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I've got some questions regarding starters. I finally broke down and got what I needed for a stir plate. Should you put anything (like foil) on top of the flask while you have the starter on the stir plate? It's oxygenating it so I know it needs some exposure to air, but leaving yeast on a completely open container still seems odd to me. You just leave the whole thing running for a day or so, right? For something like a 1L starter, do folks cold-crash and decant or just pitch the whole thing?
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Mar 11, 2014 18:27
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internet celebrity posted:If it's a dual scale, use brix and convert to SG with a calculator online. Even if you calibrate it with distilled water, SG readings on dual scale refractometers can be kinda wonky above 1.050 or so. I went nuts trying to figure out why my efficiency had taken a nosedive after I got a refractometer Yeah thanks for the heads up. I was concerned last night when I was measuring some grape juice and the refract said 1.070 and my hydrometer said 1.064, both of which are calibrated perfectly for 1.000 with bottled water @ 68f. more falafel please posted:http://www.brewersfriend.com/2013/04/24/using-your-refractometer-correctly-for-maximum-accuracy-in-home-brewing/ Sweet
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Mar 11, 2014 18:30
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EvilLile posted:I've got some questions regarding starters. I finally broke down and got what I needed for a stir plate. Should you put anything (like foil) on top of the flask while you have the starter on the stir plate? It's oxygenating it so I know it needs some exposure to air, but leaving yeast on a completely open container still seems odd to me. I put foil over the top and decant before pitching. I wouldn't cold crash it though, you want the yeast to be active and ready. Just turn the stir plate off the night before and let it settle out at room temperature.
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Mar 11, 2014 18:31
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I want a little variety in what I'm putting out. 5 gallons of brew lasts me, myself, alone a long time. Thinking of buying enough grains to do some 2.5-3 gallon batches to put in my multiple 6 gallon carboys. Thinking of doing a half of this: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/hopheads-flat-rear end-tired/print I realize the difference in price is basically $5-7. But I like I said, I get tired of the same thing, so it's all good to me. Good idea or bad idea?
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Mar 11, 2014 18:33
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LaserWash posted:I want a little variety in what I'm putting out. 5 gallons of brew lasts me, myself, alone a long time. Thinking of buying enough grains to do some 2.5-3 gallon batches to put in my multiple 6 gallon carboys. I do 2.5-3 gallon BIAB batches and it works wonderfully. The beer I've made using this setup is fantastic and it required minimal investment. I'd highly recommend it.
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Mar 11, 2014 19:22
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Man, I do not understand all of the love for us-05...every batch I've done with it has had some kind of off flavor. I've also only used it on ciders, and those tend to be pretty sensitive to stuff like that. I was trying to compare us-05 and wb-06 with identical small batches of cider, and wb-06 is definitely the winner so far. Still worse than champagne yeast, though, so maybe I'll just stick with that in the future... Age will improve both, but even with aging I think all of my worst batches have used us-05.
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Mar 11, 2014 20:32
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I've never tried a cider with US-05, but I have had great success with it in ales. But WB-06 isn't a good replacement for US-05, because isn't that some german style?
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Mar 11, 2014 20:36
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ChiTownEddie posted:I've never tried a cider with US-05, but I have had great success with it in ales. I had read somewhere online that it has some esters that compliment cider flavors, or something. It was more of a "supposedly clean yeast vs fruity estery yeast" test than a "two similar clean yeasts" test. Both started off at 1.072(because I forgot I was doing 3 gal batches when I measured the sugar), and both ended right around 1.000(us-05 was 0.999 and wb-06 was 1.001), but the two batches taste totally different. I had rehydrated both yeasts and added yeast nutrient to both batches. Also, does anyone have a good method for getting rid of all of the bubbles that starsan leaves in/on everything? The only thing I've found that really works is letting the bottles sit on the bottle tree for like six hours. I'm still trying to figure out what is off about the ciders I've been making for the last two years compared to what I was making five years ago. The main things I can think of have been using starsan rather than pbw as a sanitizer(yes, I know, pbw isn't a sanitizer, but it used to be sold that way), using different yeast nutrients, using apple juice instead of apple cider, and using white labs california ale(or us-05) instead of wyeast california ale. The batches done with champagne yeast have remained pretty much the same(dry, alcoholy), but the ale yeast batches mostly haven't been very good. I don't think it's a temp control issue, because some of the best(and also some of the worst) ciders I have done in the last couple of years sat in a kitchen pantry with pretty wildly fluctuating temps. Cider certainly is easier to make than beer, but it's a lot harder to make it good! 
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Mar 11, 2014 21:04
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BLARGHLE posted:I had read somewhere online that it has some esters that compliment cider flavors, or something. It was more of a "supposedly clean yeast vs fruity estery yeast" test than a "two similar clean yeasts" test. The foam doesn't taste like anything. I'm pretty confident saying your off-flavor isn't Star-San. The foam should reassure you that its sanitized, not make you worry about off-flavors from the foam itself. Saniclean is a non-foaming no-rinse sanitizer, as is Iodophor solution, if you're looking for something like that.
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Mar 11, 2014 21:08
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Mr. Beer sells some no-name no foam no rinse sanitizer, but it takes 10 minutes =[.
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Mar 11, 2014 21:13
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internet celebrity posted:I put foil over the top and decant before pitching. I wouldn't cold crash it though, you want the yeast to be active and ready. Just turn the stir plate off the night before and let it settle out at room temperature. If I have time (say, 48hr+ for a medium or larger starter) I cold crash, decant the starter wort, then swirl occasionally (no stir plate) while it reaches room temp as I get my brew together.
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Mar 11, 2014 21:20
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Angry Grimace posted:The foam doesn't taste like anything. I'm pretty confident saying your off-flavor isn't Star-San. The foam should reassure you that its sanitized, not make you worry about off-flavors from the foam itself. Saniclean is a non-foaming no-rinse sanitizer, as is Iodophor solution, if you're looking for something like that. I used to use iodophor with my kegs, and I seem to recall it being quite expensive, and also staining things. I just worry because starsan smells funny!
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Mar 11, 2014 21:23
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Starsan is basically phosphoric acid. If you are diluting it per the manufacturer's instructions then there shouldn't be enough of it in your beer to have any measurable effect. It is only noticeable if you are a microbe trying to live in a film of it.
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Mar 11, 2014 21:44
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BLARGHLE posted:Man, I do not understand all of the love for us-05...every batch I've done with it has had some kind of off flavor. I've also only used it on ciders, and those tend to be pretty sensitive to stuff like that. I've used US-05 to great effect before, but the last batch of IPA I made about a month ago was a total diacetyl bomb. Hopefully some time in bottles helps things...
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Mar 11, 2014 22:01
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crazyfish posted:I've used US-05 to great effect before, but the last batch of IPA I made about a month ago was a total diacetyl bomb. Hopefully some time in bottles helps things... Assuming it's the same as Wyeast 1056, which everything I've read seems to suggest, then I've found that you have to be really careful to ferment at least in the 60s. The first batch I did with that yeast had the same thing happen to it - masses of diacetyl. Since then, though, everything has come out very well after paying careful attention to cooling when fermenting. The diacetyl did go away after a few months, although if you're making an IPA or something with a big aroma component, it may diminish.
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Mar 11, 2014 23:23
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Nobody actually knows if US-05 is the same yeast as 1056 and WLP001. What I can tell you, and most people can tell you, is that it tastes essentially the same and has similar ester creation. The difference for me is that I think US-05, for whatever reason, is much slower to flocculate than 001. Then again, my buddy insisted on dropping three vials of 001 into an Imperial Stout vs. 2 packets of US-05, so idk. I tried to save him 25 dollars, but I guess that wasn't okay.
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Mar 11, 2014 23:48
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ieatsoap6 posted:Assuming it's the same as Wyeast 1056, which everything I've read seems to suggest, then I've found that you have to be really careful to ferment at least in the 60s. The first batch I did with that yeast had the same thing happen to it - masses of diacetyl. Since then, though, everything has come out very well after paying careful attention to cooling when fermenting. The diacetyl did go away after a few months, although if you're making an IPA or something with a big aroma component, it may diminish. I had it in a temperature controlled chest freezer set to 64 degrees, and I verified the temperature with two different thermometers. I also hit it with pure O2, though I didn't rehydrate and just pitched the packet into 1.060 wort. Perhaps a starter or extra packet will help next time.
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Mar 12, 2014 00:31
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crazyfish posted:I had it in a temperature controlled chest freezer set to 64 degrees, and I verified the temperature with two different thermometers. I also hit it with pure O2, though I didn't rehydrate and just pitched the packet into 1.060 wort. Perhaps a starter or extra packet will help next time. Welp. I'm out of ideas. For my batch size I pitch the equivalent of two packets for a five gallon batch, so that could be it.
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Mar 12, 2014 01:01
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I need to try 1056/001/US-05 again -- most of my first 6 or 7 batches were 1056, and I never thought it was that great, but in hindsight that may be because I was badly temperature controlling them. That said, I like a bit of fruity in my ales, so "clean, neutral" sounds like a snoozefest to me.
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Mar 12, 2014 01:21
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I made an Oatmeal stout last week. The first all grain batch I made was John Palmer's stout recipe. I bought the full amount of grain but then decided to scale the recipe from 5G down to 3.5G. I did my percentages and everything turned out fine. I actually tasted my first bottle today and holy poo poo it's actually beer. (Why wouldn't it be? My OG and FG were all in line) The bottle tasted a little green. I fermented for about 2 weeks and then bottled and primed for 1 week. Definitely had a very faint yeasty aftertaste. I assume this will fade in time as I think 3 weeks from brewday to glass is pretty optimistic. I took the left over grain and scaled it for a small oatmeal stout. My total volume was 2g. My recipe had a small amount of brown sugar in it to contribute to the OG for the slight lack of grain. The oatmeal stout has been fermenting for about a week. My original intention was to make a coffee-oatmeal stout. My question is in regards to how I should proceed in introducing the coffee element. I considered brewing coffee and allowing it to cool then adding it, but I'm concerned that the quality of the coffee would degrade and effect the final product. I'd like to add grounds or whole beans (This seems like a very slow process) to the beer and allow to to cold brew on its own in the fermenter. Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd like to avoid making a tincture for the coffee as I would like to do as little processing to the beans as possible.
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Mar 12, 2014 01:50
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crazyfish posted:I've used US-05 to great effect before, but the last batch of IPA I made about a month ago was a total diacetyl bomb. Hopefully some time in bottles helps things... I can honestly say that I don't know what a diacytil bomb tastes like, and that all of my brews are fermented between 59f-63f, but I guess that's why I need some experienced tasters to tell me what I'm doing wrong.
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Mar 12, 2014 01:50
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BLARGHLE posted:I can honestly say that I don't know what a diacytil bomb tastes like, and that all of my brews are fermented between 59f-63f, but I guess that's why I need some experienced tasters to tell me what I'm doing wrong. You will once you taste it. I had no clue either because the descriptions everyone posts aren't quite right (not that I could do better). Same thing happened to me with DMS. If you go to more than 1 homebrew club meeting with enough people you'll quickly learn what all of those off flavor charts are describing (and feel a whole lot better about your own beer).
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Mar 12, 2014 02:04
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BLARGHLE posted:I can honestly say that I don't know what a diacytil bomb tastes like It tastes like microwave popcorn. Specifically, the butter flavor on the popcorn. Diacetyl is the chemical that makes actual butter taste like butter, so it's safe to say that diacetyl is butter flavor.
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Mar 12, 2014 02:07
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Toxx posted:My question is in regards to how I should proceed in introducing the coffee element. I considered brewing coffee and allowing it to cool then adding it, but I'm concerned that the quality of the coffee would degrade and effect the final product. I'd like to add grounds or whole beans (This seems like a very slow process) to the beer and allow to to cold brew on its own in the fermenter. Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd like to avoid making a tincture for the coffee as I would like to do as little processing to the beans as possible. I made a stout and just added a few oz of whole coffee beans in secondary. This seems to have given a pretty good coffee flavor. According to my notes, I used ~3/4 cup for 2.5 gallons. This was a bit on the strong side - I'd probably do 1/2 cup or so. I don't drink coffee normally, though, so I can't really speak to the nuances of the flavor. It's definitely not bad, though.
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Mar 12, 2014 02:23
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ieatsoap6 posted:I made a stout and just added a few oz of whole coffee beans in secondary. This seems to have given a pretty good coffee flavor. According to my notes, I used ~3/4 cup for 2.5 gallons. This was a bit on the strong side - I'd probably do 1/2 cup or so. I don't drink coffee normally, though, so I can't really speak to the nuances of the flavor. It's definitely not bad, though. That's extremely helpful. How long did you let it age in secondary? I'm probably just going to leave it in primary and throw beans on top of it but I'm curious about the length of time you let it go.
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Mar 12, 2014 02:38
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Toxx posted:That's extremely helpful. How long did you let it age in secondary? I'm probably just going to leave it in primary and throw beans on top of it but I'm curious about the length of time you let it go. It was in secondary for 2 or 3 weeks. Stupid gravity wouldn't go down. Beans in primary would be fine, I imagine. I'm just one of those secondary-using weridos.
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Mar 12, 2014 02:50
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Toxx posted:That's extremely helpful. How long did you let it age in secondary? I'm probably just going to leave it in primary and throw beans on top of it but I'm curious about the length of time you let it go. I do 5oz (weighed as whole beans), grind half of it pretty fine and half somewhat coarse, and let sit in 25-30oz water in a French press overnight in the fridge. Press and add to your 5gal batch. I don't know why, but I've liked the results (if kegging, of course) of adding the coffee after the beer's fermented. This all works well for what I've made so I stick with the process, but there's a bunch of ways to skin this cat.
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Mar 12, 2014 02:54
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Hah cool. My gf's brother got me a homebrewing kit for my birthday. Its a chocolate oatmeal stout and is basically a simple 1 gallon brew in the bag. Never used Muntons Ale yeast before, is it pretty clean?
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Mar 12, 2014 03:16
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Whatever happened with the guy who didn't put anything in his airlock because he wanted his mead to "breathe" from a couple pages back?
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Mar 12, 2014 03:26
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I've been contemplating a coffee oatmeal stout too ( ). I was going to cold-brew the coffee the day before, or maybe add some ground beans late in the boil. Now I'm wondering if putting them in during primary would be preferable.E:clarification Royal W fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 03:39
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I think I'm going to combine both suggestions and do a course grind of beans and put them directly into the fementer. I have roughly 2g of wort in the fermenter which translates to around 7500g of liguid. I normally brew my coffee at a 16:1 ratio which would put me at 473g of whole beans. That seems insanely high and I am of course not making coffee but coffee flavored beer, so I think I'll do ~25% of that and put 100g of beans in the fermenter at a very course grind.
Toxx fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 03:50
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Toxx posted:I think I'm going to combine both suggestions and do a course grind of beans and put them directly into the fementer. Be careful that you don't accidentally clog your bottling wand/keg whatever/other narrow openings. Also, 100 g beans for 2 quarts wort will probably be a bit on the stronger coffee side. That said, go for it!
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Mar 12, 2014 04:19
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I had my first party in which my homebrews were featured and it was generally a success - it was centered around brewing my own version of Pliny the Younger so people could taste something similar without waiting in line for a jillion hours. Turns out I oxidized the poo poo out of it and overshot my OG so it was too boozy. I have a year to practice my anti-oxidation techniques this time. However, the other 2 full batches of beer I brewed were really tasty and people destroyed them. One was a somewhat hoppy Sorachi Ace / Cascade blonde ale, and the other was a clone of the criminally underrated Cold Smoke Scotch ale. Both were awesome, although I wish I'd had time to clear the blonde with gelatin before the event. If anyone wants recipes for either, let me know.
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Mar 12, 2014 04:28
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ieatsoap6 posted:Be careful that you don't accidentally clog your bottling wand/keg whatever/other narrow openings. Also, 100 g beans for 2 quarts wort will probably be a bit on the stronger coffee side. That said, go for it! I think they're coarse enough where it won't be too big of a deal. I meant 2g not 2qt. Need to edit that. 100g coffee for 2qt would be coffee with beer in it.
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Mar 12, 2014 04:38
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Glottis posted:Maybe I'm missing something, but why wouldn't you put sanitizing liquid in the airlock? Aren't you supposed to leave the must exposed to air for the first few days or so to allow it to grow aerobically?
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Mar 12, 2014 05:08
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fullroundaction posted:You will once you taste it. I had no clue either because the descriptions everyone posts aren't quite right (not that I could do better). Same thing happened to me with DMS. Jo3sh posted:It tastes like microwave popcorn. Specifically, the butter flavor on the popcorn. Diacetyl is the chemical that makes actual butter taste like butter, so it's safe to say that diacetyl is butter flavor. I've never had any kind of popcorn flavor, so it's not that. Maybe DMS, but brief research says that's a product of bacterial infections in fermented products, and I seriously doubt I am having contamination problems exclusively with us-05. I'm just going to stick with champagne yeast in the future, and I guess only make the kinds of cider that work with that
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Mar 12, 2014 05:23
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BLARGHLE posted:I'm just going to stick with champagne yeast in the future, and I guess only make the kinds of cider that work with that Well, there are shedloads of other good dry strains for cider. I have two going right now, one with Red Star Montrachet and the other with Lalvin EC-1118. A friend of mine has a batch she will be starting soon with Red Star Cote des Blancs. All of those are under a dollar a packet, so no excuse not to try a few in small batches, IMO. It's also possible that the diacetyl you're getting is related somehow to the different nutrients in juice than in wort - yeast nutrients are cheap and easy to use.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:29
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crazyfish posted:I had it in a temperature controlled chest freezer set to 64 degrees, and I verified the temperature with two different thermometers. I also hit it with pure O2, though I didn't rehydrate and just pitched the packet into 1.060 wort. Perhaps a starter or extra packet will help next time. If you didn't rehydrate then that might have been the problem. My understanding is that the extra sugar in the wort can kill freeze dried yeast that isn't hydrated.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:36
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Jo3sh posted:Well, there are shedloads of other good dry strains for cider. I have two going right now, one with Red Star Montrachet and the other with Lalvin EC-1118. A friend of mine has a batch she will be starting soon with Red Star Cote des Blancs. All of those are under a dollar a packet, so no excuse not to try a few in small batches, IMO. No diacetyl here, just stank. I put yeast nutrients in everything I make, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:38
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:If you didn't rehydrate then that might have been the problem. My understanding is that the extra sugar in the wort can kill freeze dried yeast that isn't hydrated. Seems odd, I never rehydrate the dried yeast and have not had issues such as that. Really its finding strains that work for you, your recipes, and your environment and sticking with them. US-05 as only served me well. If not for others, well, totally fine.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:42
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