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I'm currently keeping my carboy company in my bedroom. It's not a very chatty or considerate companion, just kind of generally flatulent. The temperature in here is quite warm, maybe something like 80*F. Is this a problem? EDIT: gently caress. Looks like cooler temperatures are better for brewing. Well I took the carboy downstairs and set it in a corner. Hopefully one day of primary fermentation at a warm temperature won't be too bad... ShadowCatboy fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 06:59
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ShadowCatboy posted:I'm currently keeping my carboy company in my bedroom. It's not a very chatty or considerate companion, just kind of generally flatulent. Really depends on what yeast you are using. But yeah 80 is way to high if you're not doing a saison. Worst that can happen though is that your beer is estry and buttery. One day should probably be fine though.
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Mar 12, 2014 10:38
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ShadowCatboy posted:Aren't you supposed to leave the must exposed to air for the first few days or so to allow it to grow aerobically? No, fully aerate your must prior to pitching. Then you can take the airlock off to aerate, but put it back on after you're done. The airlock also stops fruit flies and other crap form getting in. Adding air with a milk frother or shaking it around is plenty enough to get the yeast what it needs to do its job and not have it grow "acetically" (A word I just made up about vinegar).
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Mar 12, 2014 13:54
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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. I'll be damned, there's an experiment that confirms the rehydration myth. http://bkyeast.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/more-on-yeast-rehydration/ I'll try rehydration next time for sure.
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Mar 12, 2014 14:53
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Weird question but my sig other is a food hygiene person so here goes: what are the risk factors for botulism when using habanero peppers while brewing mead? Normally the combination of pH combines with rising alcohol content to destroy any spores, and the initial boilin of the must destroys the toxin, but adding a pepper late in the fermentation game seems like it's asking for trouble. I know the chances are extremely low but for a habanero mead specifically they aren't zero. How would you ferment in such a way to eliminate the risk? I'm thinking ferment with a very low-pH honey but even then I'd think that soaking the peppers in liquor for a while would be the safe way to go. Maybe even create a habanero liqueur?
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Mar 12, 2014 16:04
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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. Brew a lager and taste your hydrometer sample when it's about 80% of the way to FG. It tastes like slick buttery stuff. Or try Red Hook ESB, where there's a decent amount of it there on purpose. Diacetyl isn't necessarily an off flavor, even Czech/Bohemian Pilsner allows for a small detectable amount (although this was apparently added to the guidelines because Pilsner Urquell changed their fermentation schedule to get beer out the door faster, and you can't exactly say that the classic commercial example of the style doesn't fit the style).
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Mar 12, 2014 16:29
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Prop Wash posted:Weird question but my sig other is a food hygiene person so here goes: what are the risk factors for botulism when using habanero peppers while brewing mead? Normally the combination of pH combines with rising alcohol content to destroy any spores, and the initial boilin of the must destroys the toxin, but adding a pepper late in the fermentation game seems like it's asking for trouble. I know the chances are extremely low but for a habanero mead specifically they aren't zero. How would you ferment in such a way to eliminate the risk? I'm thinking ferment with a very low-pH honey but even then I'd think that soaking the peppers in liquor for a while would be the safe way to go. Maybe even create a habanero liqueur? It's my understanding that botulism does not reproduce at a pH under 4.5, which is well below the pH of a fermented beer or mead, so from that standpoint alone I think you are fine no matter what. If you were really paranoid you could make a habanero tincture by chopping the pepper and soaking it in a small volume of vodka for a few days. That's probably better anyway because it would allow you more control so that you can pull a sample of mead, dose it with the tincture to your taste, and then scale up to the full brew.
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Mar 12, 2014 16:32
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Honestly, I think if botulism were a concern in mead at all, it would be a dramatic problem in all types of mead, as the honey that goes into it can contain the spores. This is, after all, why honey has the warning label on it saying not to feed it to infants. There's also a pretty strong tendency for meadmakers to scrupulously avoid heating the must or adding any sulfites to it. I certainly used nothing like that when I've made mead, and that was nothing but honey, warm (not hot) water, nutrients, and yeast. Based only on a quick look around the Web, as I am not a food safety scientist, I see that botulism is a concern in "low-acid" canned goods, which appears to mean pH > 4.6; and the pH of fermented mead is usually around 3.5 - in fact, adding buffers (potassium carbonate) to fermenting mead is recommended as it can drop below 3.2, below which wine yeasts have troubles. Add to this the alcohol, which can range as high as 13-14% by volume, and I think it's a remarkably safe drink. I don't think adding habaneros to mead would alter the pH enough that botulism becomes an issue. After all, I think you'll be adding an ounce or two, not pounds. EDIT: Sources: http://www.morebeer.com/public/pdf/wmead.pdf http://foodpreservation.about.com/g...re-Canners.html Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 16:34
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Prop Wash posted:Weird question but my sig other is a food hygiene person so here goes: what are the risk factors for botulism when using habanero peppers while brewing mead? Normally the combination of pH combines with rising alcohol content to destroy any spores, and the initial boilin of the must destroys the toxin, but adding a pepper late in the fermentation game seems like it's asking for trouble. I know the chances are extremely low but for a habanero mead specifically they aren't zero. How would you ferment in such a way to eliminate the risk? I'm thinking ferment with a very low-pH honey but even then I'd think that soaking the peppers in liquor for a while would be the safe way to go. Maybe even create a habanero liqueur? There's an often-quoted axiom that "no human pathogens can survive in fermented beer (wine/mead)." I'm not sure how true that really is, and botulism is a hardy fucker, but in general the acidity and alcohol content should be enough to kill just about anything -- not to mention that during primary fermentation, you've got hundreds of billions to trillions of very happy S. cerevisiae cells that are gonna fight anything else that wants their food. That said, if you're worried about it, making a tincture of a neutral spirit with some peppers isn't a bad idea, it'll sure as heck kill anything, and it'll allow you to dose it out carefully -- adding peppers to stuff can be tricky, they very from pepper to pepper, and it doesn't take much to go from "ooh, some nice heat really brings out the flavors" to "gently caress gently caress gently caress burny". Make your tincture for a couple weeks, and at bottling time, pull a sample, add a drop or two of your tincture at a time (or dilute it and add a tsp at a time), get it to where you want it, then scale it up to the whole batch.
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Mar 12, 2014 16:37
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Toxx posted: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. It's sort of tough to follow your posts when you use 'g' as a unit to mean both grams and gallons. e: Also, reading that dry yeast experiment - it seems like that's all out the window when you're doing a starter for like 24+ hours, maybe 48+? Eventually I need to track down the Brewing Network podcast where the girls from White Labs came on and talked a lot about starter myths. ChickenArise fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 16:50
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So it's been about 36 hours and still no airlock bubbling. I opened the bucket and it looks like this: Bad?
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Mar 12, 2014 17:37
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So, bottled my too-bitter stout without issue, and took a sample of my efficiency-disaster ('Session') pale and it was loving delicious. Just dry-hopped the balls off it. Off to a hot start!Martello posted:So it's been about 36 hours and still no airlock bubbling. I opened the bucket and it looks like this: Looks like building krausen. Airlock activity is not the cardinal sign of healthy fermentation. It is often less dramatic than you would anticipate.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:39
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LeeMajors posted:Looks like building krausen. Airlock activity is not the cardinal sign of healthy fermentation. It is often less dramatic than you would anticipate. Cool. So should I just stop worrying about it and go through the secondary/bottling stages as normal?
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Mar 12, 2014 17:47
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Martello posted:Cool. So should I just stop worrying about it and go through the secondary/bottling stages as normal? Yeah, that's what it should look like. Lack of airlock activity could mean a lot of things, but it might be that the seal on your bucket isn't airtight (which is generally fine, there's positive pressure + a blanket of CO2 on top, so nothing is getting in). Secondary is largely unnecessary unless you're adding something like fruit, or aging for a long time and want to reduce headspace, or just want to free up your primary for another batch. You can generally just leave it for 3 weeks or so in primary and then bottle (once your gravity has been stable for a couple days).
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Mar 12, 2014 17:58
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Martello posted:So it's been about 36 hours and still no airlock bubbling. I opened the bucket and it looks like this: That just looks like the break material and yeast rafts from krausen, to me.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:34
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Airlock might not be bubbling because of a bad seal on the bucket as well as there's a lot of head space which can sometimes not produce as much airlock movement.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:36
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ChickenArise posted:It's sort of tough to follow your posts when you use 'g' as a unit to mean both grams and gallons. I realized that after I re-read it to change the quarts to gallons. Then I got all  and hoped for the best. I also use it for gravity.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:57
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Hops are coming up already: These are in half-barrel in south-facing nook that gets pretty warm. I'll cut them back once or twice before they get to grow properly since I've read that helps. One of the new rhizomes I planted last year has a few sprouts too but nothing yet from the other 6. It's a little too early to get worried about it though.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:59
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Hops are coming up already: I can't wait to own a yard / space to hold barrels of dirt.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:26
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Hops are coming up already I know most of us avoid the Home Brew Talk forums but some helpful handy guy has reverse engineered the hardware of the STC-1000 controller everyone uses to control the fermentation chillers and kegerators. That's not an amazing feat but what is amazing is that he rewrote the firmware and added a bunch of features. Stuff like temperature/duration profiles, and Fahrenheit support. Source code and directions on GitHub
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Mar 12, 2014 21:04
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CapnBry posted:My hops started popping up about 3 weeks ago too. I'm hoping this is the year they try to drown me in cones because last (the first) year, I ended up with only a few dry ounces. Reminds me that I need to get the trellis up. I'm sure you'll get more. They take a few years to get fully established, and then you'll never get rid of them.
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Mar 12, 2014 21:09
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Hops are coming up already: We got 5 inches of snow last night.
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Mar 12, 2014 21:46
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more falafel please posted:We got 5 inches of snow last night. Same, doesn't look hopeful for a bountiful yield this year. 
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Mar 12, 2014 22:11
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CapnBry posted:My hops started popping up about 3 weeks ago too. I'm hoping this is the year they try to drown me in cones because last (the first) year, I ended up with only a few dry ounces. Reminds me that I need to get the trellis up. This is really amazing. It looks like a great step on my way to getting a full BrewPi setup up and running.
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Mar 12, 2014 22:45
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3787 is going batshit insane:   It CRAWLED UP THE TUBE and got in the water.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:06
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 I'VE BEEN ALERTED TO SOMETHING THAT'S NOT NEWS TO ANYONE AT ALL:Beer4TheBeerGod posted:3787 is going batshit insane:  man I love 3787 stories. I think DocJ had one about it attacking his neighbor or something.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:30
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Question: is a secondary preferable for dry-hopping or can I just do it in primary? I'm looking at throwing 2oz of Citra into my IPA but I'm feeling lazy today.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:54
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the yellow dart posted:Question: is a secondary preferable for dry-hopping or can I just do it in primary? I'm looking at throwing 2oz of Citra into my IPA but I'm feeling lazy today. If you don't plan on recycling your yeast cake then yeah no problem, just make sure you wait until fermentation is 100% complete. It's also okay if you DO plan on recycling your yeast cake, but you'll want to take the extra step of washing the yeast, which ... I usually only do every 2-3 batches or so.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:56
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the yellow dart posted:Question: is a secondary preferable for dry-hopping or can I just do it in primary? I'm looking at throwing 2oz of Citra into my IPA but I'm feeling lazy today. I did the very same thing today. 2.75oz of pellets directly into the pale. I fermented with Notty so I don't give too much of a poo poo about washing the cake, and loving around with a muslin bag that probably wouldn't do much for straining the ground up pellets just seemed like too much trouble. Smells a-mazing.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:16
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Speaking of Citra, my latest pale ale was all Amarillo and it's so good I plan on making it again immediately. I have a bit of Citra left in the fridge and I was thinking of combining the two for maximum fruitfucking. Anyone know if these two play well together?
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Mar 13, 2014 02:30
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fullroundaction posted:If you don't plan on recycling your yeast cake then yeah no problem, just make sure you wait until fermentation is 100% complete. I brew with a lot of cheap dry yeast so I can dry hop in primary. Because :lazy: haha My current pale ale might be the slowest us-05 fermented beer I've ever done. Must a gotten an old packet or something.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:43
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fullroundaction posted:If you don't plan on recycling your yeast cake then yeah no problem, just make sure you wait until fermentation is 100% complete. I'm at the 11 day mark with US-04 at ~68 degrees the whole time so I'm 90% sure it's done (someone might have been a little drunk and forgotten to take a hydrometer sample BEFORE the yeast goes in. Stupid steps. Stupid someone. Who might be me). In you go Citra!
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Mar 13, 2014 03:18
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the yellow dart posted:I'm at the 11 day mark with US-04 at ~68 degrees the whole time so I'm 90% sure it's done (someone might have been a little drunk and forgotten to take a hydrometer sample BEFORE the yeast goes in. Stupid steps. Stupid someone. Who might be me). In you go Citra!  who takes hydrometer samples?Pssssh. Haha Of course I mostly do extract. But really at that time its totally fine to dry hop.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:23
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ChiTownEddie posted:
I drank a sample tonight, tasted like All Day IPA, threw in Citra, preparing to WIN! I might not have boiled off a whole half gallon since I did BIAB and my efficiency was way better than anticipated. As in I thought I'd be down to 5 gallons in an 90 minutes of boiling from 7.5 gallons but I wasn't. Needed more time....but who doesn't?
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Mar 13, 2014 05:32
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the yellow dart posted:As in I thought I'd be down to 5 gallons in an 90 minutes of boiling from 7.5 gallons but I wasn't. Needed more time....but who doesn't? Use your boil-off rate as the baseline for your next brew. Seriously, I kicked myself for not paying enough attention over my first, hell, half dozen beers. Ended up with well under 5 gallons a few times or did some extra long boils as a result.
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Mar 13, 2014 06:33
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This weekend I'm planning to make a Berlinerweisse with the sour in mash tun / use grain hulls to inoculate method. Does anyone here have personal experience with that? I'm fully aware that there's a decent chance I'll end up making something that smells like vomit.
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Mar 13, 2014 08:19
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Glottis posted:This weekend I'm planning to make a Berlinerweisse with the sour in mash tun / use grain hulls to inoculate method. Does anyone here have personal experience with that? I'm fully aware that there's a decent chance I'll end up making something that smells like vomit. I tried this and got a beer that smelled like blue cheese and gummy bears. Still not sure what happened...
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Mar 13, 2014 13:27
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more falafel please posted:Secondary is largely unnecessary unless you're adding something like fruit, or aging for a long time and want to reduce headspace, or just want to free up your primary for another batch. You can generally just leave it for 3 weeks or so in primary and then bottle (once your gravity has been stable for a couple days). So is secondary just one of those things they always tell you to do but you really don't have to? AIH Winter Solstice Directions posted:
I really don't have to do that? I mean, I won't be doing it because I'm going out to do some ARMY TRAINING for the next two weeks on Sunday, so my wife would have to. I'm sure both of us would be happier if she didn't have to mess with it.
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Mar 13, 2014 14:07
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"It's so cheap to brew I just need to order malt, yeast and hops" Except I always end up buying something more. One online store has the malt but not the yeast, so two orders. Oh a stirring spoon, oh a siphon clip, oh more pbw. "Oh I have an hour to kill, better walk by the homebrew store and get some caps, oh a thermometer and some dme" 
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Mar 13, 2014 14:15
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Glottis posted:This weekend I'm planning to make a Berlinerweisse with the sour in mash tun / use grain hulls to inoculate method. Does anyone here have personal experience with that? I'm fully aware that there's a decent chance I'll end up making something that smells like vomit. Check our SA Brewtoad group and I have a BW Recipe listed that turned out fantastic with this method. Basically, do a mash of 3 pounds each barley and wheat, let it convert, throw in some acid malt for a bit to lower pH. Let it chill out to ~100 and innoculate with some leftover grain. Leave it for 2 days, boil, and pitch some regular yeast.
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Mar 13, 2014 14:18
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