What's in your fermenter? 2019

[Shamus O'Sean]

13 minutes ago, Titan said:

First time using the wine fridge for ale

That's really clever, but so obvious.

I drape a dark coloured towel over my fermenter if it is just sitting in a room.

[Brettmo]

I put a fruit salad ale on last night. Not without dramas.

I pitched the yeast to low (10°c) because my digital thermometer was lying to me. Didn't realise till I got it in the fridge with my inkbird sensor taped to the fv that it was way too low.
I thought I would leave it overnight to warm up and give it all a stir in the morning. I've already got airlock activity after 12hrs though so I won't bother.

The yeast I used was 2x kit yeast I recycled from my coopers pale ale in the batch before which had been sitting in the fridge overnight. This probably helped to not shock the yeast too much when dumping it into a cold wort.

[Hairy]

It is also a lager/ale mixed yeast so it should be fine.

[Marty_G]

6 hours ago, Titan said:

First time using the wine fridge for ale. Would you block out the light?

 

I toyed with buying one for ages but thought that since they actually don't refrigerate they would not work ... very interested in how it goes keep us posted ...

[Malter White]

7 hours ago, Titan said:

First time using the wine fridge for ale. Would you block out the light?

I was given one of those by my employer as a Christmas gift a number of years ago. I don't drink wine so I gave it away. Now I home brew I wish I hadn't.

[Otto Von Blotto]

6 hours ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

I toyed with buying one for ages but thought that since they actually don't refrigerate they would not work ... very interested in how it goes keep us posted ...

They'll work for maintaining ferment temp but you can't cold crash or lager in them because they don't get cold enough. 

8 hours ago, Brettmo said:

I put a fruit salad ale on last night. Not without dramas.

I pitched the yeast to low (10°c) because my digital thermometer was lying to me. Didn't realise till I got it in the fridge with my inkbird sensor taped to the fv that it was way too low.
I thought I would leave it overnight to warm up and give it all a stir in the morning. I've already got airlock activity after 12hrs though so I won't bother.

The yeast I used was 2x kit yeast I recycled from my coopers pale ale in the batch before which had been sitting in the fridge overnight. This probably helped to not shock the yeast too much when dumping it into a cold wort.

My last pale ale I pitched at 12 degrees because I left the cube in the fridge too long. It just warmed up and was fine. I always pitch yeast cold straight out of the fridge (unless it's dry yeast being rehydrated) and it takes off fine. Quicker than letting it warm up to the wort temp actually. 

[ChristinaS1]

15 hours ago, Norris! said:

I would, just to even ensure I did everything to make sure the beer came out ok, no need to add the risk of skunking it with light....but I have read some articles where a super hoppy beer that was left on the window sill versus one left in a dark place came out better, but that was just one experiment. 

 

I agree about blocking out the light. If it were me I would either tape some aluminum foil to the glass, which will keep out a bit of heat as well as the light, or glue on some rigid insulation.

Norris, where did you read about that experiment? Sounds kind of fishy. 

Cheers,

Christina.

[The Captain!!]

3 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

I agree about blocking out the light. If it were me I would either tape some aluminum foil to the glass, which will keep out a bit of heat as well as the light, or glue on some rigid insulation.

Norris, where did you read about that experiment? Sounds kind of fishy. 

Cheers,

Christina.

There was some craft beer guys that did that experiment with a brewdog punk ipa.

I watched it on you tube I think.

[ChristinaS1]

12 minutes ago, The Captain1525230099 said:

There was some craft beer guys that did that experiment with a brewdog punk ipa.

I watched it on you tube I think.

With a commercial beer, you don't know how they make it. Considering how many hops Brewdog say they use, I don't understand how they get the wort out of the hops, if they are using ordinary pellets. Makes me wonder if they are using something else, like those concentrates? I believe they don't go skunky on exposure to light. 

I would rather see a home brew experiment where the process of brewing is 100% known. 

Cheers,

Christina.

Edited March 2, 2019 by ChristinaS1

[Norris!]

@ChristinaS1

I spent about an hour searching for the video/article but no luck. Until Captain said anything I was starting to wonder if I did see that. Either way it was an interesting read and not something I recommend. I wish I had more than just I saw this, I remember it being just a guy tried this and said he preferred the light struck one, so pretty ancedotal.

Cheers

Norris

[The Captain!!]

8 minutes ago, ChristinaS1 said:

With a commercial beer, you don't know how they make it. Considering how many hops Brewdog say they use, I don't understand how they get the wort out of the hops, if they are using ordinary pellets. Makes me wonder if they are using something else, like those concentrates? I believe they don't go skunky on exposure to light. 

I would rather see a home brew experiment where the process of brewing is 100% known. 

Cheers,

Christina.

I guess the one I saw was a bought 6 pack of beer obviously from the same batch.

They put one in a cupboard, one in the fridge, one outside on a table and one on the window sill. 

Ill try find it and post it.

[The Captain!!]

 

[Marty_G]

5 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

They'll work for maintaining ferment temp but you can't cold crash or lager in them because they don't get cold enough. 

Yes that was my issue ... many don't have temp control as such they have two settings, red and white  .... and I was worried that they would not maintain lower enough temp to do a lager .... this is of course with out using an inkbird ... but I also doubt that a temp controller would work effectively either ... 

[Norris!]

29 minutes ago, The Captain1525230099 said:

 

Dude this is it, my memory is like a sieve, thank you.

[Norris!]

Like a sieve, totally had it backwards. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

1 hour ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

Yes that was my issue ... many don't have temp control as such they have two settings, red and white  .... and I was worried that they would not maintain lower enough temp to do a lager .... this is of course with out using an inkbird ... but I also doubt that a temp controller would work effectively either ... 

Yeah temp controllers won't force the fridge to drop lower than it is designed to. You could set the controller to -50 and it would still only drop to 12 if that's the lowest the fridge can go. 

[ChristinaS1]

1 hour ago, Norris! said:

Like a sieve, totally had it backwards. 

Yes, backwards. 

L to R:

1. Favorite: dark, cool cupboard.

2. Second best (flavour subdued): fridge.

3.) Worst (cardboard): warm window.

4.) Skunky: outside in the sun, but cold temps. 

Cheers,

Christina.

P.S. Note that the bottles are brown glass. The bottle (combined with the glass of the window) was able to protect #3 from skunking, but the brown glass was not able to protect a bottle in full sun for six hours. 

Surprising that just six hours of heat could oxidize #3 so quickly.  I thought it would take longer than that.

Edited March 2, 2019 by ChristinaS1

[Norris!]

Hahaha cheers Christina!

[Otto Von Blotto]

I've dropped my pale ale down for a cold crash this morning after it bottomed out at 1.010. Well, dropped the controller down. I decided to take the probe off the fermenter and just dangle it so I've changed the variance to 2 degrees instead of 0.3. Stability is less important during this stage anyway, and it will prevent the fridge turning on and off too frequently. Fridge is currently about 9 degrees. The warmer wort would be keeping it a bit warmer in there until it drops down over the next 24 hours or so. I'm interested to see if this helps get the fridge down to the set temp, it was having trouble when the probe was still on the fermenter. 

Didn't end up dry hopping it as I couldn't find any bloody time to do it over the past few days, but I will keg hop it when it goes in. 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Otto Von Blotto

[BlackSands]

I have a simple 'kits n bits' NZ bitter fermenting at the moment.  Dunno why, but I've been a bit lazy these days and find myself do less of my usual 50/50 extract/grain partials.   Even though they are quicker than a full AG brew day the 3.5 hours still feels far too long these days.     And, to be honest these quicker extract beers have been tasting pretty darn good... if there's a difference it would certainly take a close A/B assessment to make that apparent I think.  

• 1.7kg Coopers OS Draught
• 1.5kg LME
• 200g GF Biscuit Malt
• 200g GF Med. Crystal Malt
•  50g Light Chocolate
• 25g Taiheke (steep)
• 25g Southern Cross (steep)
• Nottingham Slurry

Edited March 3, 2019 by BlackSands

[Titan]

My one has temperature range between 5 and 18 so i should be able to do both ale and lager. Only reason im using is because the freezer is tied up with 2 batches if porter. Cold crash out of the question though.

[John304]

I have a bitsa in the fv  atm, based on a pacific ale, but had a few varieties of hops to use up, fingers crossed 🤞 

[kenf]

Today an all Grain Irish dry stout (10 litre)dand a Mr Beer Pavalova IPA. In retrospect I should have put the stout under pressure and the IPA in the Craft fermenter. Kegged an All Grain Golden Ale and a modified Mr Beer 134 Saison with Lemon Thyme and Blueberry 

[#granted+brew]

I put down my latest Czech Pilsner last night, weighed out more LDM than I was anticipating but decided to roll with it.

1.7kg T.Coopers 86 Days Pilsner

1.8kg LDM 

500mls Hop tea 37.5g Saaz steep 15 minutes

Mixed to 21 Litres

Decided to pitch my "frozen" yeast slurry and see what happens.... I used 360mls, so it should be a overpitch.

I've got backup yeast if required but at 24hrs post pitch I'm seeing fermentation beginning with a white skim of bubbles forming.

 I am pretty confident I'll have beer.. But whether it ferments out or not was a question that would have bothered me forever, hence the reason I decided to use the frozen yeast....

Cheers All

 

[ChristinaS1]

On 3/3/2019 at 3:43 AM, kenf said:

Today an all Grain Irish dry stout (10 litre)dand a Mr Beer Pavalova IPA. In retrospect I should have put the stout under pressure and the IPA in the Craft fermenter. Kegged an All Grain Golden Ale and a modified Mr Beer 134 Saison with Lemon Thyme and Blueberry 

Lemon Thyme? I know it has some of the same essential oils as hops, but doesn't it also have thymol or carvacrol? Tastes good on chicken, but not sure about beer. 

Good luck with the brew. Let us know how it turns out.