Jump to content
Coopers Community

What's in Your Fermenter? 2020


Otto Von Blotto

Recommended Posts

Removed the dry hop from my slightly modified version of the Cog Work IPA.

The main difference is I did not have Citra or Centennial for the dry hop.  I swapped in Chinook for the Centennial (and upped it to 50g instead of 25g) and my own home grown Cascade (2018 harvest, so 2 years in the freezer) for the Citra (also upped it to 50g instead of the recipe's 25g).  Hydrometer sample tasted so-so yesterday.  Today the dry hop had come out.  This will be a great beer.

Also started the cold crash tonight.  I will add Isinglass tomorrow, after work, and Polyclar on Wednesday night.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adding gelatin to my spunded lager this morning. It is my first time using gelatin.

Tried to take a gravity reading but the flipping carbonation bubbles are interfering with the reading. 😜 But going but taste, it is finished.  I thought the taste would be totally clean, given it was fermented under pressure, but it still tastes like it was fermented with lager yeast, with that hint of sulphur. Note that I didn't add pressure until 18 hours post pitch. Maybe next time I will apply pressure immediately, as was suggested for lagers in one of those videos I posted earlier. 

Cheers,

Christina.

Edited by ChristinaS1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dry hopped my two brews yesterday. 25g of Galaxy in the APA and 50g of Simcoe in the Red IPA. It's been a week so I also took what I thought would be FG samples. They were both done, but it was then I also realised I made the IPA too low an ABV for what I originally intended. So, I grabbed a box of BE3 I had hanging around and was going to sprinkle half of it in. Dang, that thing was solid like a rock. Still sealed in the box and plastic. I even whacked it with a hammer to try and break it up and it barely dented it. What's the go? Can moisture get through the BE1/2/3 packaging? Anyway, just chucked it in like a brick. Will end up higher ABV but better than just bitter water. Decent size krausen today so it's kicked off again ok.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ozlizard said:

Got he Aussie Pale Ale down to 1.018, stable over the past 3 days so it's all bottled. The good news is no funny smells or taste and it looks great. So starting off with a new fermenter might have done the trick! Happy days!

1.018 is rather high, what was the recipe and volume?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, MitchellScott said:

1.018 is rather high, what was the recipe and volume?

Coopers ROTM Aussie Pale Ale, 21 lts. It started off  at 1.052 so ABV around 4.5% and it was only supposed to be around 4.6, so I call that a win 😉

Edited by ozlizard
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So my Amarillo SMASH with Barrett Burston Pale Ale Malt is cold crashing. Part of me wants to fine it, part of me doesn't care and wants to see the brew as is. It smells niiiice. Just in time, the keg blew on half a glass. But that is good, it means I got lucky and timed it right.

Good brewing

Norris

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, ozlizard said:

Coopers ROTM Aussie Pale Ale, 21 lts. It started off  at 1.052 so ABV around 4.5% and it was only supposed to be around 4.6, so I call that a win 😉

Hi O-L 

These reading do look high.  Check your hydrometer in 20°C distilled water (or good tap water).  It should be 1.000.  If it is a bit high, just take your readings like normal and delete the necessary couple of points to get actual SG.  Do not worry about your ABV calculations because they are related to the difference between OG and FG, not the value of the reading.

Cheers Shamus

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

AG Australian Pale Ale  that I knocked up yesterday. Chilled to 23 degrees in the kettle with the immersion coil and pitched with a 5th generation Nottingham slurry that was 2 weeks old. After 20 hours in the fementer it is going gang busters at 20this morning.  I have fermented for years without an airlock but there really is something about that sound.  Even when in the yard I can hear it girgling away.  I scored this fermenter with a heap of homebrew gear I bought picked the eyes out of it and flipped the rest so cost me nothing. I just love it.  I know I can't see what is happening but I have been brewing long enough now not to worry so much about needing a visual. I rely on my hydrometer  and the SG sample I take on day two. I leave that in the fridge and it tells tell all I need to know. 

  • Like 2
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

These reading do look high.  Check your hydrometer in 20°C distilled water (or good tap water).  It should be 1.000.  If it is a bit high, just take your readings like normal and delete the necessary couple of points to get actual SG.  Do not worry about your ABV calculations because they are related to the difference between OG and FG, not the value of the reading.

Checked this morning in rainwater at 20 deg and was reading 1.005.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, ozlizard said:

Checked this morning in rainwater at 20 deg and was reading 1.005.

Wouldn't rainwater reading depend very much on where you are? Hydrometers measure comparative density so maybe it's high because you get a lot of other stuff in the rainwater? e.g. I'd imagine cities are more likely to add contaminants into the rain than rural.

If that's not an issue, that seems high - do you have a source of pure water to try?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My rice lager is in the fermenting fridge at 13 degrees. I could only get it to 30 degrees with the counter flow chiller yesterday so I put it in the keezer for a few hours to chill it down. 

I went to the father in laws for a swim this morning and it was 40 degrees. As I pulled up he was doing a kit and kilo. He put the tin in and the kilo of some type of enhancer and filled it up with tap water and just put it in the corner of the garage. He just ferments for 7 days and kegs without any hydrometer 🤢 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Beer Baron said:

I went to the father in laws for a swim this morning and it was 40 degrees. As I pulled up he was doing a kit and kilo. He put the tin in and the kilo of some type of enhancer and filled it up with tap water and just put it in the corner of the garage. He just ferments for 7 days and kegs without any hydrometer 🤢 

Have you tried his beers? How temperature stable is the garage?

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ozlizard said:

1.008 in distilled water at 20 deg.

As long as it consistently reads 0.008 too high, it might not be stuffed.  Leave it in the distilled water overnight.  If it still reads the same tomorrow, then at least it is not leaking.  You will just need to take off 0.008 from your readings to get "correct" values. 

The two main reasons for using the hydrometer are to get original gravity (OG) and final gravity (FG) to calculate ABV and to check that the final gravity is stable. 

The ABV calculation uses the difference between the OG and FG values, so even if your hydrometer reads wrong, the difference will still be the same.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/1/2020 at 1:52 PM, Journeyman said:

Wouldn't rainwater reading depend very much on where you are? Hydrometers measure comparative density so maybe it's high because you get a lot of other stuff in the rainwater? e.g. I'd imagine cities are more likely to add contaminants into the rain than rural.

If that's not an issue, that seems high - do you have a source of pure water to try?

Yeah unless you are living in Beijing I reckon you are not going to have much in solution to affect a hydrometer from rainwater.

Even with severe dust and ash... most floccs out and drops to the bottom of the tank.  I guess if you lived on the coast with massive ongoing seaspray... but you might taste that?

As you note above yer rainwater is lower SG than dodgy distilled water 😋

 

If it's a festive Coopers Plazzi bydro those things are not particularly precise even tho they are a great start in brewing life ; )

Most of the time the cylinder is the leaning tower of pissssa so it doesn't float freely anyway... if you wanna do Hydro... think that yer gunna have to do glass to get a decent reading.

My glassy-accurate-boy gives me next to 1000 and festive Coops Plazzi is 0.997.... ?!

 

22 hours ago, PaddyBrew2 said:

If you’re using the rainwater to brew with I would adjust your calcs from what it reads this  at 20 degrees. So in this instance subtract five from each of your  calcs to get a true reading 

And otherwise.... as @PaddyBrew2 Paddy and @Shamus O'Sean Shamus points out... @ozlizardjust offset it....

And as SOS points out - it's the delta... change in values that is of importance so the leaning tower of pisssa is handy for an indication of what is going on ; )

So 1047 down to 1013...  probably fine and dandy?  I don't brew this stuff - any others done it?  Anyway - sounds more reasonable with the offset.

Is the brew in the bottle already OzLiz?

Edited by Bearded Burbler
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...