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What's in Your Fermenter? 2021


Shamus O'Sean

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13 minutes ago, rugbrod said:

The ambient temp has been sitting at around 30-32 in the room I have them in, so they're bubbling along nicely.

Good luck with those brews Rugbrod they sound good.

Do you have any temp control or just fairly warm where you are i.e. does it stay at 30 deg overnight? 

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Some good news with my 2020 Coopers Vintage Ale.  The SG of the second sample has dropped from 1.030 to 1.027 over the last day.  The main fermenter has a newly formed layer of bubbling foam on it.  The slight temperature increase and stirring up the yeast a bit seems to have had the desired effect.  Hopefully I can get the SG into the low teens.

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2 hours ago, Graubart said:

Good luck with those brews Rugbrod they sound good.

Do you have any temp control or just fairly warm where you are i.e. does it stay at 30 deg overnight? 

@Graubart Thanks mate. I just followed up on page 1 and I’ve bottled the lot of them.

Yeah it’s just been warm. Times it with a nice run of 4 x 30C+ days. I closed off the room during the night and covered the fermenters with towels which barely dropped thanks to the ambient temp in the room. They probably floated between 28 and 32.

Edited by rugbrod
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8 hours ago, jamiek86 said:

@Shamus O'Sean hopefully gets where you want it to be i was thinking if did stall and wouldn't kick on without more yeast would it be a big deal if cold crashed it and kegged? 

You are right, it would not be a big deal if 1.030 was the final gravity and I kegged it.  It would still be beer.

I would not bottle at that FG.  I was hoping to bottle most of it for aging.  At 1.030 it would still be pretty sweet.  I could taste sweetness in the sample.

If the FG does not get into the teens, I will just keg it and do a couple of PET bottles that I will drink early.

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First AG mid strength summer ale not even down to cold crash temp yet, currently sitting at 5 C with one more step to go.  Already super clear.  Is that due to the AG process or the 1/2 whirlfloc tablet added to the boil?  In the past the K&K batches usually take 2 or 3 days down at 2 C to really clear up, this one is there already.  Looking forward to doing a taste test on this one in a day or so before kegging.

Already got 4 -5  new AG recipes in the queue to mash so look out.

Cheers - AL

First AG mid strength summer ale 2 resized.jpg

First AG mid strength summer ale 1 resized.jpg

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1 hour ago, iBooz2 said:

Is that due to the AG process or the 1/2 whirlfloc tablet added to the boil?

I noticed this too.  My all grain brews clear up really well.  I either use whirlfloc or Irish Moss so far.  I did continue fining them like my kit brews and also started kegging about the time I started all graining.

I have noticed similar results for kit brew too lately.  In fact, the photo below is reading your post though a Coopers Blonde Ale.

IMG_2149.thumb.JPG.ad8cadc73aaa9288c63b80846d5561ba.JPG

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14 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I either use whirlfloc or Irish Moss so far.  I

I ran out of Whirlfloc about 12 months or more ago... and just brewed on without it.... and since then have had no probs with achieving AG clear beers... but I have been letting the Boil Kettle with lid well sealed on then settle down overnight which may help... As noted before seems Palmer thinks that is ok and I have found with our cool evenings that it works well.  And then with cold crashing and time in the keg or bottle it all ends up nice and clear.

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7 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Sounds like not a bad way to spread the brew over two days, rather than taking up a large chunk of one day.

Cheers Shamus.  It does split the workload... but it is more because I really don't have the water to waste on a spiral, don't have a glycol chiller... and running in and out of ice requires a vast amount of ice to drop the temp... and even the plate chillers require water... and am not there yet with putting hot wort into a plastic vessel (cube).... so this all together with trialling a rest overnight with cool night temps... seems to have worked well for many AGs so am continuing with it.   I pump hot wort through plastic food grade hoses if pumping, so probably should get over this aversion to plastic and trial using a cube hey mate?

Edited by Graubart
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12 minutes ago, Graubart said:

probably should get over this aversion to plastic and trial using a cube hey mate?

I have done it once or twice.  It did make the brew day a bit quicker.  I could not make a batch the right size to exactly fit the cubes I have.  So I was a bit worried about infection from the airspace.  Also loosing 30ml when you empty the cube into the fermenter made me mad. 

Now I just cool on brewday with the counterflow chiller.  I keep the water for cleaning.  I can understand your perspective with using tank water.  It is precious and it is probably not cool enough to do a great cooling job.  Your method, if done carefully sounds perfectly fine.  I saw a Youtuber doing the same thing the other day.  Just cooling overnight in the kettle.  Lid on and wrapped in glad wrap.

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3 new K& K brews last 2 days, been busy.

Early on yesterday put down a Czech Pilsner, tried re-harvesting yeast ( first time ), woke up this morning, nothing ?

Now some background on the Yeast, was US-05 kept in a jar in the fridge since November 2020, took it out to sit at room temp as I was brewing, then pitched @ 20 degrees, maybe I should of made a starter ? maybe left too long and was dormant ? 

Quicly chucked 2 x US-05 yeast from the packet this morning and all seems well, very cloudy but I will CC, so not too worried about that.

‘The other 2 just my run of the mill Citra Hopped Pale Ale & a Coopers Bootmaker Pale Ale, which I might dry hop with Galaxy.

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22 minutes ago, Red devil 44 said:

Ok @Shamus O'Sean, just was a bit worried as I thought it would kick into gear within a few hrs ?

Well it’s got sh*tloads of yeast in it now then so should ferment out reasonably quickly ? 

probably not that experienced to say but after cold crash that one should collect all the slurry as it should have crap loads of good yeast to use for at least a few more brews. I'm going to start collecting slurry on my next brew after current.

Edit not sure if it gets job done faster or just more clean my current bookmaker on tap i tested this with 2 packets coopers ale yeast was finished in same time but came out heaps clearer after cold crash think helped it to clean it up easier but not very experienced with yeast and pitch rate to be certain 

Edited by jamiek86
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@Red devil 44 & @jamiek86, over-pitching yeast is supposed to lead to a blander beer.  Not sure why. 

  • More yeast means quicker to ferment, so not as much time to create the flavours it would otherwise make?
  • More yeast means less stress for the yeast to create the flavours...?
  • More yeast means it does not have to go through certain steps, like a growth phase, which is what creates some of its characteristic flavours?

Don't know.  But your tastings will be interesting.  Jamie, your Bootmaker being clearer than usual sounds like a good outcome.👍

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19 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

@Red devil 44 & @jamiek86, over-pitching yeast is supposed to lead to a blander beer.  Not sure why. 

  • More yeast means quicker to ferment, so not as much time to create the flavours it would otherwise make?
  • More yeast means less stress for the yeast to create the flavours...?
  • More yeast means it does not have to go through certain steps, like a growth phase, which is what creates some of its characteristic flavours?

Don't know.  But your tastings will be interesting.  Jamie, your Bootmaker being clearer than usual sounds like a good outcome.👍

3rd glass in had to go back to a bottled one until keg got colder. I'm actually thinking for a 50 gram Amarillo hop tea on day 4 or 5 its not as hoppy as it could be so maby the extra packet stripped flavour? 

Or maby I've just used to galaxy and the Amarillo isn't as strong although nice

Edited by jamiek86
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Just put this brew on yesterday.  It is inspired by my last brew made which I made with Cents @ 20 minutes and a combo of Citra and Amarillo @ FO and for dry hopping. It turned out really nice. Don't have a name for this one.

1.7kg Coopers Draught
1.5kg light LME
700gm Vienna malt 18%
325gm Munich 10L 8.3%
200gm malted wheat 5%
10gm Denali @ 15 minutes
45gm Cents @ FO x 20 min
10gm Amarillo DH x 3 days
10gm Citra DH
10gm Mosaic
23L 
14gm Coopers ale yeast dry pitched. Fermented at 20C.
 
Trying to use up the Denali in a way I won't notice it.
 
Cheers,
 
Christina. 
Edited by ChristinaS1
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@Red devil 44 The sloppy slurry method is great. The dead yeast are food for the live yeast. It eliminates to need to aerate the wort with O2 with a diffusion stone (as would be required with rinsed, or washed slurry, or a viability starter), as the yeast can scavenge the components they need for growth from the dead yeast, instead of having to manufacture them in O2 intensive processes.

No need to bring the slurry up to room temperature BTW. I just pitch it cold, straight from the fridge.

The yeast on the bottom of the fermenter is good for making about four average gravity brews. If you use too much yeast then the flavour can get bland, as Shamus touched on. You are less likely to over-pitch if you divide the yeast cake into four jars.

Homebrews are always contaminated to a certain extent. The only real problem with re-pitching slurry from the bottom of the fermenter is that the level of contaminants grows with each re-pitching. There are more wild yeast and bacteria in kits and bits brews, and partial mash brews, than those made with full volume boils.  I don't do full volume boils (I am a partial masher) so, to limit the risk of ending up with a brew where the contaminants reach the flavour threshold, I limit my re-pitches to three generations.

I once bought a liquid yeast and kept it going for months doing this: I made a Shaken Not Stirred for the first batch, then divided the slurry from that batch into four jars. When I got to the fourth jar, I saved the slurry from that batch into four jars. So I got nine batches out of one tube of liquid yeast: one Gen1 batch, four Gen2 batches, and four Gen3 batches. There is less risk of contamination than with serial re-pitching, as it is just three generations vs nine generations.

Use a lightly hopped, pale coloured, average gravity recipe for the batches you intend to collect slurry from.  A pale ale, blonde, draught, or Mexican Cervesa are perfect.

Cheers,

Christina.

Edited by ChristinaS1
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Planning on putting down the Green Neck Lager today. Following the coopers recipe (sort of) with the exception that I can’t get BE3 here so making up my own (500g DME, 400g dextrose, 100g maltodextrin) and going to throw in some Saaz hops for a hot steep. 
As I don’t have temp control yet (it’s on the way) I am using the California lager yeast from Mangrove Jacks and I’ll try and keep it under 22 degrees....
Happy Brewing everyone 👍

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11 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

@Red devil 44 The sloppy slurry method is great. The dead yeast are food for the live yeast. It eliminates to need to aerate the wort with O2 with a diffusion stone (as would be required with rinsed, or washed slurry, or a viability starter), as the yeast can scavenge the components they need for growth from the dead yeast, instead of having to manufacture them in O2 intensive processes.

No need to bring the slurry up to room temperature BTW. I just pitch it cold, straight from the fridge.

The yeast on the bottom of the fermenter is good for making about four average gravity brews. If you use too much yeast then the flavour can get bland, as Shamus touched on. You are less likely to over-pitch if you divide the yeast cake into four jars.

Homebrews are always contaminated to a certain extent. The only real problem with re-pitching slurry from the bottom of the fermenter is that the level of contaminants grows with each re-pitching. There are more wild yeast and bacteria in kits and bits brews, and partial mash brews, than those made with full volume boils.  I don't do full volume boils (I am a partial masher) so, to limit the risk of ending up with a brew where the contaminants reach the flavour threshold, I limit my re-pitches to three generations.

I once bought a liquid yeast and kept it going for months doing this: I made a Shaken Not Stirred for the first batch, then divided the slurry from that batch into four jars. When I got to the fourth jar, I saved the slurry from that batch into four jars. So I got nine batches out of one tube of liquid yeast: one Gen1 batch, four Gen2 batches, and four Gen3 batches. There is less risk of contamination than with serial re-pitching, as it is just three generations vs nine generations.

Use a lightly hopped, pale coloured, average gravity recipe for the batches you intend to collect slurry from.  A pale ale, blonde, draught, or Mexican Cervesa are perfect.

Cheers,

Christina.

@ChristinaS1 Cheers for the good advice 👍🍻

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