Whats in Your Fermenter - 2024?

[ChairmanDrew]

21 minutes ago, Triple B Brewing said:

@ChairmanDrew I have never been fortunate enough to have access to fresh hops to dry hop with, so I don't really know, but my gut tells me to leave it and go with the result you get. - I feel confident that you will get some amazing aroma and taste from the standard dry hop application process you have used all the same    

It's just that with the standard process the dried pallets sink in the bag to the bottom, but with the fresh hops they remained floating on top. Would be a shame if they went to waste. Hopefully like @kmar92 says, they will eventually soak up enough to sink

Edited March 18 by ChairmanDrew

[Triple B Brewing]

1 minute ago, ChairmanDrew said:

It's just that with the standard process the dried pallets sink in the bag to the bottom, but with the fresh hops they remained floating on top. Would be a Shane if they went to waste. Hopefully like @kmar92 says, they will eventually soak up enough to sink

Yep, that sounds like a logical outcome 

[iBooz2]

1 hour ago, ChairmanDrew said:

I should have paid attention to this. Just put the dry hop into my fresh hop brew. I normally dont bother weighting it down with anything as it always just sinks to the bottom as soon as I drop it in. But this time I'm using fresh hops which must be more buoyant as it is just floating on the surface and refused to go down, even after I tried to submerge it.

Do you reckon its worth fishing it out and sterilizing it and having another go with some thing to weigh it down, or just leave it?

@ChairmanDrew  I have used fresh hop cones but many, many moons ago. 

Be a pity to waste any fresh hop aroma that they would provide but it would also be a pity to maybe ruin your beer too. 

If it was me, I would sanitise my SS mesh sieve and sit that on top of the bag to help submerge it or at least hold it down enough to get some effect of the fresh hops.  I would drop the SS sieve into a tub of sanitiser and shake it all about for several minutes to make sure all nooks and crannies are contacted by the sanitiser liquid.  If the whole lot sinks to the bottom of the FV, then I would leave it and fish it out after bottling or kegging.

[ChairmanDrew]

49 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

@ChairmanDrew  I have used fresh hop cones but many, many moons ago. 

Be a pity to waste any fresh hop aroma that they would provide but it would also be a pity to maybe ruin your beer too. 

If it was me, I would sanitise my SS mesh sieve and sit that on top of the bag to help submerge it or at least hold it down enough to get some effect of the fresh hops.  I would drop the SS sieve into a tub of sanitiser and shake it all about for several minutes to make sure all nooks and crannies are contacted by the sanitiser liquid.  If the whole lot sinks to the bottom of the FV, then I would leave it and fish it out after bottling or kegging.

I just tried something a bit odd. I sterilized an old pressure cooker weight valve and tied it to the hop bag (my hop bag is alwasy ties off with string and there is always an excess). It still wasn't enough weight to pull the hop bag down to the bottom (turns out fresh hop cones really know how to float!), but it did seem to bring some of it just under the surface. Hopefully I haven't introduced any nasties, and if I have at least I'll have some material for the Fail Thread

[RDT2]

4 hours ago, ChairmanDrew said:

I should have paid attention to this. Just put the dry hop into my fresh hop brew. I normally dont bother weighting it down with anything as it always just sinks to the bottom as soon as I drop it in. But this time I'm using fresh hops which must be more buoyant as it is just floating on the surface and refused to go down, even after I tried to submerge it.

Do you reckon its worth fishing it out and sterilizing it and having another go with some thing to weigh it down, or just leave it?

Will you be cold crashing (do you have temp control) as this will help the hops sink!

[ChairmanDrew]

1 minute ago, RDT2 said:

Will you be cold crashing (do you have temp control) as this will help the hops sink!

Nah. I'll just hope that I haven't ruined anything, and at best I'll get some aroma out of what I just put in. Will bottle in a couple of days time.

 

[RDT2]

1 minute ago, ChairmanDrew said:

Nah. I'll just hope that I haven't ruined anything, and at best I'll get some aroma out of what I just put in. Will bottle in a couple of days time.

 

It will be fine mate you will still get aroma!  

[Aussiekraut]

Wai-Iti Pilsner and the Novalager starter. 

 

[Graculus]

I had some hops in the freezer I wanted to  use  up.

Sort of based loosely on the old Kilted IPA recipe.
In the old days the recipe included an old English Style IPA that Cooper no longer make.

Morgans Frontier IPA, 500 grams LDME, 300g Crystal Malt (steeped), Lallemand Nottingham yeast.
The recipe did call for 30 grams of Fuggles, but I only had 10 grams, so I used that to bitter it.
I'll be adding 25 grams of EKG when fermentation has died down after a few days.

I've always enjoyed this when made with fuggles, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes with fuggles & EKG.

Then I'll be saving the yeast to use on this years SMOTY. I know, I know, wrong month, but better late than never.

[Aussiekraut]

6 minutes ago, Graculus said:

I had some hops in the freezer I wanted to  use  up.

Sort of based loosely on the old Kilted IPA recipe.
In the old days the recipe included an old English Style IPA that Cooper no longer make.

Morgans Frontier IPA, 500 grams LDME, 300g Crystal Malt (steeped), Lallemand Nottingham yeast.
The recipe did call for 30 grams of Fuggles, but I only had 10 grams, so I used that to bitter it.
I'll be adding 25 grams of EKG when fermentation has died down after a few days.

I've always enjoyed this when made with fuggles, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes with fuggles & EKG.

Then I'll be saving the yeast to use on this years SMOTY. I know, I know, wrong month, but better late than never.

Fuggle and EKG are a good combo, so I suspect you will get a nice brew.

[Graculus]

2 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Fuggle and EKG are a good combo, so I suspect you will get a nice brew.

Yeah, to be honest I prefer EKG to fuggles.

I've made this a few times and my mates love it with fuggles. I just won't tell them it's changed.

[ChairmanDrew]

Finally got my chocolate stout in tonight, getting ready for winter. I roughly followed this Belgian Chocolate Stout recipe, with the following ingredients:

1.7kg can Coopers Stout

1.5kg can Maltexo

250g dark chocolate malt steeped in 2l or water

1.5tsp vanilla essence

100g lactose

 

20l, OG 1.044

The Belgian chocolate stout recipe called for cacao nibs also, but having tasting some recently for the first time I opted to leave them out

Edited March 23 by ChairmanDrew

[Kegory]

Deez Beez Honey Wheat Beer

 

[Kegory]

Mt Buzz has eruoted out of the Deez Beez seas.

Measured at approx 50mm at the rim peaking around 90mm. Observed 34 hours post pitching MJ M42 New World Strong Ale yeast.

[Triple B Brewing]

46 minutes ago, Kegory said:

Mt Buzz has eruoted out of the Deez Beez seas.

Measured at approx 50mm at the rim peaking around 90mm. Observed 34 hours post pitching MJ M42 New World Strong Ale yeast.

WOW - check that out it’s a shame you’re not extracting off the CO2 - there must be a heap of it being generated hey

[Aussiekraut]

Pitched the Windsor starter into the Barley Wine on Tuesday, yesterday it looked like this and this morning, SG was down to around 1.040 from an OG of 1.114 according to the pill. Haven't had any telemetry all day yesterday and today. With the WiFi as it is, I only get sporadic telemetry from the pills and the router restarted yesterday and they don't seem to have been able to re-join the network. Well, one day I'll fix it. But less than two days to much through wort like this is impressive. At this point, the beer has approx. 9.7% ABV and you can clearly taste it. I hope it'll mellow out over time as the sting is quite pronounced.  I'll leave it alone until maybe Monday or Tuesday to take another sample. 

[Triple B Brewing]

5 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Pitched the Windsor starter into the Barley Wine on Tuesday, yesterday it looked like this and this morning, SG was down to around 1.040 from an OG of 1.114 according to the pill. Haven't had any telemetry all day yesterday and today. With the WiFi as it is, I only get sporadic telemetry from the pills and the router restarted yesterday and they don't seem to have been able to re-join the network. Well, one day I'll fix it. But less than two days to much through wort like this is impressive. At this point, the beer has approx. 9.7% ABV and you can clearly taste it. I hope it'll mellow out over time as the sting is quite pronounced.  I'll leave it alone until maybe Monday or Tuesday to take another sample. 

WOW another volcano  

9.7%ABV - the more ya drink, the more ya save eh  - PURRRHH. Two glasses of those and you’ll be talkin braille @Aussiekraut

[Aussiekraut]

28 minutes ago, Triple B Brewing said:

WOW another volcano  

9.7%ABV - the more ya drink, the more ya save eh  - PURRRHH. Two glasses of those and you’ll be talkin braille @Aussiekraut

The estimate is 11% when it is finished. It surely will be a one bottle a day unless you wanna be blotto a/f  It'll make nice Xmas pressies if I decide to part with it. It'll also make lots of warm winter nights  Those Queensland winter nights are known to be very harsh  

Edited March 28 by Aussiekraut

[Popo the Reprobate]

1 hour ago, Triple B Brewing said:

Two glasses of those and you’ll be talkin braille

Hahaha. I've never heard that before.

 

1 hour ago, Aussiekraut said:

I hope it'll mellow out over time as the sting is quite pronounced. 

I don't have a great depth of experience with them but have made a couple of the Coopers recipes. They both mellowed really nicely. Good luck with the beer. It's a good beer for sitting back and melting into your seat of an evening.

[Triple B Brewing]

35 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Those Queensland winter nights are known to be very harsh  

Yeah, well somehow I'm not thinkin its like Antarctica and the need to warm the cockerels of the 'ol heart mate - HEE   

Well good luck to ya anyway I say, just don't plan to operate any machinery until midday the next day  - at the very earliest !  

[Triple B Brewing]

4 hours ago, Popo the Reprobate said:

5 hours ago, Triple B Brewing said:

Two glasses of those and you’ll be talkin braille

Hahaha. I've never heard that before.

Yeah its the stage immediately after ya have been "talkin' left handed"  @Popo the Reprobate  

[Aussiekraut]

Looks like Windsor either stalled or has eaten all it can eat. SG is still sitting at 1.040 two days after the last sample, about 10 points above the estimate. Windsor cannot eat maltotriose sugars and I suspect there are still many left. I'll see how she goes but I do have a US-05 starter going and will sacrifice it to kickstart fermentation and hopefully bring SG down the 10 points. We'll see.

[Shamus O'Sean]

Transferred my Mexican Cerveza to the fermenter today.

I decided to pour this onto the yeast cake of Coopers German Lager I have used for the last few brews.  I did revive an 8 month old harvest of White Labs Czech Budjovice Lager WLP802.  However, I think I will save that for a couple of European Lagers I have planned.

Tucked into the fermenting fridge.  @Aussiekraut, note the pressure fermenting set up.

Edited March 30 by Shamus O'Sean

[Back2Brewing]

On 3/3/2024 at 4:36 PM, Back2Brewing said:

I'm going to try a Nordic Hazy IPA clone. I had one (well four) just before Christmas and it was delicious.

Lots of research and some hop volume testing, and I've come up with a recipe I'll try sometime this week. All ingredients are finally here, measured and vac' bagged to save some time on brew day later week. Wish me luck!

*****

Ingredients: 

1.7kg Coopers Pale Ale (pre-hopped extract)

1kg Coopers Brew Enhancer 3 (300g Dextrose, 200g Maltodextrine, 500g LDME)

500gm ale malt grain

500gm wheat malt grain

350gm quick oats

100gm Galaxy Hops

100gm Citra Hops

Lallemand LalBrew® Voss Kveik Ale Yeast  11gm

6gm yeast nutrient.

*****

The process is also the important part of this, so I'll post that later.

 

 

 

Life got in the way but finally put down the Nordic Hazy IPA

Sorry for the long post, but some may want the details.

Process:

Clean and sterilise every thing as normal.

Have plenty of 2 deg. C  cold water to add to the fermenter and Hopped boiled wort to bring the temp down fast. (To reduce unintentional extra hop bitterness and keep hop oils and aromas. )

Also have some of the large Ice cubes ready.

Heat up 5 ltrs of water in the big stainless pot to a striking temp' of  73 deg C. 

Get the large and smaller Bunnings paint strain bags x 2 and pre- prep. Wash/soak in brew detergent, boil 15 min, cool and then sanitise.

Use large bags for grains pot and then smaller bags for hops steeping.

Add all the grains to the bag and put in the 73 deg pot water, and take off the heat.

Mix in well so there are no clumping and as mixing the water temp should fall. I had no clumping at all.

Check temp after mixing is 67 deg c. and if not then make it that by adding hot or cold water. I jas had to add a tad of cool water and it was spot on.

Once mixed well and is at 67 deg' C. put on the pot lid and wrap in a lot of towels and blankets to insulate.

Leave steep for an 60 min.

Observation: This worked better than I expected. Using the same inkbird BBQ thermometer, the mixed grain steep was 67 deg C. when it was wrapped (A lot of towels including underneath) and after 60min I unwrapped it and it was still 65.2 deg C.

While waiting for the steep, take the paper off the coopers can of pale ale and soak in hot water to make the ingredients easier to pour.

Pour sanitiser out of fermenter and add 2 x  1.5 ltr bottles of cold water

Add the 1kg Coopers Brew Enhancer 3 and 500gm LDME and mix well.

After the hour steep, lift/drain he bagged grains and then sparge with water into another pot. Then pour the sparge water from the new pot back into the main wort pot.

Then bring the wort to boil for 15 min.

Add an old coopers yeast packet at the beginning of the boil to add yeast nutrient.

After 15 min boil,  add cool water to bring the boiled wort down to 80 deg. C.

When at 80deg'C. Add 50gm Galaxy and 50 gm Citra and steep for 15 min.

At 15 min' add some ice / cold water to the hopped wort to cool it down quickly (Prevents more bitterness)

Take the hop bag out of the wort and sparge it a bit in a different pot, and put that hop sparge water into the fermenter

Strain the cooled boiled and hopped wort into the fermenter

Add the Coopers Pale Ale extract

Stir well

Add water to near the 21 ltr mark and check temp.

We need to get this wort to a temp ok for the Kveik Ale Yeast, which is much higher than we do with normal ale yeast. Check recommended brewing temp for this yeast. 35-40 Deg. C ! Use hot/cold water to get it to the correct temp at 23 ltrs. I got it to about 34 deg. C.

Observation.:

I tasted a bit at 23 ltrs, but I think it was still too thick for this style of beer (lots of ingredients) and it was still 40 deg. C, so I filled it to 25ltrs with fridge chilled water and that got it down to just under 34. Even at 1.056 (at 25 ltrs) its still a pretty high gravity beer and it has TONS of flavour even before the 100 gram dry hop LOL. So I believe it will carry the 25L just fine.

[Discussion for later: I like malty thicker style beers, hence the extra 500gm LDME, and its still 1.056 made to 25 Ltrs. Assuming it ferments down to 1.014 ish, then including bottle fermentation that makes it about 6.0% ABV.  I think you could do without 500gm LDME and still make it to 25 Ltrs.  The flavour is very full anyway, so dropping a bit of the maltiness, and thickness, while still keeping over 5% ABV, maybe 5.5 (would need to calc it) would still likely be a great beer. I have to ensure I use a correct amount of castor sugar for carbonation in the swing top glass bottles. While some beers are great when lower carbonated, I think this style needs good carbonation. )

Did a hydrometer test. Tested OG. 1.056 at 34 deg C. (with calibrated hydrometer)

Pitch yeast at Wort temp 33 deg c. Yeast pitched 1445 hours.

Add 50gm of Galaxy and 50gm Of Citra hops into the dry hopper. Set the dry hopper drop mechanism and put the FV lid on.

Set heater belt, temp probe, and wrap FV with exercise mat.

Set ink bird thermostat temp to 34.5 deg. C 

Initial Tasting: Tastes delicious, Like a sweet (unfermented sugars) version of the Nordic Hazy IPA. It seems very close to what I was going for. 

@2030 the wort temp was 33.4 deg. C. and it was bubbling across the while surface very well. It sure did start fast!

Day 2 - Sat 30 Mar 2024

@0115. Temp was 34.9 Deg C.

Day 3 - Sun 31 Mar  2024

@1500 hrs. Just over 48 hours since yeast pitch, I decided to test a sample.  This yeast can brew out a fermenter in 2-3 days at the correct temp', but I still wanted a bit of activity at the start of dry hopping. Test sample SG was at 1.016! Started at 1.056. This yeast is fast at 34 deg C. 

Observation: Beautiful hazy light colour, fruity citrus/pineapple aroma. Put sample in freezer to get from 34 deg. C to 2 deg. C for taste test later. 

@1530. Dropped in the dry hop bom of 50gm Galaxy and 50gm Citra. Dry hopper stays in for 72 hours. 

Taste tested the chilled sample. Photo attached. WOW

[Back2Brewing]

On 3/16/2024 at 8:42 PM, Hilltop hops said:

Picked this up today, high gravity at 1.070. Has anyone brewed this fwk? I've tried it canned and was real good. 

@Hilltop hops how did this brew go?