did you use, btw?

 

[Beerlust]

My Sparkling Ale brew got up & belching within that next 7 hours, & with that noticeable Coopers yeast smell on the nose.  

Nice krausen on top & bopping away comfortably @ 20°C. Will monitor gravity readings closely though.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Norris!]

I have a pale ale fermenting away. I rehydrated the Nottingham yeast and it was bubbling away less than 12 hrs later. Stoked that worked, small victory. I am apprehensive and excited about this brew, it will have 300g of hops at the end so I really don't want any issues. I added all the bitterness with flameout additions...it will be another lawnmower type drink with 150g of dry hops.

Loving this new format by the way.

 

[Beer Baron]

I have my house IPA (Cool name for the beer coming soon) fermenting away. It will be cold crashed tomorrow and kegged on the weekend. 

Pale malt, light munich and caramunich I paired with 500 grams of Amarillo, Centennial and Cascade. 

 

[Norris!]

6 minutes ago, Beer Baron said:

Pale malt, light munich and caramunich I paired with 500 grams of Amarillo, Centennial and Cascade. 

That sounds awesome!

[joolbag]

Beer baron, that sounds.ike it will be one damn Hoppy ipa! What hop schedule?

[PhilboBaggins]

What's in my FV? Well, my return to brewing has presented me with the strangest fermentation I've ever had. It's either a very slow ferment or a slow infection. Day 17 and the gravity is still slowly dropping, yeast (M44) still fully in suspension, a few bubbles on the surface. I'm in no hurry, so I'll see it out. Tastes like beer and looks like nothing in the way of a spoilage organism, just beer that's not done when it should be! Fully expected to be crashing it and prepping for bottling but I'd have to have rocks in my head to bottle now. Lol. Stay tuned.

[ben 10]

Philbo - I too have had issues with that yeast in it's first generation, slow like BRYan

[PhilboBaggins]

21 minutes ago, Ben 10 said:

Philbo - I too have had issues with that yeast in it's first generation, slow like BRYan

Thanks Ben, I think it is still the M44 doing its thing. I didn't start to ramp up my temps until day 7 or so, so may have stalled it. Good to get that reassurance though! It's not one I've used before but I heard it was a great attenuator. I shall be patient. Already lost a fair bit in gravity readings. 

[Beer Baron]

23 hours ago, joolbag said:

Beer baron, that sounds.ike it will be one damn Hoppy ipa! What hop schedule?

Hi @joolbag 

It was my first attempt at an IPA and one of the first all grain recipes I made myself. When I was brewing I just decided to use the rest of what I had of each of those hops and it turned out delicious. 

10 grams of each @ 60.

20 grams of each @ 15.

25 grams of each @ 5.

50 grams of each after I chill to 80 degrees. 

60 grams of each for dry hop.

I still struggle to get that big hop aroma I am after so this time the dry hops went in commando. Hopefully this will improve. I should probably cut down on the hops but it was great the first time so why change it

Beer Baron

 

[PaddyBrew2]

anyoe have any issues with T58 yeast. it came with the ROTM Dark Monk and a slight sulphur smell coming from it. Fermentation is bubbling away nicely and had a smell of the wort to make sure it wasnt funky and smelt fine but the sulphur/slight egg smell (wouldnt say rotten eggs as its not a bad bad smell) had me concerned for a bit 

[Otto Von Blotto]

14 hours ago, PhilboBaggins said:

Thanks Ben, I think it is still the M44 doing its thing. I didn't start to ramp up my temps until day 7 or so, so may have stalled it. Good to get that reassurance though! It's not one I've used before but I heard it was a great attenuator. I shall be patient. Already lost a fair bit in gravity readings. 

Just take a sample and leave it sit on the bench or somewhere with the hydrometer in it. I usually do this after 3-4 days (for ales anyway) and it gives me a rough idea of what the FG will be. Sort of a crude version of a fast ferment test

[Otto Von Blotto]

Tested the FG of my Rakau pale ale after 9 days and it's sitting at 1.0115, that's done so it's on its way down to 0C for a week before going in the keg and straight on tap. It would have most likely finished 3-4 days ago which should be plenty of time for it to 'clean up'. Adding isinglass tomorrow and Polyclar Friday, looking at a Wednesday kegging. After that, the next batch of German lager will go in to be fermented. That one was done with a different water profile (one that I built from scratch) so I'll be interested to see any differences between it and the tap water version.

Cheers

Kelsey

[Beerlust]

I left my current Sparkling Ale using some re-activated CCA yeast fermenting away happily a couple of days ago, & spent the previous night over at my partners house & went directly to work from there yesterday. I arrived home in the wee hours this morning after my shift to find that the brew had stopped actively expelling C02. I checked the current brew temp & it had dropped about half a degree. I thought both were a bit strange as I had expected it to still be fermenting, so took a gravity reading, & it is only about 1/3 fermented to expected FG. The brew has stalled. 

Two possible causes. The yeast has stalled due to a temperature drop, or it's an underpitch. Given how many active stubbies I pitched I'm very surprised by this outcome. That said, I'm still leaning toward an underpitch on the belief maybe not enough cells were produced through the re-activation for some reason. 

For now though, I've poured a little cooled boiled nutrient mix into the fermenter & gently re-roused. A lot of dissolved C02 came out when doing this so I'll have to act quickly tomorrow if this doesn't re-start the fermentation to avoid potential oxidation issues & infections. I have the kit dry yeast standing by & will re-hydrate this & pitch tomorrow if things haven't improved.

A bit of a hiccup, but that's life sometimes.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

[PhilboBaggins]

Shone a torch through the cling wrap on my IPA last night after raising the temp to 23 the night before. There's now clear yeast activity all over again, so I'm not even going to bother with readings until it stops. It'll be 3 weeks in the FV on Sunday. At least it's still protecting itself with CO2 i suppose, so there's that. I'm trying to decide whether to dry hop it a second time, as the first lot have been in there a while. With 2 packs of yeast well under BB date rehydrated I just didn't expect this!

[The Captain!!]

16 hours ago, Beerlust said:

I left my current Sparkling Ale using some re-activated CCA yeast fermenting away happily a couple of days ago, & spent the previous night over at my partners house & went directly to work from there yesterday. I arrived home in the wee hours this morning after my shift to find that the brew had stopped actively expelling C02. I checked the current brew temp & it had dropped about half a degree. I thought both were a bit strange as I had expected it to still be fermenting, so took a gravity reading, & it is only about 1/3 fermented to expected FG. The brew has stalled. 

Two possible causes. The yeast has stalled due to a temperature drop, or it's an underpitch. Given how many active stubbies I pitched I'm very surprised by this outcome. That said, I'm still leaning toward an underpitch on the belief maybe not enough cells were produced through the re-activation for some reason. 

For now though, I've poured a little cooled boiled nutrient mix into the fermenter & gently re-roused. A lot of dissolved C02 came out when doing this so I'll have to act quickly tomorrow if this doesn't re-start the fermentation to avoid potential oxidation issues & infections. I have the kit dry yeast standing by & will re-hydrate this & pitch tomorrow if things haven't improved.

A bit of a hiccup, but that's life sometimes.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

How’d you go Lusty? Have a win?