What's in your fermenter? 2019

[BlackSands]

A "lazy' brew day for me.  Encouraged by recent extract brew successes I'm doing another quick sessionable English Bitter:

• 1.7kg Coopers OS Lager
• 1.4kg Muntons Light LME
• 200g GF Med. Crystal
• 150g GF Dark Crystal
•  50g Carafa III
• 25g Goldings @ 10 min
• 25g Fuggles @ FO 

Straight onto half a Nottingham yeast cake from a previous batch.

| ABV=4.4% | IBU=26 | EBC=28 |

My first time using Muntons LME.  It looks like it's bought in bulk and packaged locally in 1.4kg and 1.8kg containers and is slightly cheaper as a result.  I'm told it's a little more 'biscuity' than  the other brands so it'll be interesting to see if I notice anything different. I suspect not! 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Pitched another batch of red ale, which actually hasn't been on tap for quite a while. It was sitting about 28 degrees so I think it's now time to start putting the ale batch cubes into the brew fridge the night before pitching again. 25.5 litres into the fermenter this time and with an OG 2 points higher than usual at 1.046 the overall efficiency would be over 75% for this one. I'll input it into Beersmith when I'm on the computer next.  

I will need to get some more ale malt before I do another one as the centenarillo ale used it all up. Gonna go back to gladfield as I enjoyed that one. 

[Pezzza]

22 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Isinglass is added during the cold crash. I just pour it into the beer. You can get it in liquid or dry form. I have the dry one so I mix up half a teaspoon in chilled water then tip it in. 

Yeah got some liquid form waiting in the Fridge.... if I am cold crashing for 5-7 days.... maybe add at day 2 (when some heavier stuff is already gone) for a final clean-up?

Edited October 17, 2019 by Bearded Burbler

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah I usually add it the day after I drop the temp down. You want to give it time to drop out as well. 

[Beerlust]

15 hours ago, porschemad911 said:

...BRY-97 got up and running very quickly and my FG sample tasted great. 1.028 to 1.010 will give around 2.8% abv once bottle conditioned.

At 1.028 there would have been little to no cell division required.

Perfect OG for a sleepy, sluggish, dead-shit yeast like BRY-97 where it doesn't have to do any work!  

I've noted the OG you used with it here & documented that it is a specific gravity BRY-97 appears it might actually be able to cope with without risk of spoilage &/or wild yeast infection threats. 

I still wouldn't chance any gravity with that strain. It's the ONLY thing that caused a reference to me in the EPIC FAIL club. Hate it.

On a more interesting note, I've been observing the conversation you've been having with this cold mashing process. As a mere newb with little to no knowledge of the practice, I wonder if your interpretation of the approach isn't a little off-centre, just from reading what you've posted on the subject. Your expected numbers seem to be way out with predicted levels even by the calculations you appear to be following.

As merely an outside observer, it appears to be a very strange practice that I admit I can't see or understand the real benefit of (maybe yet).

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Marty_G]

8 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Perfect OG for a sleepy, sluggish, dead-shit yeast like BRY-97 where it doesn't have to do any work! 

I see you are not a fan of BRY-97, would you care to elaborate? BRY-97 is a yeast I see refereed to often in recipes and have been toying with using it and adding to the yeast bank. 

[Beerlust]

Hi Marty.

https://community.diybeer.com/search/?q=BRY%20%26%20Me&type=forums_topic&search_and_or=and&search_in=titles

Not just me either. A notoriously slow starter. Aerate the @#$% out of your wort before you pitch if you plan to use it.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Checked on my red ale this morning and it's already got almost an inch of krausen on it. That was about the 17-18 hour mark so I suspect it got going a few hours before that. Quickest lag time I've had using oxygen prior to pitching. 

[porschemad911]

17 hours ago, Beerlust said:

At 1.028 there would have been little to no cell division required.

Perfect OG for a sleepy, sluggish, dead-shit yeast like BRY-97 where it doesn't have to do any work!  

I've noted the OG you used with it here & documented that it is a specific gravity BRY-97 appears it might actually be able to cope with without risk of spoilage &/or wild yeast infection threats. 

I still wouldn't chance any gravity with that strain. It's the ONLY thing that caused a reference to me in the EPIC FAIL club. Hate it.

On a more interesting note, I've been observing the conversation you've been having with this cold mashing process. As a mere newb with little to no knowledge of the practice, I wonder if your interpretation of the approach isn't a little off-centre, just from reading what you've posted on the subject. Your expected numbers seem to be way out with predicted levels even by the calculations you appear to be following.

As merely an outside observer, it appears to be a very strange practice that I admit I can't see or understand the real benefit of (maybe yet).

Cheers,

Lusty.

Hey Lusty, you could try BRY-97 in a batch of Nelson's Light perhaps. It has always done well for me and I prefer the flavour and behaviour over US-05.

The calcs for cold malt extraction are rubbery at best at this point, but I hope to refine them. The calcs for my last attempt work out nicely with a mash yield modifier of 45% (vs typical 85% John Palmer recommends for a normal mash). I'm just trying to nail down a consistent process to get it even lower without introducing flaws like haze from unconverted starch. 

The benefit? A beer with >90% of the flavour but half the alcohol. And a fun challenge!

Cheers, 

John

Edited October 18, 2019 by porschemad911

[porschemad911]

On 10/17/2019 at 8:04 AM, porschemad911 said:

I'm still undecided on whether to dry hop tonight. Was going to use some Dr. Rudi and Mosaic, but am on the fence about just gong with the flameout addition.

I ended up dry hopping with 10g Dr Rudi and 12g Mosaic (my hand slipped). Probably bottle this up Monday night. 

Cheers, 

John

[Maurice79]

21L batch - Helles Lager- 7 days at 12c then rise for 7 days

85% Pilsner

10% Vienna

5% Acid

Hallertau to 25 IBU

2 packets W34/70

 

13L batch - Chinook PA

97% MO

3% Gladfield Crystal 105L

12g FWH Chinook Pellets 12%

150g Chinook ( dried Flowers Est 13%) FO 5 mins -See the yellow Lupin from the chinook flowers in the pic

US05

[Beerlust]

14 hours ago, porschemad911 said:

...The benefit? A beer with >90% of the flavour but half the alcohol. And a fun challenge!

Maybe check out the malt bill for a beer like Brew Dog's "Nanny State". This can be found in their DIY Dog listing. The malt bill is very interesting & creates a lot of flavour at an extremely low alcohol level. I made a beer back in late 2015 very loosely modelled on this premise. Bar 100gms of dry malt extract, it was entirely all grain based. It ended up at 2.49% ABV & was full of flavour. It is still to this day the lowest ABV% beer I have ever made. On my own rating system, I gave it 4½ stars out of 5, I was that impressed with it.

Might be worth a look. 

I'll continue to follow your progress in this thread.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[porschemad911]

6 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Maybe check out the malt bill for a beer like Brew Dog's "Nanny State". This can be found in their DIY Dog listing. The malt bill is very interesting & creates a lot of flavour at an extremely low alcohol level. I made a beer back in late 2015 very loosely modelled on this premise. Bar 100gms of dry malt extract, it was entirely all grain based. It ended up at 2.49% ABV & was full of flavour. It is still to this day the lowest ABV% beer I have ever made. On my own rating system, I gave it 4½ stars out of 5, I was that impressed with it.

Might be worth a look. 

I'll continue to follow your progress in this thread.

Cheers,

Lusty.

Yes, there are a few possible approaches I've considered, including something like Nanny State.

Of all the approaches I reckon cold malt extraction is the one with the most potential. That it can work for any style of beer and doesn't require any special equipment, yeast strains or post-processing are the differentiating factors.

Cheers, 

John 

[Pezzza]

The big bad BLIP is settling around 1015-1016 down from around 1080... as you guys suggested.

B - Basssstard

L - Late Hopped

I - India

P - Pale... 

Just slammed in 99g of CCC in the SS Hop Tube for three days Late Hoppage then will cold crash.  Yeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaa!

[Beerlust]

On 10/18/2019 at 4:53 PM, porschemad911 said:

Hey Lusty, you could try BRY-97 in a batch of Nelson's Light perhaps. It has always done well for me and I prefer the flavour and behaviour over US-05.

I did brew another beer using it after those 3 fails that fermented out OK. I didn't put much of the good stuff in that recipe though through sheer fear of previous experiences & it likely failing again, & consequently the final beer wasn't at all flattering. Conveniently at the time I brewed these beers Danstar put out a press release stating there was a recall on specific batch numbers of this strain circulating at that time as there were issues with them not performing to expected levels etc. Too late for me by then, I'd lost countless hours of brewing time & many $$$'s worth of ingredients on those failed brews.

I found even with the successful brew, the yeast took forever to get going. Not a trait I like, so won't be chancing it again.

Meatloaf sang a song that spoke of a way better strike-rate than I did with that yeast. 

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Took a sample of my red ale, been 3 days since pitching and it's down to 1.020 so I've bumped the controller up to 21 to finish it off. Probably be done by tomorrow or Tuesday, only gotta get down to about 1.011.

[Shamus O'Sean]

Took a sample of my Coopers Vintage 2019 tonight.  Down to SG of 1.027 after seven days from 1.066.  It is still fermenting based on bubbles rising to surface, and the SG being high.  Smells lovely.

Decided to do the dry hop.  This is where I struck an issue @Coopers DIY Beer Team.  Half of the vacuum sealed bag of Mosaic weighed 4.7g.  The other half went in to the 30 minute steep on day 1 along with one of the 25g bags of Cascade.  I did not weigh the steep additions, just approximated.  The other bag of Cascade for the dry hop weighed 10.6g.  All bags were meant to be 25g.  The contents of each bag looked about the same volume.  Luckily I had some spare Mosaic so I could make it up to 20.7g.

I am not sure who you have got weighing your bags for the ROTM packs, but either they need to check how much they should be weighing out or you need some new scales.  End of rant.

[Pezzza]

10 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Took a sample of my Coopers Vintage 2019 tonight.  Down to SG of 1.027 after seven days from 1.066.  It is still fermenting based on bubbles rising to surface, and the SG being high.  Smells lovely.

Decided to do the dry hop.  This is where I struck an issue @Coopers DIY Beer Team.  Half of the vacuum sealed bag of Mosaic weighed 4.7g.  The other half went in to the 30 minute steep on day 1 along with one of the 25g bags of Cascade.  I did not weigh the steep additions, just approximated.  The other bag of Cascade for the dry hop weighed 10.6g.  All bags were meant to be 25g.  The contents of each bag looked about the same volume.  Luckily I had some spare Mosaic so I could make it up to 20.7g.

I am not sure who you have got weighing your bags for the ROTM packs, but either they need to check how much they should be weighing out or you need some new scales.  End of rant.

And I would suggest if the weight was down our good Coopers Team really should supply you some hops to make up the difference?  IMHO that is the way forward... @PB2  your thoughts?

Edited October 20, 2019 by Bearded Burbler

[PaddyBrew2]

Four grams of hops would be an extremely low amount of pellets. Visually did the bag look light or low on hops ?

[Shamus O'Sean]

6 minutes ago, PaddyBrew2 said:

Four grams of hops would be an extremely low amount of pellets. Visually did the bag look light or low on hops ?

Hi @PaddyBrew2, photo of bags attached, empty now though.  The bag on the right I put half of into the steep and resealed and labelled for dry hop day (labelled as approx 12.5g because I thought that is what half the bag would be).  When I weighed the remaining half of it today for the dry hop (because I thought it would be about 12.5g and intended to supplement it with some extra Mosaic of my own), it turned out to be 4.7g.

The bag on the left was the Cascade that was meant to be 25g of hops.  You can see the crinkling from the hops being vacuum sealed in the two bags looks about the same.  I weighed the Cascade as 10.6g, because I did not quite believe the weight of Mosaic (I thought maybe I stuffed up at the steep stage)

Just did a check on my scales against another set of scales and an item weighed 213g on the kitchen scales and 213.47 on my hop scales.

Make of it what you will.  I put it down to an honest mistake.  No big deal at the end of the day.  The brew will still be fine.  I can get some extra Cascade to up the dry hop if I want.

[PaddyBrew2]

Yeah I reckon honest mistake. The Coopers team have excellent customer service so I’m sure they will see you right 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Not seeking recompense, neither wanting to dob anybody in or anything.  I have bought heaps of Coopers ROTM and they have been fine.

Just informing Coopers of a slight issue I had (and maybe others), that might need some observation.

[Lab Cat]

8 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Not seeking recompense, neither wanting to dob anybody in or anything.  I have bought heaps of Coopers ROTM and they have been fine.

Just informing Coopers of a slight issue I had (and maybe others), that might need some observation.

I'd be careful criticising Coopers. Beerlust will find a way to make it your fault...

[Shamus O'Sean]

Yeah I can't weigh for sh!t

[Pezzza]

So did Brew Day yesterday and pitched this morning... 1080 IPA sharing the 18degC  brewfridge with new Black IPA... tomorrow the new brew will have to move to the Larder with the SS Vat (other part of the Black IPA) and I will cold crash the 1080.  Am thinking that cold crashed IPA may be destined for the new keg if I dare... first time for everything I guess.  Bit of a worry though...