Whats in Your Fermenter - 2024?

[Shamus O'Sean]

1 hour ago, Back2Brewing said:

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

Nice work, mate.  It was funny reading this.  I felt like I was reading the description of my own brew day for this type of recipe.  I cannot wait to read your tasting notes.

[Fedaykin409]

Got day 3 of a simple Mexican cerveza. I wanna see what a lot of the kits taste like first before doing more tricky things.

[Aussiekraut]

Aussie Lager is in the fridge with the NovaLager starter. Let's see.

 

The FermZilla is finally assembled and in use. Man, what a mission that was. There is apparently a newer version out and finding instructions for the old one is rather difficult. Would be so simple to add a printed sheet to the box. I'm sure it wouldn't break the Camel's back. When I had assembled it, I closed the dump valve, filled it all halfway with water and pressurised it. When I opened the dump valve, I had water shooting from a to b. So I tightened the collection container, tried it again and again water shot all over the place. So let's tighten things even more and here we go, another fountain. That was when I realised the Coke bottle tops on the side of the container were not tightened  Well, I put the wort in, added the yeast, gassed it up to 12psi, connected the spunding valve and was about to walk away, when I saw the red pill sitting on the bench. Aaaarrgghhh. So release the pressure, undo the rather tight lid, plop the (sanitised) pill in, then tighten again, pressurise and realise the gas bottle is in its death throes but apparently still had enough gas to pressurise the FV. 

Now we'll see if it holds the pressure, if not, I'll tighten things again and when the bottle is refilled, try again. Let's hope the effort was worth it. The wort I used was a Munich Helles I had in a cube and I threw M54 at it in the hope of getting something remotely resembling the Helles. 

 

[Hilltop hops]

22 hours ago, Back2Brewing said:

@Hilltop hops how did this brew go?

 

Only kegged it a few days ago so probably try it in about a week. Ended up doing a 100 gram Mosaic dry hop. Should be good! 

[Aussiekraut]

Oh boy this pressure fermenting is like wow. It's set to 15psi and pitched a single packet of dry M54 yeast yesterday at around 1:30pm. 24 hours later, SG is at 1.009 according to the pill. I'm not sure how accurate the numbers are as the pill was only calibrated with plain water but as an estimate, it should be good. This is a 29 point drop in SG in 24 hours from a dry pitch. It is still bubbling like hell, so I suspect it still has some time to go. Of course, I do not know what the beer will be like. The temperature reading of the pill is indicating a range from 24 to the current 27 and M54 prefers 18-20. So I hope the pressure fermenting helps and the yeast doesn't throw too many esters and keeps things clean. It's not how I intend to use the FermZilla but the circumstances asked for it. Let's see what I get in the end.

Because I cannot cold crash it, I will xfer it into a keg, put it in the keezer for a few days and then push it into a serving keg. It is gassed at 15psi, so it should be good to drink right away. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

12 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Oh boy this pressure fermenting is like wow. It's set to 15psi and pitched a single packet of dry M54 yeast yesterday at around 1:30pm. 24 hours later, SG is at 1.009 according to the pill. I'm not sure how accurate the numbers are as the pill was only calibrated with plain water but as an estimate, it should be good. This is a 29 point drop in SG in 24 hours from a dry pitch. It is still bubbling like hell, so I suspect it still has some time to go. Of course, I do not know what the beer will be like. The temperature reading of the pill is indicating a range from 24 to the current 27 and M54 prefers 18-20. So I hope the pressure fermenting helps and the yeast doesn't throw too many esters and keeps things clean. It's not how I intend to use the FermZilla but the circumstances asked for it. Let's see what I get in the end.

Because I cannot cold crash it, I will xfer it into a keg, put it in the keezer for a few days and then push it into a serving keg. It is gassed at 15psi, so it should be good to drink right away. 

Looks pretty good AK, I keep looking at those & see more & more on here, but I don't think I am ready to jump in yet. I will continue with the BrewZilla & cubes/fermenters for now.

They seem to produce a good beer in a short time.

[Red devil 44]

On 3/30/2024 at 9:43 PM, Shamus O'Sean said:

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.

Looks good @Shamus O'Sean

[Red devil 44]

Put my FWK XPA down yesterday, has fired up to 15 psi already in the All Rounder. 

Used 2 packs of US-05 as I needed to use one up or it would go out of date so chucked it in with the other one. 

 

[kmar92]

3 hours ago, Aussiekraut said:

Oh boy this pressure fermenting is like wow. It's set to 15psi and pitched a single packet of dry M54 yeast yesterday at around 1:30pm. 24 hours later, SG is at 1.009 according to the pill. I'm not sure how accurate the numbers are as the pill was only calibrated with plain water but as an estimate, it should be good. This is a 29 point drop in SG in 24 hours from a dry pitch. It is still bubbling like hell, so I suspect it still has some time to go. Of course, I do not know what the beer will be like. The temperature reading of the pill is indicating a range from 24 to the current 27 and M54 prefers 18-20. So I hope the pressure fermenting helps and the yeast doesn't throw too many esters and keeps things clean. It's not how I intend to use the FermZilla but the circumstances asked for it. Let's see what I get in the end.

Because I cannot cold crash it, I will xfer it into a keg, put it in the keezer for a few days and then push it into a serving keg. It is gassed at 15psi, so it should be good to drink right away. 

That is the advantage of pressure fermenting, you can ferment at higher temps without the wort throwing unwanted esters, and therefore have very fast ferments especially with lagers that otherwise take some time.

I am not a fan of the PET pressure fermenters though, I have 2 of them and I had mixed results with them. I now have 2 x SS kegmenters and they are great, very robust and durable and the only downsides are that you can not see the ferment and they are a bit problematic when using a Pill and getting it to talk to my network is a little hit and miss.

[Aussiekraut]

So after 48 hours, the brew has finished. At one point, the temp went right up to almost 29C but hopefully, that was past the bad taste stage.  I'll leave it for a couple of days, before cold crashing it in a keg. What's interesting about the graph of the pill telemetry is, that it shows the direct correlation between SG and ABV. Check those red and yellow lines out. They're almost the exact opposite. When the SG reading goes down, the ABV reading goes up naturally and vice versa. But we all know that. I just love the visualisation of it in a real-life sample. 

Edited April 3 by Aussiekraut

[jennyss]

What is the green line in your graph please @Aussiekraut?

[Aussiekraut]

3 hours ago, jennyss said:

What is the green line in your graph please @Aussiekraut?

It is the velocity of the ferment at any given time. It indicates the change in fermentation speed over time. At its peak, it would have changed 40 SG points per day, had it continued at that speed. TBH, I don't see much point in this but I haven't switched it off either.  The only usefulness is that it shows the correlation between temperature and yeast activity. It was at its peak, when the temperature was at its highest, just like ABV production increased around the same time. 

Edited April 3 by Aussiekraut

[Graculus]

I finally got around to making my SMOTY for this year!

Followed the recipe but used some Nottingham yeast I saved from the IPA I just bottled.

A bit late I know, but I have some dark beer left from last winter, before I get stuck into this.

 

[Red devil 44]

The Kveik Yeast has ripped through my NEIPA in 3 days.

OG-1048

Now sitting at 1004, I think she is done, any thoughts ? 

 

[Classic Brewing Co]

49 minutes ago, Red devil 44 said:

The Kveik Yeast has ripped through my NEIPA in 3 days.

OG-1048

Now sitting at 1004, I think she is done, any thoughts ? 

 

Depends on how desperate you are. 

Personally, I would leave it a tad longer.

[Red devil 44]

1 hour ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Depends on how desperate you are. 

Personally, I would leave it a tad longer.

Not desperate so yeah I’ll check gravity again tomorrow and if stable I will make a call.

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

On 4/7/2024 at 3:39 PM, Red devil 44 said:

The Kveik Yeast has ripped through my NEIPA in 3 days.

OG-1048

Now sitting at 1004, I think she is done, any thoughts ? 

 

did you use dry enzyme? really low reading

[Back Brewing]

My Stone & Wood AG clone I didn't dirty batch it onto the Verdant yeast cake because I didn't know how high the Krausen would go so I collected 3 jars of slurry and used one of them didn't take long for it to take off. I'll dry hop with 50g of galaxy when I start the CC notice under the dark Krausen there is a layer of Krausen that is snow white this happens with Verdant and doesn't drop until you CC

 

Edited April 9 by Back Brewing

[Red devil 44]

All Rounder complete with hop bong is ready to go, leave sanitiser in for a bit then empty out and load my cubed American IPA into. 

[Aussiekraut]

A fresh batch of Helles in the FermZilla

The wheat wine in the other FV with the Notty starter for the next batch

and while I was cleaning the other Coopers fermenter, I noticed it is time for a replacement. It’s been in use for at least 5 years and has some battle scars as you can see. Those cracks are a little worry. It will be the spare and I already have a signed it a job as a secondary fermenter for the barrel aged porter. But I really need to replace it because I am sure the other of the Coopers fermenters doesn’t look much better

. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

I won a $25.00 voucher online & Big W was one of the vendors  so I thought I would put it to good use, funny thing was their website said BE3 was in stock, but no, with the extra malt & I will steep 200gm of Vienna should compensate. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

A quick Kit Stout for a keg filler, I had 1pkt of S-04 so I used that.

It will go in the Ferment Fridge shortly. 

 

[Back2Brewing]

Think trumpets and angels song. Introducing the HI Brewery Nordic Hazy IPA. OMG. Delisch'

Mid bitterness, super tropical fruity, and not too sweet. Great carbonation, silky mouthfeel.

In think it may overload your taste buds. If you keep drinking/sipping regularly you miss out on the full flavour. If you have longer gaps between drinking/sipping, each new sip is the full original full flavour. It's amazing. 

[John304]

17 hours ago, Back2Brewing said:

Think trumpets and angels song. Introducing the HI Brewery Nordic Hazy IPA. OMG. Delisch'

Mid bitterness, super tropical fruity, and not too sweet. Great carbonation, silky mouthfeel.

In think it may overload your taste buds. If you keep drinking/sipping regularly you miss out on the full flavour. If you have longer gaps between drinking/sipping, each new sip is the full original full flavour. It's amazing. 

Is this another double?

[Back2Brewing]

5 hours ago, John304 said:

Is this another double?

Sorry, do you mean, is this a double IPA? No. It comes out to ABV of 5.86%.inc bottle fermentation.