What's in Your Fermenter? 2021

[Pezzza]

5 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Nottingham yeast slurry pitched @ 20C. Fridge set to 18.5C. Will ramp down to 13C once signs of fermentation start.

23L 

Hey Christina - just to check on my understanding - I thought pitching cold and warming up was better?  Or is that more a Lager Yeast pattern?

I understand what you are doing - which should build the population - and that is better for me too practically... so how slowly do you go down in temp - over days?

[MitchBastard]

Just spit ballin here graubster @Graubart but potentially since it’s a slurry, temp during the lag phase isn’t majorly important given not a lot of action is happening. The yeast is absorbing O2 and nitrogen and then acclimating and working out what they gotta do.  There’s not ethanol being produced so off flavours here won’t happen due to temps. Fermentation temp during the actual ferment is where temp plays the biggest roll in ester production etc.

and also given it’s a slurry it’s probably fairly healthy in terms of population

Edited March 13, 2021 by MitchBastard

[ChristinaS1]

3 hours ago, Graubart said:

Hey Christina - just to check on my understanding - I thought pitching cold and warming up was better?  Or is that more a Lager Yeast pattern?

I understand what you are doing - which should build the population - and that is better for me too practically... so how slowly do you go down in temp - over days?

Sorry, my bad BB. The slurry was cold. What I meant was that the wort was at 20C when I pitched the yeast, but I immediately set the fridge to 18.5C to bring the temp down. I will be start lowering it before I go to bed tonight and finish lowering it by lunchtime tomorrow. I don't know if that is the best way to do it as I only made a pseudo lager once before (with my last brew). Seemed to work okay last time though.

@MitchBastard I used to think the temp during the lag phase didn't matter but recently I read it is best if the temp is between 18-20C during the lag as the beer will be cleaner. Can't remember now where I read that. It might have been in the "Yeast" book by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff.....

Cheers,

Christina. 

[ChristinaS1]

4 hours ago, Tone boy said:

Looks good @ChristinaS1 Christina. I really liked the Australian pale ale kit when I used it for the first time a while back. I’ll be going there again. 
Does the honey impart a noticeable flavour in the beer?

This is just my second time using honey. The first time was in my last batch. The honey in that batch is hard to pick out, but the beer is delicious, so I am trying it again.

They say that if you keep the percentage of honey <10% it will be fairly subtle. 

Cheers,

Christina. 

[Tone boy]

21 minutes ago, ChristinaS1 said:

This is just my second time using honey. The first time was in my last batch. The honey in that batch is hard to pick out, but the beer is delicious, so I am trying it again.

They say that if you keep the percentage of honey <10% it will be fairly subtle. 

Cheers,

Christina. 

I think that was the MACE & honey ale?

great to hear it turned out well

I might try the honey as well soon - I have a friend who keeps bees and his honey is great. 

[ChristinaS1]

@MitchBastard I just remember why I stopped doing semi closed transfers: I always fill 8 bottles first with a bottling wand. I had two different tubings for the auto siphon, one with a bottling wand on the end and the other with a quick disconnect. It was a real hassle to interrupt the flow of beer and switch tubings. Very messy. It was also difficult to push the end of the tubing over the auto siphon cane. I gave up.

Cheers,

Christina. 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Split Hefe Weissen's

Both Krausens have dropped.  Each 10L Craft kit batch started at 1.042.  WB-06 has finished at 1.006.  The Munich Classic Wheat finished at 1.007.

My question to those with more experience with wheat beers: Cold crash or nay?

As an unrelated aside, I realised I was making a rookie mistake for ages.  My older Coopers hydrometer is reading 4 points high and probably always has.  For the above brews I measured SG's side by side and grabbed another newer Coopers hydrometer to make taking the readings a bit quicker.  The first SG was quite different between the two batches.  I swapped over the hydrometers and found the issue.  Checking them in water, the newer one reads closer to 1.000.  I will semi-retire the old one. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

@Shamus O'Sean  I remember you have 2 X Craft Fermenters, I bought my second one yesterday purely to take advantage of the heavily discounted Mangrove Jacks Classic Bitters, pictured.

I put one together this morning with the full pouch & just the supplied yeast,  The Bitter started at 1040 as I only filled to 11 litres.

I am interested to see which fermenter preforms the best.

The Mr Beer fermenter on the right has a Golden Ale 3 days in so the contest is on.

[Norris!]

@Shamus O'Sean

I cold crash for better co2 absorption if kegging, if bottling I would probably skip it as it is a wheat beer and the yeast go hand in hand but I don't see it hurting it and it will reduce any floaties while still keeping enough yeast around for that style. I would cold crash and trust in the process and ingredients, but that is just me. 

[Shamus O'Sean]

2 hours ago, Norris! said:

@Shamus O'Sean

I cold crash for better co2 absorption if kegging, if bottling I would probably skip it as it is a wheat beer and the yeast go hand in hand but I don't see it hurting it and it will reduce any floaties while still keeping enough yeast around for that style. I would cold crash and trust in the process and ingredients, but that is just me. 

Thanks Norris. 

I was leaning toward cold crashing myself.  The SG samples I left in the tubes, beside the FV's at 21°C, collected yeast sediment at the bottom.  There was still plenty of haze in suspension.  A combination of yeast and wheat malt haze, I am guessing.  I was thinking that if I did not cold crash, this yeast would collect at the bottom of the keg.

I will also be priming these in the keg.  Mostly because I do not have spots in the kegerator for the kegs.  Also to get the carbonation level up for the style.  I will have to look up how to calculate how much sugar to carbonate 10L of beer in a 19L keg to around 3 volumes of CO2.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Shamus O'Sean

[ozdevil]

coopers xpa  clone

5.27 kg  gladfield nz ale malt
0.500kg simpsons light crystal malt

20 grams of us05  yeast



not the colour  i was hoping for at the end  but during the recirculation the colour i wanted look spot on  

but its beer   and the starting gravity  was 1.057  and should drop to 1.011

[Hairy]

I kegged my Aussie Pale Ale yesterday and put down a Mangrove Jacks Seltzer for my wife. I haven’t made one before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

[Classic Brewing Co]

3 minutes ago, Hairy said:

I kegged my Aussie Pale Ale yesterday and put down a Mangrove Jacks Seltzer for my wife. I haven’t made one before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

@Hairy  Pale Ale is one of my favorite brews, but I have a long way to catch up you guys that make it from scratch.

[Gullys Brewing]

8 minutes ago, Hairy said:

I kegged my Aussie Pale Ale yesterday and put down a Mangrove Jacks Seltzer for my wife. I haven’t made one before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Seltzer seems to be very easy to brew. Sugar, RO (almost) water then add your flavourings and carb... almost to easy

[Malter White]

2 hours ago, Hairy said:

I kegged my Aussie Pale Ale yesterday and put down a Mangrove Jacks Seltzer for my wife. I haven’t made one before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I'm going to investigate seltzer a bit further. I've tried a few kit ciders that didn't live up to expectations, so seltzer might be an option. I'm looking for something my daughter might like that's not as high in alcohol as some of these vodka drinks she likes.

[Hairy]

I have tasted the MJ Seltzer kit brewed by someone else and it was quite nice.

I thought I would start off with that and then try making one from scratch with dextrose.

[Malter White]

I'd definitely only try kit seltzer. I don't think I have the patience to DIY.

[lickedthestamp]

Laid down a Cooper's English Bitter kit today. Pimped it up with 20g EKG (boiled for 15mins) and then 25g Fuggles & 30g Bramling Cross steeped for 30min. Added the hop tea to the FV with the kit and BE3 and topped up to 23L and through in some Nottingham yeast

Celebrated with a bottle of SMOTY ale

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

Put on the Brekkie Oat Cream IPA yesterday.

It was the Feb ROTM recipe and smelt really nice going into the fridge. Don’t do a lot of Kit beers anymore but was keen to try this one out.

Couldn’t get the extract to mix in at all yesterday so the yeast is going to have to earn it’s keep this week and go looking for dinner.

Also no idea of SG so FG will be a guess but thinking about 1.015 with the lactose and oats.

[Norris!]

Dry hopped a blonde ale yesterday with 20g of Idaho7 and Southern Tropic hops. The fridge smelt pretty good, not super strong but I could pick up the hop aroma. Tasted a gravity sample and it was clean as with the malt coming through nicely. I think this might be a dangerous lawnmower beer. I will start the cold crash in another day maybe in the fermenter or maybe I will keg it and add finings in the keg versus finings in the fermenter, not sure yet, but looking forward to this one after so many hazies I want something less hoppy to go with the others on tap. 

[Malter White]

@Norris! I love that phrase "lawnmower beer".

[Classic Brewing Co]

I was just looking at it thinking ' well I don't have a lawn ' so maybe a Paver Beer or a Landscape Beer. 

[Norris!]

2 minutes ago, MUZZY said:

@Norris! I love that phrase "lawnmower beer".

Yeah I got to say it is one of my favourites sayings for a brew and favourite types of beers if I am being honest. Easy drinking, low bitterness and low alcohol...kind of, 4.6% I think it will be.

[Pezzza]

On 3/13/2021 at 12:49 PM, MitchBastard said:

Fermentation temp during the actual ferment is where temp plays the biggest roll in ester production etc.

Cheers Buddly : )

There is a good presentation by Neva Parker 

and they note that the off-taste issue usually occurs within the first 48 hours... 

It makes sense that while you are just reproducing and making numbers to chew through the food that you would be producing less metabolites... but the yeasts may be also producing their associated enzymes - as you put it - 

On 3/13/2021 at 12:49 PM, MitchBastard said:

then acclimating and working out what they gotta do

so I wonder are they then setting up their metabolic processes to run at the warm temp - that metabolic process which produces the esters... 

However, I guess you could have good yeast population within 12-24 hours and then have off-flavours being created in the next 24-36 hours too... 

This is all great discussion - good stuff.

In this specific case I was less concerned about Esters and off-flavours and more so interested in the population size/happiness factor ; )

It's just recently I pitched a 10 day old Dubbya 34 slurry stored at 2 deg into 20 deg or so AG wort and then cooled it down rapidly to around 14 - the yeast prior had been in high ABV wort as well (saved slurry and fridged) - and it just did not fire...   so 24+hours later with a flat cold unhappy AG Wort free fluid surface I pitched some dry Dubbya 34 which thankfully fired up in the next 24 Woohoo 

And the general direction seemed to be better start with a 'live' yeast population cooler - and pitch into warmer... or so I thought? 

Other examples of my pitch cooler yeast into warmer wort have all been pretty rapid to fire...  

Any thoughts?

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Graubart

[Pezzza]

On 3/13/2021 at 8:23 PM, Shamus O'Sean said:

Thanks Norris. 

I was leaning toward cold crashing myself.  The SG samples I left in the tubes, beside the FV's at 21°C, collected yeast sediment at the bottom.  There was still plenty of haze in suspension.  A combination of yeast and wheat malt haze, I am guessing.  I was thinking that if I did not cold crash, this yeast would collect at the bottom of the keg.

I will also be priming these in the keg.  Mostly because I do not have spots in the kegerator for the kegs.  Also to get the carbonation level up for the style.  I will have to look up how to calculate how much sugar to carbonate 10L of beer in a 19L keg to around 3 volumes of CO2.

Yeah @Shamus O'Sean and @Norris! Lads I wouldn't bother with cold crashing... you want the Hefe in suspension - I let mine condition for like 10 days after ferment - and then am going to keg shortly... and you want the beer to be at ferment temp if you are keg conditioning.

If you are Gassing the Keg - I would agree with @Norris! Norris re CO2 absorption and then understand cold crashing - but even then - maybe better not too - if you want more Hefe (yeast) to go across into the keg - as you want the Yeast to turn up in the glass and plenty of it... Is that right @Aussiekraut AK re Bayerisch Hefeweizen?  Guess AK you bottle so that is slightly different again... 

Anyway it's all about personal choice and the right to self determination in the Brewery but myself I reckon you are better to push them into the keg or bottles as is and not bother with cold crashing for a Bavarian HW...   But that is after the beer has been FV conditioned so some of the Hefe has already flocced out anyway ; )

For my Keg Priming - I am going to follow the @PB2 methodology which was half a cup of white sugar... would be very happy to hear how that might look like compared to your calcs @Shamus O'Sean Shamus : )  or any other Keg Conditioning Wheat Beer Brewing Barons or Baronesses out there ; )