What I did for beer today

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nukebrewer said:
Yeah. You would be missing out on a ton of viable yeast if you decanted.
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I figured..it makes sense and is logical but I did not know that it could lead to a better beer though. Thats awesome i will try and shoot for this next time i brew. Since i started making starters ive always decanted.

Oh for beer today i gave a co worker a small list of must have add ons to his brew equipment as he moves on from all extract 2 gallon batches to extract with steeping 5 gallon batches.
 
I put 7 more of my IPA's in the fridge. gotta clean more bottles from last night after the break down in the dang snow storm. And I'm a little short on ice for the ice bath to brew my vanillla porter. What to do,what to do?... **F it,I got the grains crushed the hops outta the freezer,US-05 outta the fridge. Gunna git-r-done anyway. Cool days like this are made for fermenting!
12:46pm,got mash water heating now.
 
I got the robust porter in the fermenter yesterday afternoon. Pitched rehydrated US-05 @ 67F wort temp. Wife even helped clean up some of the brew day masacree! gotta finish cleanin after I give my L2 disc a break. I see the airlock is starting to build pressure atm. cool. The rehydrate did go pretty well. 400mL of tap water was only 61.4F,so at flame out I set it on the still hot electric burner. My All-Temp laser measured 73.4F in short order. got some foam on the rehydrate at about 1 hour per PDF's I've read.
 
Dave37 said:
I figured..it makes sense and is logical but I did not know that it could lead to a better beer though. Thats awesome i will try and shoot for this next time i brew. Since i started making starters ive always decanted.

Oh for beer today i gave a co worker a small list of must have add ons to his brew equipment as he moves on from all extract 2 gallon batches to extract with steeping 5 gallon batches.
Click to expand...

I have never decanted and never had any issues. If you dont already, I would start practicing yeast ranching and not yeast washing. Start with a new yeast pack or vial, make double the amount of cells you need to pitch, and only dump pitch half while saving the other half for later use. You never need to buy new yeast and always have clean fresh yeast on hand, plus its very simple.
 
finsfan said:
I have never decanted and never had any issues. If you dont already, I would start practicing yeast ranching and not yeast washing. Start with a new yeast pack or vial, make double the amount of cells you need to pitch, and only dump pitch half while saving the other half for later use. You never need to buy new yeast and always have clean fresh yeast on hand, plus its very simple.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a great idea. After you use the first half where do you store and save the other? I'm assuming the white lab vials or something similar? My Lhbs only sells wyeast so I will have to look into purchasing 5 or 6 similar sized vials on amazon. Also in regards to storage, fridge? Freezer?
 
Dave37 said:
That sounds like a great idea. After you use the first half where do you store and save the other? I'm assuming the white lab vials or something similar? My Lhbs only sells wyeast so I will have to look into purchasing 5 or 6 similar sized vials on amazon. Also in regards to storage, fridge? Freezer?
Click to expand...

I just use mason jars. When I save the other half of a starter, it normally will fill 3 or 4 jars. I put these in the fridge for a few days until there is a noticeable yeast cake on bottom, then set them out to warm up to room temperature (6-24 hours). During that time, I microwave another jar half full with water until it boils, put the lid on immediately and shake to sanitize. Put that jar in the fridge to chill. Now you just decant all the starter wort out of the yeast jars, pour some of the chilled boiled water in each, shake to get all yeast off the bottom of the jar and combine all of them into one jar. You can fridge this for a long time as long as you put water on the yeast and not let it sit in the starter wort. Pretty easy process to keep clean yeast and never have to buy that strain again.
 
Dave37 said:
That sounds like a great idea. After you use the first half where do you store and save the other? I'm assuming the white lab vials or something similar? My Lhbs only sells wyeast so I will have to look into purchasing 5 or 6 similar sized vials on amazon. Also in regards to storage, fridge? Freezer?
Click to expand...

Here is a write up that might be a little less confusing and how I learned how to do it. The only thing I do differently is make the stater double the amount of cells that I need so I know to only pitch half and save the other half while knowing how many cells I have ended up with to save.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/yeast-harvesting-novel-approach.html
 
finsfan said:
I just use mason jars. When I save the other half of a starter, it normally will fill 3 or 4 jars. I put these in the fridge for a few days until there is a noticeable yeast cake on bottom, then set them out to warm up to room temperature (6-24 hours). During that time, I microwave another jar half full with water until it boils, put the lid on immediately and shake to sanitize. Put that jar in the fridge to chill. Now you just decant all the starter wort out of the yeast jars, pour some of the chilled boiled water in each, shake to get all yeast off the bottom of the jar and combine all of them into one jar. You can fridge this for a long time as long as you put water on the yeast and not let it sit in the starter wort. Pretty easy process to keep clean yeast and never have to buy that strain again.
Click to expand...

Awesome I would not have thought to add water. Thanks. I have the yeast book by JZ and White and need to read it as soon as I'm finished studying for this promotional exam.
 
finsfan said:
I just use mason jars. When I save the other half of a starter, it normally will fill 3 or 4 jars. I put these in the fridge for a few days until there is a noticeable yeast cake on bottom, then set them out to warm up to room temperature (6-24 hours). During that time, I microwave another jar half full with water until it boils, put the lid on immediately and shake to sanitize. Put that jar in the fridge to chill. Now you just decant all the starter wort out of the yeast jars, pour some of the chilled boiled water in each, shake to get all yeast off the bottom of the jar and combine all of them into one jar. You can fridge this for a long time as long as you put water on the yeast and not let it sit in the starter wort. Pretty easy process to keep clean yeast and never have to buy that strain again.
Click to expand...

I like this, thanks!
 
For the second time in as many days I had to take my airlock out of my Gandhi-bot clone 2.0, clean it, re-sanitize it and put it back in because the fermentation has been so vigorous that it has caused the airlock to become clogged twice. The first day I checked on it right before leaving for work and it was already clogged, so the best I could do was vent off the pressure by cracking the lid and hoping it wouldn't blow off while I was at work. I ended up texting the wife later in the day and having her do it again for me, just in case. When I did it again tonight once I got the airlock back in it immediately starting bubbling and spewing Star San foam out the top of the air lock. Funny thing is, the yeast was WLP002 which I have heard doesn't produce a very vigorous fermentation. I guess a 1.5 L starter pitched at high kreusen will do that, haha.

I also packed my luggage for my trip to Texas tomorrow including 12 home brews for various people to try.
 
Kegged my Dubbel and, fortunately, before I did that I realized that I had a bad poppet. I think, from now on, I'll put a gallon of starsan in the keg and let it sit under pressure for a while to detect leaks. Did that completely fortuitously last night, got distracted and, by the time I got back to the keg, I saw bubbles on the post.

That and I realized that I can turn the keg fridge off for a while. I keep it at cellar temps and, well ... the part of the cellar where I keep the fridge is now at roughly the same temp as the inside of the fridge. So I can unplug it until it's time to turn it way down for lagering because I can now ferment lagers in the open air in the basement.
 
Transferred my Fall Harvest Saison to a secondary to clear, hit my mark, but it's still going, so will let it go for a few more days and then cold crash. Also thinking of adding 2 tsp of Vanilla to add to the complexity. Finished harvesting a yeast from an Imperial Stout of 2 bottles and successfully got a full vial now of fresh yeast for my next brew day.
 
Got my flask & a few bottles cleaned up. Got my hop sacks out of the PBW bath rinsed & hung up to dry. Nylon grain bag into PBW soak. Stout & porter stained it a bit. Putting some of the new/infected batch of Maori IPA in the fridge for turkey day. Looks clear with no gunk floating or other weirdness. So far so good...
 
Dave37 said:
Awesome I would not have thought to add water. Thanks. I have the yeast book by JZ and White and need to read it as soon as I'm finished studying for this promotional exam.
Click to expand...

It's a great read, I am about 70% through it right now. Sterile water is one of the best things to store yeast in if you don't have a full lab. It doesn't cost much to get petri dishes and vials for making plates and slants as long as you have a pressure cooker for sterilization. :mug:
 
Bottled my hard rootbeer, sampled what didn't fit, harvested the 001 for later use

image-2889909621.jpg
 
Filled up a 2L growler with homebrew, finishing off a keg, then cleaned and sanitized the keg.

Found out I like WLP 090, after tasting my Maris Otter SMaSH.
 
Decided to blow off work tomorrow and do another double brew day instead (two weekends in a row. Woof!) To get a jump on what will be a long day I just got done reconfiguring my work shop/brewery. Everything's staged, shop laptop has the recipes loaded, HLT's already filled, so all I'll have to do is fire up and I'll be off and running.

I love impromptu brew days! :ban:

Cheers!
 
Just kegged up 5~ gallons of my first common. 5.5% Rye common. Smells great. Tastes pretty damn good as well. We'll see for sure in a few weeks.
 
Bottled 4 bombers of a cider experiment and brewed a partigyle batch: an IPA at 1.058 and an IIPA at 1.094 from 20lbs of grains (plus a little corn sugar).
 
We're so sorry,Uncle Albert.
But we haven't done a bloody thing all day.
We're so sorry...uncle Albert,
But we're so easily drawn away...:mug:
 
Racked my Mad Elf clone on to a couple of pounds of cherries, kegged my brown ale and brewed a Dead Guy ale clone which i had a stuck sparge, tried to tighten up the mill and went too far, almost cool enough to pitch.
Been a long day so far!
 
Last night; I made the labels and labeled the Christmas cider giveaways. I forgot to remove the blue tape labels before I took the picture, but they are off now.

Today; I degassed a stuck fermentation, bottled an infected but not yet soured mead, bottled my last couple of batches of rice wine, started pasteurizing both bottled brews. The second of two batches is getting up to pasteurization temps now.

christmas cider labels.jpg


relabeled cider bottles.jpg
 
Leadgolem said:
Last night; I made the labels and labeled the Christmas cider giveaways. I forgot to remove the blue tape labels before I took the picture, but they are off now.

Today; I degassed a stuck fermentation, bottled an infected but not yet soured mead, bottled my last couple of batches of rice wine, started pasteurizing both bottled brews. The second of two batches is getting up to pasteurization temps now.
Click to expand...

Amazing labels!
 
If I had enough ink left,I'd use the labels I designed for my Whiskely Stout & Vanilla Porter. Oh well,there in the fridge a couple days now. 7 bottles each of Maori & Cougar Country IPA's for turkey day. Just put another 7 bottles of the Maori in the fridge for Friday to see how good they are after I did all I could to get rid of the lacto in the Ale Pale.
 
Dropped off 10 entries between myself and two other clubmates for a regional comp at a brewery a couple hours away (with them chipping in for gas money, it was cheaper than us each shipping). Picked up a 6er and a growler while there. And now I'm going to make a starter for the Dusseldorf Alt I'll be brewing later this week (probably on Friday, since I've got a fancy new Thermapen allegedly arriving on Thursday).
 
Racked my Belgian IPA from secondary to a keg for conditioning.; racked my Whole Leaf Hop Columbus IPA to secondary, dry hoped w/ 1 oz whole leaf Columbus; moved my PumKing to my kegerator for cold crash; labeled my Gingerbread Ale for 12 beers of Christmas swap.
 
Pasteurized 4 bottles of hard root beer for my wife's co workers, didn't want to give them bottle bombs lol, the rest of the batch is chillin in the fridge
 
Mead. Close enough, right? I smelled my ancient joes mead and it smelled good. Excited to wait another 5.5 months.

I also looked at my gallon of hard cider and mentally back sweetened it.

Oh, and I continued to ignore my double stout that needs another month or two in secondary.

And I put my first bottle if Pliny clone in the fridge to hopefully sample tomorrow.
 
Picked up some ingredients for a Belgian dubbel I'm going to brew soon. For the first time I'm not very happy with the freshness of something I bought from my LHbS. Got home to find my pkg of yeast is from August. :( viability of 47% gonna need a bigger starter than I planned.

Other than that I'm excited for this one.
 
Showed up to work for a meeting with a malting group representative...they did not call they did not show so I made the decision we are not doing business with them.

Finished design of a new IPA
Put all the ingredients together for an RIS I will brew this week
Got notes together for a beer information seminar I will be leading at work regarding Pale Ale, IPA and Imperial IPAs.
 
Replaced the 5 Maori IPA's I drank last night with 6 more for Friday. The lacto infection is gone & they taste really good. the change from 3.2ozs chocolate malt to 1/2lb melanoiden was a good one. The NZ hops meld very well with the Weyerman's melanoiden. Got a nice amber color vs the copper the other batch had. Both IPA's should be great by Thanksgiving. Next Tuesday is the 2 week mark for my robust porter too. Gotta wash last nights bottles yet...So happy the Maori IPA is ok!:ban:
 
What a long day. Reorganized and cleaned my entire brew area. De labeled and cleaned 108 bottles. Racked my orange and cinnamon melomel over to secondary. Another 6 months and it should be good to go. Has a very boozy smell but tastes like it should. Nice orange and cinnamon flavor with the honey backbone.
 

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