What's in Your Fermenter? 2020

[Pezzza]

37 minutes ago, Red devil 44 said:

Still have lots to learn mate, but I’ll accept the brown belt

Ha ha Maaate Red you are a long way ahead of me in all the kegging things ha ha.... and that was a joke cos I am not qualified to be  conferring  a brewing black in brewing anyway ha aha....I am learning too big time meself with all the good advice from you and our fellow Brewers... been brewing for a long time but only in recent years doing the full malt and then the AG thing.... and then only more recent doing Keg and C02.... and then after that only now the BeerMix Nitro mix....  And with you - am hoping to do more with the other opportunities like Sauerkraut and then eventually hopefully Salami...  Cheers Red!

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Bearded Burbler

[Red devil 44]

5 minutes ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Ha ha Maaate Red you are a long way ahead of me in all the kegging things ha ha.... and that was a joke cos I am not qualified to be  conferring  a brewing black in brewing anyway ha aha....I am learning too big time meself with all the good advice from you and our fellow Brewers... been brewing for a long time but only in recent years doing the full malt and then the AG thing.... and then only more recent doing Keg and C02.... and then after that only now the BeerMix Nitro mix....  And with you - am hoping to do more with the other opportunities like Sauerkraut and then eventually hopefully Salami...  Cheers Red!

 

All good mate, took the brown belt with a grain of salt

One thing I learnt in life is you never stop learning, and brewing certainly comes into that category, and have some fun along the way

Cheers RD44

[Pezzza]

16 minutes ago, Red devil 44 said:

One thing I learnt in life is you never stop learning, and brewing certainly comes into that category, and have some fun along the way

Luvyerwork mate.   Been tough mate - we have had drought (famine) - fires - then flood - and flies - now flu...

But we just gotta keep going and learn as we go mate as you say... and have a laugh along the way

Fortunately some of us don't need to find a Bottlo to get a beer hey ; )

Besides the fact that there would be no bottle on the Shelves I would be interested in other than maybe a lovely Single Malt

Cheers Red

BB

Edited March 29, 2020 by Bearded Burbler

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

Checked on the stout in the fridge, upped the temp to 22 to let it finish off. Sample on the kitchen bench is down to 1.024 and according to Beersmith should have 10 points to go, but I think it will be lucky to get far under 1.020.

Soaked the vanilla beans in some of the good ladies prized vodka to get dumped in tomorrow. My god the jar smells amazing.

Also got my sourdough starter sitting in the fermenting fridge (thanks @Ben 10) which is going gangbusters. Something I’ve always wanted to try but never really thought I had the time.

[Pezzza]

2 minutes ago, NewBrews said:

Also got my sourdough starter sitting in the fermenting fridge (thanks @Ben 10) which is going gangbusters. Something I’ve always wanted to try but never really thought I had the time.

Hey NB luvyerwork got some heavy dark rye loaves going overnight too mate ; )

I am not quite sure how Burbler Mountain Bakeries is going to resolve the cost of the controlled temp regime impost on Burbler Mountain Brewing but I guess we will just have to see how the cashflow ends up at the end of the Month and see how the Owners will cope.

In the meantime I am just hoping that the two big heavy dark rye - sunflower - pumpkin seed - fellas down below will rise on their 23 deg tablet (after I had to move the Stout across to accommodate) and I shall bake them off in my very busy schedule tomorrow morning and then wrap them for their requisite 48 hours to let the moisture equilibrate.  Busy times indeed.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

I love rye bread! Got a link for the recipe? They look amazing!

[Pezzza]

1 hour ago, NewBrews said:

I love rye bread! Got a link for the recipe? They look amazing!

Oh Shitttt sorry NB - am a bit of a 'free spirit' like my inspirator ha ha @Ben 10 ha ha....

I just sorta make it up as I go...

This is one of the helping recipes I came across earlier on:

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/vollkornbrot-recipe

And there is this thing about no-knead bread... and also using a hot iron pot to bake in - have a look at the no - knead stuff available mate and see how you go. Link  below.

I really cannot give you a definitive recipe sorry....

A basic start is this...  Buy some Organic Rye Flour - plus some Organic Rye Grain - the Whole Grain - and some Organic Rye chopped (or just mill the Whole Rye Grain in your Brewery grain mill)

And some Sunflower seeds - and some Pumpkin seeds....

I think in general - if you get pure Rye Flour - and go 50:50 with Laucke Barosssa Sourdough

https://www.laucke.com.au/Catalog/Barossa-Sour-Dough-Rye-Mix

you are on a winner. 

I made bread to begin with just pure Rye Flour and Rye Grains but it was v heavy and I think blend w Laucke 50% 50% flour - plus soaked grain and seeds is much nicer...

NOTE you must keep the whole grain away from blooooooooooody Weevils they are just rotten basssssstards that work 24-7 to find and destroy everything - I keep my stuff in the Freezer now.  The better the quality the more the Weevils will chase it.

So get some Rye Grain (whole) and some Rye chopped grain - and soak overnight... in a cup of boiled water

Maybe a cup of each - and soak in a cup of boiled (sterile) water.... beautiful  - if one loaf - just use less maybe half a cup of Rye Grain - Half Chop - Half of each Sunflower and Pumpkin - you'll get the hang of it.

Say for one loaf - just half a cup of each Rye / Rye Chopped soaked overnight in  say one cup of water - and say 200g of pure Rye and 200g of Laucke - with a teaspoon of dry yeast or two...

Mix all the flour and a reasonable amount of yeast - I have used Beer Brew Slurry in the past as the yeast and it works great - but usually throw in a bit of Bread Yeast as well...

Mix and knead - just add sterile water as you see fit to get a nice kneading dough.  I usually go wetter as then I leave in the Pan overnight...

Let rise... and then see the links usually a very slow bake - like for an hour at 200 in a bread pan... some do like a dutch oven and put the bread in hot.... just have a look and see what is best for you and your cooking facilities...

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread

See the links.

But then once baked and COOLED properly....

After cooling and wrapping in sterile cloths (like two tea-towels-and inside a sealed container - but must be cool - not NQ ambient temps)  for 48 hours to let all the moisture equilibrate - and after that should be ok - but keep cool so don't go mouldy.

Not a real good definitive guideline... but hopefully that might give you a start?

And would be happy to hear any feedback you may have.

I was inspired in 2017 at a Mate's in Odense in Denmark (the home of Hans Christian Andersen) when I and a mate were basically self-isolating with him due to severer icy conditions and he had managed to get to drop the kids off to school and get to the Bakery and back and the Rye Bread was just so amazingly good... 

Been trying ever after to try to replicate...  ; )

Bit like the Stout and the Brew in general hey ; ) it is a journey of discovery and takes a few goes to get there hey ; )

Hope that is more help than confustication...   ; )

I started with that King Arthur thing but reckon it is nicer if you can go 50:50 with Laucke Barossa Sourdough and just experiment and see how you go ; )

Hopefully if it is no good you can always feed it to the chooks - yer mate's horse - or put in the compost - or make into Breadcrumbs?

It is a bit of a journey of discovery...

Cheers Cobber

BB

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Bearded Burbler

[Beer Baron]

Pale ale is happily fermenting away. I’m out of beer so I’m pretty keen to get this in the keezer. I’m using a plaato airlock for the first time which is meant to prevent suck back when I cold crash so I’ll see how that works

[iBooz2]

Currently have 4 FV's cooking away, well sort of, 2 are in CC mode. 

1 is Pacific Summer Ale which completes CC today and will be kegged this afternoon.

2 is Green Neck Lager nearing end of CC. This one will be bottled and stashed away in a cool spot for a month or two.

3 is Coopers Mild Ale +PLUS, just started its CC this morning.

4 is Steam Beer at BD + 2

Only got 2 empty kegs so I had better ramp up the beer drinking in next couple of days. 

Cheers - AL

[Otto Von Blotto]

Just pitched the pale ale I brewed weekend before last, with Vic Secret, Amarillo and Centennial I think it was. This fermenter wasn't the one that had the infection, but I still gave it a soak in perc then bleach, rinsed with hot water and dried in the sun. Starsan just before filling it with the wort. 

It's in the fridge now coming down to 18 from about 29 so it'll probably take a while but at least it's in. 

I need to get a new grain bag before I brew again so it probably won't happen this Saturday like I had planned. Might use the time to do all the lawns and the hedges instead. 

[Pezzza]

On 3/29/2020 at 11:03 PM, NewBrews said:

I love rye bread! Got a link for the recipe? They look amazing!

Hey NB - so here is an example of the bread - been wrapped up for 48 hours after cooling post-bake... letting the moisture equilibrate... has come up nicely again:

Bit of a tiny air pocket and crack there... you can poke holes w skewer all over through top to mitigate... not the end of the world... was only in a cuppla slices and then gone... ; )

So on the slice you can see Rye Grains, Sunflower seeds and Pumpkin seeds cut through

 

[Pezzza]

8 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

4 is Steam Beer at BD + 2

Festive Steam Beer Cobber - is that something you have made up or yourself?

I did an All Grain mainly barley malt wort and then utilised Hefeweizen W3068 for a steam beer which came up quite nice... be interested to hear how you go.

Cheers

BB

[ChristinaS1]

Put this down today, modelled after an American craft NEIPA. Used some of the hops I bough in bulk. The little vacuum sealer I bought works pretty good.

 

Juicy Bits Pale Ale

 

1.7kg Mexican Cervesa

1.5kg Light LME

850gm Superior Pale Ale

150gm Carapils

150gm flaked oats

40gm Cents @ F0

20gm Citra @ 75C / 179F.

20gm Mosaic @ 75C

20gm El Dorado @ 75C

Clarity Ferm

23L RO water

10gm Citra x 4 day DH

10gm Mosaic x 4 day DH

El Dorado x 4 day DH

Gen 2 WLP95 Burlington Ale pitched @ 1:45p.m. @ 18.5C. Fridge set to 18C.

 

OG 1.053; FG 1.013; IBU 27; ABV 5.2%; BU:GU 0.52. 

 

Cheers,

 

Christina.

Edited April 1, 2020 by ChristinaS1

[ChristinaS1]

5 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Gen 2 WLP95 Burlington Ale

This yeast is a beast. First time I used it I pitched at 22.5C and fermented at 20C and it started bubbling in two hours. This time I pitched at 18.5C and set the fridge to 18C, and it began bubbling in 3 hours!

Cheers,

Christina.

[Beerlust]

Hi guys.

My current Pale Ale fermented with WLP059 is travelling very well. Pretty much slowed to a halt today once I got home, so will take a gravity reading tomorrow to see where it's at.

The yeast began fast (between 12-18hrs from pitched). A special shout out & thanks to all the guys that offered advice on pitching volumes from starters in my "Yeast Daddy Help" thread. Thank you all. 

Will add the Cashmere dry hop as part of the process tomorrow. I don't feel the yeast is particularly favourable to hops, but after brewing a more old school hopped beer using this strain initially that was really terrific actually, I would like to see what it throws with a more modern hop forward beer approach.

Will offer my thoughts once it's on the pour.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

[Beer Baron]

I dry hopped my pale ale today. I popped open the fermenter and it is the best smelling beer I have ever had mid fermentation. 

I also remembered that once again I didn’t add my Brew Bright in the boil. $hit ha ha

[Pezzza]

3 hours ago, Beerlust said:

I would like to see what it throws with a more modern hop forward beer approach.

Lusty if all else fails you could late hop with some Magnum ; )

[Otto Von Blotto]

Mine finally got down to 18 this morning some time. I think I'm gonna get rid of that second fridge once this batch is done, it's really struggling for some reason. There's no way it should be taking as long as it does to chill down, and even when it does it doesn't really get that cold. It struggles to get under 5 degrees and that's on the coldest setting. My original one is still cranking like new and it's decades old.

I'll use the old kegerator as my second ferment fridge instead (sometimes taking forever to get around to doing something, like selling it, can be beneficial ). It also has the advantage of the gas line hole in the back to feed the temp probe through so I don't have to put it through the door. I lost the plug that goes in the top but I have the one from the new one so no worries there.

It might have begun struggling to get the beer down cold enough to serve (who the hell wants 8 or 9 degree lagers? ) but it will do fine for fermentation and cold crashing. I'll crank it down to -4 anyway since the inkbird will turn it off when it hits set temperature, and it probably wouldn't be on long enough to frost up too much like it did when kegs were in it so it'll hold a good temperature for cold crashing. Might just have to sit it up on bricks to make it more accessible for taking SG samples. 

The only other thing I have to do is make sure a fermenter fits in it, but since it can hold a 50 litre keg I expect it should fit fine. Probably make the area look a bit more open too, being much shorter in height

[Pezzza]

On 4/2/2020 at 11:26 PM, Otto Von Blotto said:

but it will do fine for fermentation and cold crashing

Am interested in the cold crashing notion - Brewers One and All who do this practice.

I have just been taking my Lager down the clean-up phase on that Lager Temp Protocol I got off you ages ago @Otto Von BlottoKelsey - and been reading a bit more in Palmer cos it's a good bed time read (ha ha)... and there is this issue of rapid change in temperature and yeast cell lysis or rupture of the wall releasing it's guts which leads to brothy off flavours.  The Lager temp protocol clean-up sees a slow reduction in temp over days.

So when people talk of 'cold-crashing'... with yeast autolysis and "yeast-bite" flavours in mind due to yeast shock... (I wonder is that why Vegemite tastes the way it does?).... is cold crashing then a slow cool down over time... I have chilled down beers to bottle and keg in the past but in the brew fridge it takes a while I guess and had no bad flavours... just clearer brews.

So just am wondering whether a too severe cold crash could bring on the autolysis and off-flavours from knocking the yeast around?  I guess too when doing that temp reduction most of the yeast has already flocculated out and is on the bottom and whether that makes a difference? 

Or what is a cold crash at all - is it just a cool slide over time to cold without too much of a crash?

[Beer Baron]

14 minutes ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Am interested in the cold crashing notion - Brewers One and All who do this practice.

I have just been taking my Lager down the clean-up phase on that Lager Temp Protocol I got off you ages ago @Otto Von BlottoKelsey - and been reading a bit more in Palmer cos it's a good bed time read (ha ha)... and there is this issue of rapid change in temperature and yeast cell lysis or rupture of the wall releasing it's guts which leads to brothy off flavours.  The Lager temp protocol clean-up sees a slow reduction in temp over days.

So when people talk of 'cold-crashing'... with yeast autolysis and "yeast-bite" flavours in mind due to yeast shock... (I wonder is that why Vegemite tastes the way it does?).... is cold crashing then a slow cool down over time... I have chilled down beers to bottle and keg in the past but in the brew fridge it takes a while I guess and had no bad flavours... just clearer brews.

So just am wondering whether a too severe cold crash could bring on the autolysis and off-flavours from knocking the yeast around?  I guess too when doing that temp reduction most of the yeast has already flocculated out and is on the bottom and whether that makes a difference? 

Or what is a cold crash at all - is it just a cool slide over time to cold without too much of a crash?

I think you should do a Brülosophy style exbeeriment and do a side by side and report back on the different methods

[Otto Von Blotto]

1 hour ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Am interested in the cold crashing notion - Brewers One and All who do this practice.

I have just been taking my Lager down the clean-up phase on that Lager Temp Protocol I got off you ages ago @Otto Von BlottoKelsey - and been reading a bit more in Palmer cos it's a good bed time read (ha ha)... and there is this issue of rapid change in temperature and yeast cell lysis or rupture of the wall releasing it's guts which leads to brothy off flavours.  The Lager temp protocol clean-up sees a slow reduction in temp over days.

So when people talk of 'cold-crashing'... with yeast autolysis and "yeast-bite" flavours in mind due to yeast shock... (I wonder is that why Vegemite tastes the way it does?).... is cold crashing then a slow cool down over time... I have chilled down beers to bottle and keg in the past but in the brew fridge it takes a while I guess and had no bad flavours... just clearer brews.

So just am wondering whether a too severe cold crash could bring on the autolysis and off-flavours from knocking the yeast around?  I guess too when doing that temp reduction most of the yeast has already flocculated out and is on the bottom and whether that makes a difference? 

Or what is a cold crash at all - is it just a cool slide over time to cold without too much of a crash?

All I do is drop the controller from whatever it's sitting at straight to zero. How long the brew takes to get there is largely up to the fridge and somewhat the weather conditions being that the fridges are outside. Never had one taste like Vegemite, or really had any off flavours at all. Didn't affect the performance of the yeast for carbonation either. Is it really that much different to sticking kegs in the fridge to chill for drinking? You don't ramp them down over a few days. I know there is a lot less yeast in a keg compared to the fermenter, but still I think it's not something worth worrying about.

I do use the slow ramp down with lagers but that's more because I have found it to result in cleaner and crisper flavours than dropping them straight to zero. I also stop them at 3 degrees rather than going all the way to zero. I'm not sure this subtle difference would be noticed in the ales I brew, hence why I haven't bothered doing it with them. 

 

[Pezzza]

10 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I also stop them at 3 degrees rather than going all the way to zero.

Thanks for the above reply Kelsey.  Good stuff.

Now you got me interested - why on the cool down stop at 3 degrees? 

Do you also serve at 3?  I have been stopping at 2 and serve at 2 and been happy.... interested what that one degree difference might make.

[Pezzza]

11 hours ago, Beer Baron said:

I think you should do a Brülosophy style exbeeriment and do a side by side and report back on the different methods

Ha ha BB1 - am happy at sticking with things that work for the time being  ; )

Though I am thinking I should purchase some Vegemite again -- if there is any left on the shelves by the time I get into town

[UncleStavvy]

24 bottles of Stout bottled this morning. Straight up turn around with a basic Coopers Dark Ale, brew-booster and a bit of extra sugar. Pitched 12g rehydrated kit yeast at 23deg(one sachet was late 2018 so went a bit extra). This is only my third brew so still refining clean and sterilising routines. I do love the new style kit fermenters, their so easy to clean.

[Otto Von Blotto]

6 hours ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Thanks for the above reply Kelsey.  Good stuff.

Now you got me interested - why on the cool down stop at 3 degrees? 

Do you also serve at 3?  I have been stopping at 2 and serve at 2 and been happy.... interested what that one degree difference might make.

Lager yeast can still be working at that temperature, rather than zero. Ales obviously go dormant much warmer so it doesn't really matter with them.