Hi all,
About 2-3 weeks ago I decided last minute to brew a lager. I got all my ingredients but I didn't have enough time to step up a large enough starter.That's OK, I thought, I'll just sanitize everything really well and pump it into my unitank at boiling and pitch later. So I did that. I went to go check on it the next day and the pressure had normalized (it had been at around 12 when we racked it in at boiling and the cooling at balanced it out). I came back the day after that and the PSI was up to 15! Uhoh.
It was a cheap beer and I've got nothing better going on so I said the hell with it and let it ride. This last weekend I brewed the same beer again, transferred the wild / unclean ferm into a glass carboy and pitched correctly. The lager is doing great and is chilling in my stainless now.
When transferring the petri dish beer we sampled it and it tasted like brett but was missing some funk. 2-3x times the sourness would be ideal. So I let it ride. I checked in on it again about 20 minutes ago and I got this beauty (you can see the lager in the background):
This is normally a case for sadness, but I'm on Mr Brew's Wild Ride and I don't want to get off just yet. My questions are:
1. Is there any way to visually tell what kind of bug we're looking at here?
2. I've never really played with bacteria before. I know it can't hurt me, but is it fine to just pop a thief down in there to do a taste test?
3. Once I'm satisfied what is the preferred way of finishing the fermentation off? I've heard about heating it back up to a certain temp and holding it there, but I'm not sure.
Worst case it gets dumped, but I'm hoping for something fun.
About 2-3 weeks ago I decided last minute to brew a lager. I got all my ingredients but I didn't have enough time to step up a large enough starter.That's OK, I thought, I'll just sanitize everything really well and pump it into my unitank at boiling and pitch later. So I did that. I went to go check on it the next day and the pressure had normalized (it had been at around 12 when we racked it in at boiling and the cooling at balanced it out). I came back the day after that and the PSI was up to 15! Uhoh.
It was a cheap beer and I've got nothing better going on so I said the hell with it and let it ride. This last weekend I brewed the same beer again, transferred the wild / unclean ferm into a glass carboy and pitched correctly. The lager is doing great and is chilling in my stainless now.
When transferring the petri dish beer we sampled it and it tasted like brett but was missing some funk. 2-3x times the sourness would be ideal. So I let it ride. I checked in on it again about 20 minutes ago and I got this beauty (you can see the lager in the background):
This is normally a case for sadness, but I'm on Mr Brew's Wild Ride and I don't want to get off just yet. My questions are:
1. Is there any way to visually tell what kind of bug we're looking at here?
2. I've never really played with bacteria before. I know it can't hurt me, but is it fine to just pop a thief down in there to do a taste test?
3. Once I'm satisfied what is the preferred way of finishing the fermentation off? I've heard about heating it back up to a certain temp and holding it there, but I'm not sure.
Worst case it gets dumped, but I'm hoping for something fun.
