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What's in Your Fermenter? 2018


Otto Von Blotto

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Hi Captain.

3 hours ago, The Captain1525230099 said:

How’d you go Lusty? Have a win?

I allowed some time to see whether it was just disturbed C02 pushing it's way out, & having allowed sufficient time to discount that, I believe it has begun fermenting again as there is a fairly consistent expelling of C02, albeit a bit sluggishly. The question is, is it the Coopers yeast up & going again, or a wild yeast infection? That is unknown at this point.

If it is the Coopers yeast up & going again, it could well stall again due to the sluggish rate it is going about things atm, so I'm just about to re-hydrate the kit yeast & pitch that to make sure it ferments out.

When it ferments out & I can taste it, then I'll know if it's a win. ?

Fingers crossed. 

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

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Sheesh @Beerlust and @PhilboBaggins, some weird things going on with both of your ferments.  Hope they work out for you both.

 

I brewed a Simcarillo Ale (Pale malt, wheat malt and 440g oats) last week and it was in the cube resting until last night.  I poured the wort into the fermenter and pitched some collected M42 New World Strong Ale slurry in at approx 8pm.

 

One concern was the slurry was not clean yeast.  The bottom layer was a dark green trub, I suspect yeast mixed with hop matter and proteins from the previous brew.  The middle layer was nice and creamy yeast, and the top was clearish beer.  I decanted and tried to swirl up the yeast and minimise the amount of trub.  I don't think it will hurt my beer; it will just settle out pretty quickly.  I tasted some of the dregs and it had very fine particles in there and was very bitter.  So suspecting hop matter.  Luckily this new brew is a hoppy one as well so shouldn't carry over odd flavours.

 

At 7am today I checked and the yeast was off and firing with a 1cm krausen.  I do like how quick slurry takes off.  M42 chews through a wort like butter so I expect this to reach FG within 3 days.

 

I'll save this post on the PC and try to post a pic from my phone on this new forum...

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Lusty's issue could just be an inadvertent underpitch, but there's definitely some strange shit going on with Phil's fermentation. Two packets of yeast re-hydrated should have well and truly finished by 17 days, hell they should have been finished by 7 days. I can understand a slow yeast strain but that's ridiculous ?

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4 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Lusty's issue could just be an inadvertent underpitch, but there's definitely some strange shit going on with Phil's fermentation. Two packets of yeast re-hydrated should have well and truly finished by 17 days, hell they should have been finished by 7 days. I can understand a slow yeast strain but that's ridiculous ?

Maybe given his long home brewing hiatus, Phil's forgotten how to de-gas hydro samples? ? ?

?

Cheers,

Lusty.

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On 5/10/2018 at 5:37 PM, Beerlust said:

Maybe given his long home brewing hiatus, Phil's forgotten how to de-gas hydro samples? ? ?

?

Lol. You'll keep mate. ??

I honestly have no Idea what the hell I've done. It was at 1.012 from 1.064 last night which is as low as I'd expect from a bigger extract brew, yeah? The sample still tasted fine but the dry hops are starting to present some vegetal flavours which sucks. Will check again tomorrow but man I've drawn a lot off for readings.

Even if she does stop I think I will definitely be priming on the low side.

 

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I finally got around to doing a slight variation of Dr Smurto's Golden Ale, I played around with IanH's spreadsheet for the first time using what I had at hand.  I'm hoping for beer!

1.7 kg APA

1kg LDM 

250 gram crystal malt

15 gram Amarillo @ 15 min

15 gram Amarillo @ 5 min

15 gram Amarillo dry hop

MJ M42 yeast

 

I rehydrated the yeast for the first time, so far it's looking and smelling good.

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23 hours ago, PhilboBaggins said:

Lol. You'll keep mate. ??

I honestly have no Idea what the hell I've done. It was at 1.012 from 1.064 last night which is as low as I'd expect from a bigger extract brew, yeah? The sample still tasted fine but the dry hops are starting to present some vegetal flavours which sucks. Will check again tomorrow but man I've drawn a lot off for readings.

Even if she does stop I think I will definitely be priming on the low side.

 

I reckon it's done. A kit plus 2kg of dry malt isn't gonna get much lower than that, even with the dextrose/sugar addition.

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8 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I reckon it's done. A kit plus 2kg of dry malt isn't gonna get much lower than that, even with the dextrose/sugar addition.

Unless it's a slow burn spoilage organism. Just took a sample and she's hovering between 1.011 and 1.010. Still tastes good. I'm stumped. At least it's dropping clear now. Fact remains it's dropped at least 3 points in its 3rd week. If I were advising someone else I'd be hesitant in telling them to bottle.

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She finally stopped! A little over 1.010 from 1.064. Fark, that's a seriously attenuated beer. 84%AA. 7.1% before priming.

I've had AG beers drop that low from the high 1.040's before but never in my life a mostly malt extract batch from the 1.060's.

Maybe the MJ is just a beast? Who knows. I doubt it's going to be my best beer, the dry hops have lost their zing after being in there so long, but it will make something I'll still be happy drinking. Still going to prime low, but I always do.

All grain stout will be happening in the next couple of weeks. Can't wait.

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Hi Philbo.

On 5/13/2018 at 7:14 PM, PhilboBaggins said:

Hey @Beerlust how is your stuck one going? You may remember every attempt of mine to grow the CCAY was a failure so I feel your pain. Hope it's alright. 

I re-roused again, but feel it has stalled again. Last reading it was hovering around 1.022-1.024 with not a lot of noticeable C02 being produced. I tasted the sample & albeit it is naturally a little on the sweet-side, it didn't appear to have any noticeable spoilage.

So, I'm gonna grab some Nottingham yeast tomorrow on my day off & pitch that in the hope it will finish off the ferment. If it doesn't, I guess it will be tipped. ?

I'm glad to hear your brew has fermented out. ☺️

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

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18 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Hi Philbo.

I re-roused again, but feel it has stalled again. Last reading it was hovering around 1.022-1.024 with not a lot of noticeable C02 being produced. I tasted the sample & albeit it is naturally a little on the sweet-side, it didn't appear to have any noticeable spoilage.

So, I'm gonna grab some Nottingham yeast tomorrow on my day off & pitch that in the hope it will finish off the ferment. If it doesn't, I guess it will be tipped. ?

I'm glad to hear your brew has fermented out. ☺️

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

Lusty, if you have the patience, get the Nottingham going in a starter before pitching. That will give it the best chance of getting in there and actually doing something.

Cheers,

John

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7 hours ago, porschemad911 said:

Lusty, if you have the patience, get the Nottingham going in a starter before pitching. That will give it the best chance of getting in there and actually doing something.

Cheers,

John

We think alike John. I picked up a pkt of Nottingham on my way home to do just that. ?

Just took another SG reading when I got home & it appears to have stalled again at 1.020. Still smells fine.

Hopefully the aggressive Nottingham strain will do what it does best.

We do think alike,....except for that Pacers/Celtic thing. ?

Cheers,

Lusty.

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Pitched the latest batch of German lager a couple of hours ago, and it's on its way down to ferment temp of 10C, currently at 14C. The wort was sitting at about 18C at pitching time. This cube had been left outside on the front deck and we've had a few 10C nights in a row lately, so it was nice to pitch it a bit cooler. Unfortunately, the 5L flask takes up too much room in the brew fridge to put the cube in with it to chill closer to 10C. In any case, the beers turn out well so it doesn't seem to matter too much. This batch was brewed with water that I made up my own profile for by starting with distilled water and adding minerals to, to create the profile. I'll be interested to see how this one turns out compared to the last one that just used tap water with a bit of gypsum added.

I'll check the SG on Tuesday, which will be 5 days since pitching, but I expect I won't be raising the temp until Wednesday, which is in line with most of the previous lagers I've fermented at 10C. Its OG is 1.050 which was the target OG, but I had to boil it for a total of 110 minutes to achieve that instead of my usual 90 minutes for lager batches. 21.5L into the FV for a total efficiency of 77.3% (mash efficiency was 89.4%). Target FG is 1.0106, and still using the Wyeast Budvar 2000 yeast currently.

Cheers

Kelsey

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On 5/13/2018 at 7:14 PM, PhilboBaggins said:

Hey @Beerlust how is your stuck one going? You may remember every attempt of mine to grow the CCAY was a failure so I feel your pain. Hope it's alright. 

Sorry for the late reply Phil.

I've been playing around with a few things on the back of hearsay to do with advised techniques to deal with stalled ferments that I've never done before so it's been a bit of a muddled brew in that regard. That process has been a little painful with a few surprises along the way, but the learning from it has been worth it (IMHO).

The brew had stalled again @ approx. 1.020 so today I threw some rehydrated Nottingham yeast at it to hopefully finish it off.

Throwing Nottingham at a brew is like throwing the Hulk at a brick wall. i.e. bye bye brick wall. ? I probably should have done something like this earlier, but I wanted to learn some stuff. The beer (at least thus far) still appears to be unaffected by my slow meddling.

Cheers,

Lusty.

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15 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Sorry for the late reply Phil.

I've been playing around with a few things on the back of hearsay to do with advised techniques to deal with stalled ferments that I've never done before so it's been a bit of a muddled brew in that regard. That process has been a little painful with a few surprises along the way, but the learning from it has been worth it (IMHO).

The brew had stalled again @ approx. 1.020 so today I threw some rehydrated Nottingham yeast at it to hopefully finish it off.

Throwing Nottingham at a brew is like throwing the Hulk at a brick wall. i.e. bye bye brick wall. ? I probably should have done something like this earlier, but I wanted to learn some stuff. The beer (at least thus far) still appears to be unaffected by my slow meddling.

Cheers,

Lusty.

Notto is meant to be a monster, so you should be okay there as long as it's happy being thrown into mostly done wort with no oxygen.

I've still never used it, but might have to fix that soon.

Good luck mate, and I hope she ferments out.

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Have the Venim robust porter in the fv atm, been in the brew fridge for 16 days, the fg stuck at 1.020.  ☹️Went away for 10days and I think the fridge got too cold, have since brought the temp back up to 20 with the heat mat but fg still at 20. The og was 1.060, should I bottle anyway or leave longer, I reposted this from other topicnull wasn't sure where to post it,

cheers,

John

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