What's in Your Fermenter? 2016

[Otto Von Blotto]

Why not just leave the hydrometer sitting in the first sample? You can see it drop, or stabilise or whatever, without having to take a second one. I figure it's a bit like a crude fast ferment test. I usually do this with the samples I take on day 3 (ales) and day 5 (lagers). Once it stabilises in the sample I tip it out and wait another day or two before taking actual FG confirmation readings. They usually line up.

 

My Bo Pils will be kegged/bottled on Wednesday too, and then I'll prepare to pitch the Citra pale ale due in next.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[joolbag]

Kelsey, what was your hop schedule for your all Citra APA?

 

I have one in the fermenter at the moment and mine was 28g at 60, 14g at 15, 14g at 5, 42g at flameout and then a 30g dry hop

 

13.2% AA. Hoping for a nice hoppy, flavoursome yet balanced APA. I used Briess Pale Ale extract and 500g DME for the base of this brew. And a very light crystal steep.

[Beerlust]

Hi Kelsey.

Why not just leave the hydrometer sitting in the first sample? You can see it drop' date=' or stabilise or whatever, without having to take a second one. I figure it's a bit like a crude fast ferment test.[/quote']

I might just do that. I have done this once before after you mentioned doing this some time ago with your FV samples. Part of me always wondered about the potential of wild yeasts to enter the sample this way & thus affect FG. But if you are simply using this as an active monitoring sample, & still base your decision on whether the brew has fermented out from a late sample out of the main FV, then I can't see any harm.

 

Cheers & good brewing,

 

Lusty.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Kelsey' date=' what was your hop schedule for your all Citra APA?

 

I have one in the fermenter at the moment and mine was 28g at 60, 14g at 15, 14g at 5, 42g at flameout and then a 30g dry hop

 

13.2% AA. Hoping for a nice hoppy, flavoursome yet balanced APA. I used Briess Pale Ale extract and 500g DME for the base of this brew. And a very light crystal steep.[/quote']Hey mate, mine was 12g @ FWH (75 minute boil), 20g @ 10 minutes, 20g @ flameout to 37 IBUs, and I'll do a 40g dry hop as well. Mine are 13.9% AA. I have a Simcoe pale ale planned for the next brew day too but I'm not using any of it early in the boil.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[Otto Von Blotto]

I might just do that. I have done this once before after you mentioned doing this some time ago with your FV samples. Part of me always wondered about the potential of wild yeasts to enter the sample this way & thus affect FG. But if you are simply using this as an active monitoring sample' date=' & still base your decision on whether the brew has fermented out from a late sample out of the main FV, then I can't see any harm.

 

Cheers & good brewing,

 

Lusty.[/size']

Hey Lusty, yeah it probably is a bit of a risk, although in saying that, I've got an FG sample from my Bo Pils that's been sitting there like that for about 2 weeks and the SG has been stable the whole time. It is beginning to get a bit of a white film on it now, but for the few days to a week that an active sample sits there the risk of wild yeasts taking over is probably quite small. But yeah, I always make sure to take proper FG samples every batch; even though I'm kegging now and it doesn't matter in regard to bottle bombs anymore, I still prefer the fermentation to be finished for the right flavours to be there.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[Beerlust]

My current Saison brew is down to 1.026 from 1.055 after about 3 days in the fermenter. Not bad.

 

If using the Belle Saison strain I would expect a final attenuation of around 85% with this mix giving a FG of approx. 1.008. It will be interesting to see what this cultured bottle conditioned strain will be able to reach before it says enough is enough. I will be monitoring this throughout in case it does stall, & I have to pitch the backup Belle Saison yeast to finish of the ferment as my stepping up procedure wasn't without some clumsiness.

 

Fingers crossed though.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

My current Saison brew is down to 1.026 from 1.055 after about 3 days in the fermenter. Not bad.

 

If using the Belle Saison strain I would expect a final attenuation of around 85% with this mix giving a FG of approx. 1.008. It will be interesting to see what this cultured bottle conditioned strain will be able to reach before it says enough is enough. I will be monitoring this throughout in case it does stall' date=' & I have to pitch the backup Belle Saison yeast to finish of the ferment as my stepping up procedure wasn't without some clumsiness. [img']innocent[/img]

 

Fingers crossed though.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

 

Hey Lusty,

 

Just bottling one tonight that I used Belle Saison. Finished at 1.008 from a 1.052 start. Temp was ambient and went from 24-28c checking periodically. Took a week to finish and taste samples seem very good. Used a 1.5L starter for mine..

 

My guess is if it has went from 1.055 to 1.026 in 3 days it will finish no problem and around the 1.008 mark.

 

Greeny

[Mark D Pirate]

If it works well i might try to get some of the yeast cake off you Lusty ... Threw my hat in the ring for a kit beer case swap and planning on a Rye Saison just for some funky spicy summertime love .

 

After moving to AG a little while back i'm kinda interested to see what i can do with a no mashing beer these days with my hopefully better practices and procedures .

 

Bumped up the temp on the Bavarian Pils today , will bump it 2 C a day until it hits 20 C for a D rest for as long as it needs to clean up then ramp down to 0 for a CC , first time trying Polyclar as well so there's a few firsts for me this brew

[Red Sox]

I just put down a Celebration Ale. I added 300g Biscuit, 100g Roasted Barley, 100g Carafa Type3 with SAF05. It's been 48 hours in the fermenter I have to say it smells fantastic. I'm meant to dry hopped with 50g in a few days so it'll be even better.

[Beerlust]

Hi guys.

 

Well unfortunately it appears my attempt at stepping up some bottle conditioned yeast in an attempt to ferment out a full sized batch has failed somewhat & stalled. The gravity reading taken today is the same as yesterday. Visually the krausen has dropped out & only a thinnish foamy patch remains on the surface. Also the wort looks to be clearing towards the top which is not what you want to see with about 18 gravity points still remaining to hit FG!

 

What this tells me is I didn't have enough yeast cells to begin with despite the 3 step starter process I went through with it. So I've underpitched. I'm a little disappointed, but not stricken with grief over it. In hindsight I may have been able to ferment out a half sized batch, or a lower gravity beer with what I had cultured up. A pity I didn't think of that beforehand.

 

As I type this I have some boiled water cooling to re-hydrate the Belle Saison yeast that I had as back-up, & will give the wort a gentle stir & pitch this when ready, so no biggy.

 

The process has all been a bit of fun, & good for learning purposes so it's not all bad.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

[headmaster]

Lusty,

 

Might it be worth sanitising a stirrer/spoon and stirring up the yeast cake before pitching the extra yeast?

I have had some Wyeast 3944 stall at 1030, but in that case, most of the yeast had gone and got itself stuck in the substantial krausen, probably due to being a 50% wheat. In that case I shook back into suspension and off she went again.

 

Possibly the yeast you have isolated happen to be extremely flocculant, unlikely but maybe stirring it up and adding a degree or two of temp may get it going again.

 

[Hairy]

Unfortunately Lusty isn't very good at stirring things up. Oh, hang on .....

[Burton Snatch]

Fermenting a 'Pale Nelson' SMASH today. Maris Otter, and Nelson Sav hops. Adding a dry hop into the FV once things settle down a bit.

In the other FV today also started off an 'I.P.A Chinook'.

Both using Mangrove Jack M10 yeast, both got the treatment with the oxy wand for 2 minutes.

 

The Choc Stout I had sitting in a cube blew it's load all over the shed floor, I don't think I cleaned the cube well enough, but spent 10 times longer than that cleaning out all the boxes, furniture, etc that it ran under. Lessons learned eh!

 

I need to start doing double batches of the same recipe, with variations on yeasts, yeast mixes, temps, oxygen input, blah, blah, blah. Such a slow process though. So many variables to play with and only so many FVs and fridges.

 

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Just pitched my all Citra pale ale with the last lot of US-05 yeast I'll be using for now. I ended up with 26 litres in the FV with an OG of 1.0476, giving me an overall efficiency of 73.5%. Not too bad. Pitched the yeast at about 19/20C, which I was hoping for and it's now sitting at 18C. Unfortunately I won't be here over the weekend after I go back to work in a couple of hours, so I won't be able to see what the lag time is, but I will be back on Monday to take an SG reading to see where it's at. Predicted FG is 1.011, so it'll be interesting to see how close to that it is.

 

The wort smelled really good in the cube and going into the FV so I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out. It was oxygenated via the cylinder which I'll go into more detail about in the oxygenation thread.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[BlackSands]

All three FV's are empty.

 

What to brew next? Hmmmm......

[joolbag]

Hey hey! First time it makes sense to post in this thread. I poured my Sierra Nevada Pale Ale brew from cube into fermenter today. Thanks to Kelsey for the recipe and plenty of BIAB tips for my first ever all-grain brew.

 

I noted there was a bit of crap, maybe break material in the cube. I poured it all in because I didn't make a lot of wort and didn't want to waste any.

 

US-05 is the yeast, this time I made a 1L starter and use Kelsey's method of letting it ferment out before cold crashing and skimming off the spent beer. Pitched the entire yeast cake from starter at 1pm today. Will keep a watchful eye when I see krausen developing as this is the first time I've made a starter from a dry packet (prev slurry)

[Otto Von Blotto]

Assuming you didn't pour in any of the kettle trub to the cube, the trub that forms in the cube as it cools will just be cold break. There isn't really any problem adding this to the fermenter, the only potential problem with it is that it might make the trub level creep up closer to the tap but otherwise no issue. I usually tip some of it in myself when I tip the cubes into the FV, but not all of it.

 

I was quite surprised on this current batch getting 26 litres into the FV. Usually when I have to squeeze the cube to expel air to the point that I did on this batch, I struggle to get much past 24 litres. Maybe the cubes are starting to expand a bit.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[Alpaca Brew]

Saturday I made the Mangrove Jack's craft series Australian Pale Ale. It comes with 10g of their M44 yeast. The yeast smelled really nice and way different than the US05 I usually use. The kit also includes 30g of galaxy and 20g of ella for the dry hop around day 7. It is my first time using galaxy and am just waiting to open the hop pack to see what they smell like.

 

Peggy

[joolbag]

I had no idea that I would get cold.break in the cube! I just thought it would be clear wort!

 

So it seems at every step of all grain you lose volume... To the grain, to evapouration, kettle trub and finally, cold break in the cube.

 

So for your 25L cubes, how much do you leave behind of you decide not to pour it in? It looks likely that the crap will reach the tap once the yeast and other crap settles on the bottom. I'll prop it up tomo so the tap is higher

[Otto Von Blotto]

Cold break forms when the wort cools down, it doesn't matter what speed this occurs at, the cold break will still form.

 

At a guess I probably leave behind about a litre in the cube at the most. It's not much, as I do tip some of the cold break into the FV. Give it a bit of time, it always looks like a high layer at first but with time in the FV it settles down.

 

I often find there's a layer of trub in the bottom of the FV about the same height as the usual yeast cake at first, but by the end of fermentation it stays pretty much the same. I guess it gets compacted by yeast floccing out on it and probably the cold crash too.

 

So it seems at every step of all grain you lose volume… To the grain' date=' to evapouration, kettle trub and finally, cold break in the cube.[/quote'] You also lose volume to cooling shrinkage, probably about a litre for a standard size batch. This is where the overall efficiency comes from. It takes into account all these losses along the way to calculate how efficient the whole brewing process was from mash to pitching yeast. The mash has a big effect on it though; if the mash isn't very efficient, then neither will the rest of the process be.

[ImaginativeName]

Why not just leave the hydrometer sitting in the first sample? You can see it drop' date=' or stabilise or whatever, without having to take a second one. I figure it's a bit like a crude fast ferment test. I usually do this with the samples I take on day 3 (ales) and day 5 (lagers). Once it stabilises in the sample I tip it out and wait another day or two before taking actual FG confirmation readings. They usually line up.

 

My Bo Pils will be kegged/bottled on Wednesday too, and then I'll prepare to pitch the Citra pale ale due in next. [img']happy[/img]

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

 

Will give this a go

[Fancy a Cheeky Pint?]

I didn't want to suffer the same issue as last month when all three Kegs blew. So I managed to get three brews in the fermenters over the weekend.

 

Didn't think about the flaming weather though did I?

 

So I currently have an Amber Pilsner in the chiller enjoying the cold atmosphere and Two Ales (Dark and Old Oak Ale) that were dying of heat exhaustion at 30 degrees when I got home from work! Both currently sat in sinks full of cold water and wet towels draped all over them. Coming down now at 24 and 26 degrees!

 

Bugger!!!!!!

[ImaginativeName]

I didn't want to suffer the same issue as last month when all three Kegs blew. So I managed to get three brews in the fermenters over the weekend.

 

Didn't think about the flaming weather though did I?

 

So I currently have an Amber Pilsner in the chiller enjoying the cold atmosphere and Two Ales (Dark and Old Oak Ale) that were dying of heat exhaustion at 30 degrees when I got home from work! Both currently sat in sinks full of cold water and wet towels draped all over them. Coming down now at 24 and 26 degrees!

 

Bugger!!!!!!

 

Hope it works out, makes me feel a little ill thinking about beer going down the sink.

 

Could you just add more yeast? Or it's more a matter of off flavours when the temp gets too high?

[Otto Von Blotto]

The second one. And fusel alcohols, which also contribute to off flavours, solventy like..

 

I suspect this high temp fermenting in combination with shitty additions like a kg of table sugar is where homebrew got its bad reputation from

[ImaginativeName]

The second one. And fusel alcohols' date=' which also contribute to off flavours, solventy like..

 

I suspect this high temp fermenting in combination with shitty additions like a kg of table sugar is where homebrew got its bad reputation from [img']lol[/img]

 

"Homebrew"

 

That word used to send a shudder down my spine.

 

As a young man, I was never lucky enough to try one that I liked, they were mostly rubbish, and now that I think about it, I don't recall ever hearing the word "fermentables" used, only sugar. I think you're spot on Kelsey.

 

Put me off the idea for a very long time, I'm glad I came to my senses.