mcbethenstein
Well-Known Member
Over the last 3 years I have been perfecting my Hefe. It's good, but not where I want it to be. I've run experiments on pitching rate, fermentation temperature, open vs closed fermentation, yeast trials, and malt comparisons. I've tweaked it from something good to something great... But it's still not 100% awesome yet. It still has a bit to go to being like the German imports. Don't get me wrong, my beer is GOOD and comparable to many of our local brewpubs in quality, but still not yet like an imported ayinger or franzisksner.
During my yeast trial I got the closest I've ever been to what we are looking for. I fermented 4 - 1 gallon batches each with a different yeast.
In subsequent batches, I have yet to be able to scale up the best batch and get the same results. Accounting for all the other variables I come up with 2 things that could make or break my quest. 1.) during the yeast trial I bottled. I love kegging, but I think it's hurting my Hefe. 2.) my fermenters for that batch were short and fat 1 gallon glass cookie jars. The wort was 5 inches deep at most.
So, re-reading my notes and going over my highlighted passages in "Brewing with Wheat" has lead me to examine my fermenter shape. Open fermentation is awesome, but the levels of cloveiness just aren't there for me yet (I usually use a 7 gal bucket with the cover cracked and a filter bag over it to keep out the nasties). This chart finally hit me, as perhaps the last step that I need to take to bring my Hefe to "world class German Hefe" level, is to look at my fermenter shape.
So after a bit of research on coolships, and using plastic (I have a 4 yr old in daycare... I have no extra cash). I figured out that sterilite containers are indeed food safe. I got a 13.5 gal air/liquid resistant bin at target and went to work transforming it into a fermenter. I drilled 2 holes, one on the lid for an airlock and bung, and one on the side for my bottling spigot. I carefully considered that siphoning from a wide and shallow container like this would be trouble. In hindsight I would lower the height of the spigot, but I have a 90° PVC elbow that fits on the spigot and lowers the fluid intake to hopefully right above the trub.
This first photo shows a saison in full hop drive in my makeshift coolship. I pitched last night at 11 pm, and this was noon today. It was wrapped in clean towels and sheets to keep it warm in my cool basement and shield it from light. The beauty of the coolship is easy access to skimming off that hop drive. The next photo shows after skimming and stirring the yeast back in.
With that amount of headspace the yeasties are pretty happily feeding on oxygen for now. I left the cover offset by an inch, and covered it back up with a clean sheet. After the bulk of fermentation is complete, I'll reattach the lid and let a blanket of CO2 keep the beer safe as the yeast fall out of suspension. (I may even give it a blast of CO2 from my kegging system). Then transfer by gravity with a hose into my keg, disturbing as little as possible to keep any oxygen damage at bay.
I chose to test my coolship on my cheap extract saison to work out the kinks before I use it with a long 7 hour brew day Hefe. Bonus is that it will be served at a festival in 5 weeks to 4000 people, so if it's not 100% awesome, they will be too drunk to know.
My intention is to keep this tread updated with results, tasting notes and to be a place for others doing something similar to comment on their experiences as well.
Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
During my yeast trial I got the closest I've ever been to what we are looking for. I fermented 4 - 1 gallon batches each with a different yeast.
In subsequent batches, I have yet to be able to scale up the best batch and get the same results. Accounting for all the other variables I come up with 2 things that could make or break my quest. 1.) during the yeast trial I bottled. I love kegging, but I think it's hurting my Hefe. 2.) my fermenters for that batch were short and fat 1 gallon glass cookie jars. The wort was 5 inches deep at most.
So, re-reading my notes and going over my highlighted passages in "Brewing with Wheat" has lead me to examine my fermenter shape. Open fermentation is awesome, but the levels of cloveiness just aren't there for me yet (I usually use a 7 gal bucket with the cover cracked and a filter bag over it to keep out the nasties). This chart finally hit me, as perhaps the last step that I need to take to bring my Hefe to "world class German Hefe" level, is to look at my fermenter shape.
So after a bit of research on coolships, and using plastic (I have a 4 yr old in daycare... I have no extra cash). I figured out that sterilite containers are indeed food safe. I got a 13.5 gal air/liquid resistant bin at target and went to work transforming it into a fermenter. I drilled 2 holes, one on the lid for an airlock and bung, and one on the side for my bottling spigot. I carefully considered that siphoning from a wide and shallow container like this would be trouble. In hindsight I would lower the height of the spigot, but I have a 90° PVC elbow that fits on the spigot and lowers the fluid intake to hopefully right above the trub.
This first photo shows a saison in full hop drive in my makeshift coolship. I pitched last night at 11 pm, and this was noon today. It was wrapped in clean towels and sheets to keep it warm in my cool basement and shield it from light. The beauty of the coolship is easy access to skimming off that hop drive. The next photo shows after skimming and stirring the yeast back in.
With that amount of headspace the yeasties are pretty happily feeding on oxygen for now. I left the cover offset by an inch, and covered it back up with a clean sheet. After the bulk of fermentation is complete, I'll reattach the lid and let a blanket of CO2 keep the beer safe as the yeast fall out of suspension. (I may even give it a blast of CO2 from my kegging system). Then transfer by gravity with a hose into my keg, disturbing as little as possible to keep any oxygen damage at bay.
I chose to test my coolship on my cheap extract saison to work out the kinks before I use it with a long 7 hour brew day Hefe. Bonus is that it will be served at a festival in 5 weeks to 4000 people, so if it's not 100% awesome, they will be too drunk to know.
My intention is to keep this tread updated with results, tasting notes and to be a place for others doing something similar to comment on their experiences as well.
Sent from my iPad using Home Brew