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Mr. Clark2 posted:Quick question about reusing yeast: With the yeast cake that is left in the bottom of the fermenter, can I just fill a sanitized mason jar with it and pop it in the fridge then pitch that directly into my next batch? I'm guessing there's more to it than that. I was just going to ask about yeast reuse as well. I have been using the following procedure, which I picked up from a couple of youtube and other tutorials, for a couple of batches now: - Siphon beer out of the FV, leaving just a bit on top of the yeast cake - Add some boiled and cooled water to make the total volume between 3 and 4 liters - Mix thoroughly, pour into a 4 liter glass jar - Leave it alone for an hour or two, at which point the trub has descended to the lower half of the jar, top half is hazy (yeasty) liquid - Pour the top half into a 2 liter jar, store that in the fridge - Reuse directly from the 2 liter jar or wait until the yeast has compacted to the bottom, discard the clear liquid from the top and decant yeast into smaller flask and reuse from that later This has worked great for two batches I have pitched with collected yeast. For the latest one I used 175 ml of thick yeast slurry which had spent 3 weeks in the fridge. I woke it up with a bit of pre-boil wort and it was bubbling happily already before the boil was finished. However the two remaining collected yeasts I have in flasks right now have only about 25 ml of yeast (Wyeast 3522 and 1214, both from strong belgian-style beers). Now I'm wondering: Anything obviously wrong with the procedure? Did I mess up when collecting these two? I assume so, since surely there should be more yeast than that? Is it better to get fresh packs rather than gambling with these two? How do I estimate the cell count anyway?
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Jan 4, 2017 19:26
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Der Penguingott posted:It seems to me that the spice of the saison with the Carmel dark fruit of the sugars and the mellow bourbon would work, but I wasn't sure if anyone here has tried it. There aren't a lot of commerical ones and a lot of people seem to really dislike black saisons... It's not impossible to make a good black saison. However, it is rather telling that the best examples of black saisons are those who manage to achieve the color without the expected flavors. The reason for this is that the low residual sugar, low PH and high carbonation inherent to the saison style will easily result in astringent or otherwise unpleasant beer when paired with ingredients that traditionally make beers black. What one can do is use small amounts (<6%) of dehusked or huskless roasted malts such as Carafa Special or Midnight Wheat, and/or smaller amounts (<6%) of dark crystal malts. Food coloring such as Sinamar, or dark syrups (<10%) are also possibilities, but no matter how you go about it you'll be toeing a fine line. Too much crystal and you'll ruin the refreshing dryness that is possibly the most important characteristic of a saison, and too much of anything dark (especially roasted malts) can bring about unpleasant astringency. Keep a close eye on your mash PH as well. Aim for 5.3 and you'll have some wiggle room. Personally, since I could never quite get the saison black enough for my taste without compromising on it being a great saison I stopped chasing this particular gimmick and embraced that saisons will be pale and stouts will be dark. I can always add hibiscus to my saison if I want to switch up how it looks. thotsky fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 20:21
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Der Penguingott posted:Anyone have good luck with a dark / black farmhouse beer? I gave this a try recently, but it really needed more color. I only used D180 candi sugar I had laying around with the Pils + White Wheat malt bill. It turned out decent (tastes a tiny bit sweet which is great for a holiday beer), but I'm still getting a handle on this new water source and it only turned out okay on the yeast profile. I would definitely recommend using a small amount of dehusked black malt for color. Otherwise it strikes me to be a lot like how you'd make a Black IPA. No roast flavors, just black malt for color. I have a bottle of a Dark Farmhouse from Enlightenment Brewing in Massachusetts that I'm waiting to open, and Avery Brewing's "Twenty Three" (Wild Prestige) was really very good for Brett forward dark saison. It tasted like they used Chocolate Malt and probably some Special B in Avery's beer which gave it quite the distinct taste coupled with the bugs. I'm personally less likely to try the chocolate route, but that's because I'm almost certain to get the ratios wrong for what I'm wanting it to taste like, and I don't have any way to keep 3724 hot enough right now to get the esters I want, and then there's the Brett secondary that is not at all predictable for me yet. It's a good beer, and would still probably work well without the Brett, but 3711 is not going to be enough to deal with the chocolate malt alone. I wouldn't use the caramelizing route with it, I've done that with Scotch Ales and they taste amazing, but that would be far too sweet for a Saison. Edit: You could probably get away with steeping the dehusked black malts separately and adding them in the last 10 min of the boil too. Jhet fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 20:21
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I'm brewing a black saison either this week or next. I basically just treat it like a schwarzbier and use carafa to get it dark. Throwing in some plain sugar helps in keeping it dry enough to still taste like a saison.
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Jan 4, 2017 21:45
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Thanks for the feedback. I guess this one is a fine line. I'm OK with it being brown ish. Thiriez Vieille brune was what started this quest. It is supposedly an oud bruin but tastes nothing like one. It is brown ish, with a ton of barrel, dark fruit and a touch of roast, also not sour, fairly dry. I really want the rummy, plum and spice in a dryer beer... I can see the carmelization being too sweet, I've only used it in sweet beers but I know it's pretty much non fermentable. I was planning on 10-20% very dark sugar or candi syurp. I did a quad with just a ton of d180 for color and it was darker than I'm going for with this. Perhaps super simple 70% pilsner, 15% wheat and 15% dark sugars? It seems like the dark malts are where I'm going to get in trouble, so it might be best to steer clear of them? Der Penguingott fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 22:40
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So...I'm worried. I made a yeast started a couple days ago in preparation for brewing today. Everything went well, I go to pitch the yeast, and I smelled it before pitching - it smells sour. It didn't smell ridiculously sour so I pitched anyway. But I check on it just now, and it's already bubbling away nicely, but it smells SO sour. It smells like Lost Nation's Gose or something similar. Is there something wrong with the yeast? It's a california ale yeast strain, harvested from other brews, if that matters.
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Jan 4, 2017 23:55
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  Finally got an upright freezer to use as a fermentation chamber  I can see the appeal of chest freezers for most applications (could feel the cold air drop out around my feet when I opened it), but my back is a bit iffy and lifting a fermenter in and out of one is not something I'd be keen to add to my workflow. That, and most of the reasonably priced ones around here are quite old and have crappy energy ratings.I plan to use this as a normal freezer to make a bunch of ice in advance of brew days (no immersion chiller, so it will save me the  at Coles for ice each brew), then connect up the Inkbird for fermenting. I doubt I'll have two full-sized fermenters in here going at once, but nice to know I can do it if I need to. Am going to get down to the tip soonish and see if I can find appropriately sized wood scraps to make a reinforced shelf for the one on the bottom. I am tempted to make my own shelving above the fermenter someday; the built-ins are *just* not tall enough to allow bottles to stand upright. In the meantime I think I will use it to store random brewing gear... I am in dire need of some proper shelving for stuff, but since I'm supposed to be moving in the near future I'm holding off.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:02
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DaveSauce posted:So I keep hearing about BeerSmith. Is this something I should be using? I've heard mixed things, but I like technology and software that makes my life easier, or at the least helps me to quantify what I'm doing. Get BeerSmith, it's good, but as rockcity mentioned, its UI can be infuriating. There might be a decently long learning curve (I've had it for months and only recently learned it down pat), but it's worth having for organization and calculation purposes.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:10
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Ethics_Gradient posted:my back is a bit iffy Backs are just fragile in general. The human animal has evolved to use its back well out of the original spec, and once it goes wrong, it rarely works perfectly again. I built a rolling table for my fermenters, with the top at the same level as the floor of my ferment fridge, so I just slide fermenters across. Anyone using a chest freezer might want to consider a hoist of some kind, IMO. Even the most vigorous young brewer turns into a creaky old brewer eventually. I don't know what my dad did to gently caress up his back so badly, but I do know I don't want to have chronic pain like he does.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:15
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yamdankee posted:So...I'm worried. I made a yeast started a couple days ago in preparation for brewing today. Everything went well, I go to pitch the yeast, and I smelled it before pitching - it smells sour. It didn't smell ridiculously sour so I pitched anyway. But I check on it just now, and it's already bubbling away nicely, but it smells SO sour. It smells like Lost Nation's Gose or something similar. Is there something wrong with the yeast? It's a california ale yeast strain, harvested from other brews, if that matters. Could be; that's an odd smell for that strain. I went through a handful of generations of Conan but eventually it started to taste/smell like a saison so I stopped propagating it. Another culture probably got in.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:19
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yamdankee posted:So...I'm worried. I made a yeast started a couple days ago in preparation for brewing today. Everything went well, I go to pitch the yeast, and I smelled it before pitching - it smells sour. It didn't smell ridiculously sour so I pitched anyway. But I check on it just now, and it's already bubbling away nicely, but it smells SO sour. It smells like Lost Nation's Gose or something similar. Is there something wrong with the yeast? It's a california ale yeast strain, harvested from other brews, if that matters. That can matter. It could have an infection. Yeast starters tend to smell a bit off/different. You can't say for certain that it's not infected one way or the other until you taste it, look at it under a microscope (you can see if there's a bunch of bacteria and many Bretts here), and test it (you'll see if you have strains that are similar in their morphology here). If you're at all worried, you should procure fresh yeast. I've only used 1056, so if you started with WL001 it's about the same and it does smell a bit sourdoughy when you first pitch from a fresh pack, but I don't remember well enough and never used the yeast I saved to tell you differently.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:24
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Ok, when should I try tasting it? What microscope should I buy? If it still taste ok could this be my first "sour beer"? Or should you not ever view it that way?
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Jan 5, 2017 00:33
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illcendiary posted:Get BeerSmith, it's good, but as rockcity mentioned, its UI can be infuriating. There might be a decently long learning curve (I've had it for months and only recently learned it down pat), but it's worth having for organization and calculation purposes. Brewtarget is also an option if you're looking for something FOSS.
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Jan 5, 2017 02:56
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yamdankee posted:Ok, when should I try tasting it? What microscope should I buy? Only buy a microscope if you really want one. Those are just the steps you take to find an infection. If it tastes okay, it could either just be yeast or it could be yeast+bacteria and it will indeed make beer. It might even be sour. You won't know unless you taste it, and that starter is just not going to taste good regardless. You might be able to taste the acidity if it is sour, and odds are good that it will make beer. You won't know if it's sour until it comes out and you taste it then if you're using hops you won't know if it's inhibiting lacto or if it's something else until you have evidence of it tasting infected or getting gushers. And if it is sour and you've used your clean plastic equipment on it, there's another set of gear you'd need to acquire. The cheapest solution here is probably to just buy new yeast.
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Jan 5, 2017 06:21
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Inkbird 308 test drive: I know it's not best practice, but was curious what would happen if I left the probe just dangling in the air. I was rewarded by having the temperature drop 4C past the set point (controller shut off at 20C like it was supposed to, but temp kept dropping). Doing some reading I forgot that of course the coolant still in the coils would keep doing its thing, even after the compressor had clicked off. I taped the probe to the side of a fermenter filled with water, with some bubble wrap as insulation and that seems to be keeping it within ~1C of agreement with my cheap digital thermometer, so that's fine. Something I didn't realise (but probably should have) is that to the best of my knowledge the 308 isn't an actual PID with fuzzy logic, just a basic thermostat thing. In the future, it'd be nice to get something like a BrewPi going, but for my current level of expertise and budget, the 308 should suffice. Jo3sh posted:Backs are just fragile in general. The human animal has evolved to use its back well out of the original spec, and once it goes wrong, it rarely works perfectly again. Yeah, that's true. Mine has bothered me since my first year of university (probably laid the groundwork not using my locker in HS and carrying around all my books, but definitely screwed it up lifting a 21" CRT monitor wrong at work), now that I'm in my early 30s I do my best to pick my battles.
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Jan 5, 2017 10:16
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Jhet posted:Only buy a microscope if you really want one. Those are just the steps you take to find an infection. Gotcha. So the problem can be cleared up by pitching fresh yeast into it?
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Jan 5, 2017 14:49
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yamdankee posted:Gotcha. So the problem can be cleared up by pitching fresh yeast into it? No. Dump the starter, use fresh yeast for your beer.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:01
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yamdankee posted:so I pitched anyway. 
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Jan 5, 2017 18:00
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Anyone try making a gluten free beer? My wife has celiacs and can't drink most beers.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:23
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I've read using Clarity Ferm can get it below the threshold for being considered "gluten free" but there will still be trace amounts.
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Jan 5, 2017 20:11
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Check out Colorado Malting - they have a line of malts made from gluten-free grains like buckwheat, millet, sunflower, etc.
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Jan 5, 2017 21:11
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Has anyone got one of the new Spike systems? Thinking about grabbing the 20g one.
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Jan 5, 2017 21:13
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Anyone try making a gluten free beer? My wife has celiacs and can't drink most beers. I don't make anything Gluten Free, but I love off-the-wall malts, so this is a good read. edit: another link! Pricey, but possible. robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 21:18
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Glad to see it can be done. At this point I've only made Mead - suppose I should start with a regular beer to make sure I have the different process down. Would be awesome to ferment things that don't take months to years to be ready!
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Jan 5, 2017 21:27
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I thing gluten-free beer at the homebrew level has only really gotten practically possible in the last couple of years. You might have been able to make something similar to beer from sorghum syrup or something that prior to that, but I think that was really only vaguely beerlike.
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Jan 5, 2017 21:32
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As a follow-up what is a recommend beer brewing basics book or resource? I have one for Mead that was very helpful
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Jan 5, 2017 21:35
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https://www.howtobrew.com
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Jan 5, 2017 21:37
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Glad to see it can be done. At this point I've only made Mead - suppose I should start with a regular beer to make sure I have the different process down. Would be awesome to ferment things that don't take months to years to be ready! Also you might want to look into a product called Clarity-Ferm from White Labs. You can brew beer using regular/standard grains, then add it to the fermentation vessel. It's what Stone uses for their "Stone Delicious" beer. I had no idea that it was a gluten-reduced beer until I saw it on the label, and this was after having had it on multiple occasions.
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Jan 5, 2017 21:39
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Mr. Clark2 posted:Also you might want to look into a product called Clarity-Ferm from White Labs. You can brew beer using regular/standard grains, then add it to the fermentation vessel. It's what Stone uses for their "Stone Delicious" beer. I had no idea that it was a gluten-reduced beer until I saw it on the label, and this was after having had it on multiple occasions. Another vote for giving it a chance. If your wife is similar to friends of mine, she'll be able to test it without risking a hospital trip. I've heard good things.
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Jan 5, 2017 23:09
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Ghostnuke posted:Has anyone got one of the new Spike systems? Thinking about grabbing the 20g one. I have a 2nd gen spike kettle, 15g, as a mash tun and can vouch for the build quality. The new false bottoms are too low for my tastes, but in a HERMS it's fine probably. Are you talking about the new kettles or the entire prefab brewing rig? The new ready to go systems look very good and there aren't a lot of places to get a prefab kit that nice, regardless of price. If you have the cash and don't want to DYI, it's a great setup. That said, if you have that kind of money - it is worth looking at other companies like brewers hardware and stout for the kettles and buying a stand alone controller that's prefab.
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Jan 6, 2017 00:00
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Der Penguingott posted:I was planning on 10-20% very dark sugar or candi syurp. I did a quad with just a ton of d180 for color and it was darker than I'm going for with this. That could work, it probably won't turn out completely black, but there's nothing wrong with a brown saison. Fantôme dÉté pulls it off. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fine to experiment with darker grains, just stick to the right kind of dark grains and keep the amounts real low. If you are flexible on the color then a starting point might be something like 10% D-180, 2.5% Special B and 2.5% Midnight Wheat paired with either 75% Pilsner and 10% Wheat, or 80% Pilsner and 5% Dark Munich.
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Jan 6, 2017 00:26
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Der Penguingott posted:I have a 2nd gen spike kettle, 15g, as a mash tun and can vouch for the build quality. The new false bottoms are too low for my tastes, but in a HERMS it's fine probably. Oh I'm not going to pay for that entire thing, I agree it's absurdly overpriced. I'm going to have them build me some customized vessels (HERMS) and the control panel. I've emailed back and forth with them and it's a lot cheaper to buy it piecemeal. I built my whole current set up DIY, and while it works fine there are lots of places to improve quality of life type things.
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Jan 6, 2017 15:30
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Is it just me or does there seem to be a major sort of delay in getting any of this last year's crop of traditional hops? I just want some Golding and some Noble hops. I'd settle for something that isn't Mt Hood or Willamette and isn't 12%+ AA.
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Jan 6, 2017 22:58
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Jhet posted:Is it just me or does there seem to be a major sort of delay in getting any of this last year's crop of traditional hops? It's not just you. I think fall came late this year, so the harvest was delayed and they are still processing the crop. In other news, I took a half-day off work today, having worked all the previous weekend, and went to pick up steel from McMaster-Carr. The bolts I need to assemble the stand itself are backordered, so they are shipping them to me, but I'm going to hang out with a buddy on Sunday and hopefully get through the updated cut list. Those McMaster people are really good at what they do, and their customer service team actually responds to emails. They even loaned me a hand truck to get my order out to the car. I do wish that I had been able to browse through their warehouse, but it's not set up that way.
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Jan 7, 2017 01:03
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Jo3sh posted:It's not just you. I think fall came late this year, so the harvest was delayed and they are still processing the crop. That was my first thought, but it really didn't come late at least in Washington from what I could tell. There are a few places definitely doing the processing (YCH for instance), but all the smaller growers that don't do the home brew circuit. The "in IPA" crops are definitely the ones they've done first, but I normally buy my hops in leaf form, so those are just sitting in a cold warehouse somewhere waiting to be dealt with.
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Jan 7, 2017 02:13
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There's a brewpub near me that makes an excellent dark saison (Forest & Main Manu Negra, fwiw) and it's essentially just an oatmeal stout fermented with a Belgian yeast strain. I made a beer inspired by that using the Yeast Bay Wallonian Farmhouse strain on a very standard oatmeal stout recipe and it turned out beautifully.
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Jan 7, 2017 02:42
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The tart cherry dark saison I just did came out pretty solid. The base recipe was: 6 lbs Belgian Pale Malt 6 lbs Vienna Malt 4 oz Carafa II Special 4 oz Chocolate Malt 1lb D120 Candi Syrup .4 oz Nugget (I had it on hand and I was going real light on hops for this) For the yeast I actually blended WY3711 French Saison and a Conan culture I had. I wanted some fruityness along with the classic French Saison esters, mostly because I added 32oz of tart cherry concentrate when it went into the fermenter.
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Jan 7, 2017 03:28
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Finally sat down to taste the results of my first batch, and I can solidly say I overcarbonated the poo poo out of it. Poured probably 90% foam, even worse than HatfulOfHollow's avatar. e: Yeah, that was pretty "meh" overall. No real hop flavor or bitterness, and it was pretty drat close to flat. Baronash fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 04:08
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Am thinking of doing a brew tomorrow, thought I would try a SMaSH American IPA. I've got: 5kg milled Gladfield American Ale 200g Azacca (new at my LHBS, I was originally thinking Galaxy from a recipe I found online, but pretty much asked the owner to talk me into whatever he thought might be interesting for what I was trying) Safale US-05 (American Ale yeast) Any suggestions on hops schedule? Dry hop or no? Baronash posted:Finally sat down to taste the results of my first batch, and I can solidly say I overcarbonated the poo poo out of it. Poured probably 90% foam, even worse than HatfulOfHollow's avatar.  You have me worried, I overcarbed the saison I bottled recently (calculated for 17L but probably bottled more like 13-14L) due to not wanting to get all the trub mixed in to my bottling vessel.
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Jan 7, 2017 05:25
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Ethics_Gradient posted:Am thinking of doing a brew tomorrow, thought I would try a SMaSH American IPA. I've got: I dry hop every IPA. It really sells the hop character, especially in a single hop beer. Azacca is pretty good. I haven't brewed with it, but Founders does an Azacca pale ale that I like.
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Jan 7, 2017 17:44
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