What's in your fermenter??

[Jeremy Dunn]

IPA with Azacca, Calypso, Lemon Drop, and Pacifica hops

[ThreeBeers]

Made a small batch of cider today. It was a Brewers Best kit I forgot I had from when CYO was in business. Ditched the directions. It is a spiced apple concentrate that calls for 2lbs of dextrose in 6 gallons. Instead I just diluted it to 15 brix which looked to be about 3 gallons and used US-05 yeast with a good dose of yeast nutrient and oxygen. I will discard the "spice packet" and "sweetener packet " and back sweeten with some more Apple concentrate. Damn quick brew with no boiling to do! In and outin less than an hour.

Amelia bought one of those. Sat around a long time. The instructions were confusing. It didn't explain what was in those 'sweetener' and 'flavor' packs. I tasted and used them. That sweetener was INTENSE! I ended up using concentrate too.

[ThreeBeers]

Following Don and making some yeast starter from some old grain from 2013. I still have half a bag. Free to good home.

I totally want to do that. I had the idea years ago and wondered why they don't sell starter wort in stores. Can I can at home without pressure cooker?

[john mills]

Wort has to be pressure canned. I used 15 psi for 15 min. That sterilizes the wort preventing spoilage, or growth of contaminating bacteria or yeast. Kills everything.

The other method of canning is hot packing. Where you boil on the jars for 25 min. That is ok for tomato or other high acid foods due to the preservative nature of the low pH. Wort is not acidic enough. If you lower the pH to the point needed for hot packing by using citric acid, it won't be good media for yeast growth when you need it.
You can buy a pressure cooker at garage sales, or auctions sometimes for cheap.

[Don]

Wort has to be pressure canned. I used 15 psi for 15 min. That sterilizes the wort preventing spoilage, or growth of contaminating bacteria or yeast. Kills everything.

The other method of canning is hot packing. Where you boil on the jars for 25 min. That is ok for tomato or other high acid foods due to the preservative nature of the low pH. Wort is not acidic enough. If you lower the pH to the point needed for hot packing by using citric acid, it won't be good media for yeast growth when you need it.
You can buy a pressure cooker at garage sales, or auctions sometimes for cheap.

Low-acid foods must be pressure canned at 240°F to eliminate and prevent the growth of bacteria, Clostridium botulinum. The botulinum spores are very resistant to heat so processing at the higher temperatures provides a way to destroy these spores. If the low acid foods were processed in a boiling-water-bath canner, they would have to be processed for a length of time ranging from 7 to 12 hours. Processed at the 240° to 250°F (15psi) using a pressure canner takes 15 - 20 minutes.

For my starter I make 5 gal batch at a time, either mash some old grains or use DME.

I fill a pot with the extract and filtered or spring water and stirred it up to dissolve the extract, it helps to warm up the mixture, I set it on the burner for a few minutes. Then add a teaspoon of yeast nutrient. Then filled each jar with the wort (You only want to fill your quart jars to @ the 800ml (28 ozs) mark) and put it in the pressure canner which had water added to about an inch above the canning rack. This is an important step to prevent damage to the mason jars while they are under heat and pressure. Follow the canners recommendations

Allow the pressure to rise to 15 psi. Set your timer for 20 minutes (some use 15). Keep an eye on the pressure gauge, you may need to adjust the heat to maintain the correct pressure. DO NOT USE MAX HEAT if using a open flame. Heat at a steady rate.

After 20 minutes, turn off the heat and let the canner sit until the pressure drops low enough to open the lid. Do not rush this step! then remove the pressure canner from the burner. There is a lock on my lid that won’t let you open the lid of the pressure cooker until it falls, when it is safe. You can now remove your jars from the canner. Be careful they are hot! I set them on a towel and allow to cool, then remove the rings after they pop and are sealed. The wort is safe to sit on your shelf for a year or longer without having to worry about it spoiling, I've used 2 year old started before. (If you leave the rings on in storage you may not know that a jar has come unsealed.)

Follow all directions that come with your canner.
NOTE: All pressure canners I've seen do not recommend using an open burner like a turkey frier. You can easily get too much heat too fast with the big burners.
That being said I have only used my canner with the burner on my beer structure, or an old turkey frier burner I have. BUT I am very careful of the flame height and watch the pressure closely, I start adjusting down before I hit the 15 psi mark. I never leave it alone while the flame is on.

Good luck, it a big time saver for anyone that makes yeast starters, I will usually take a rainy weekend and make 5 gallon on a Saturday and 5 on Sunday and be set for the year.

If your into yeast washing this is also good time to sterilize a dozen jars of water.

[wuertzBräu]

I need to give this a go. And it sounds like a great tech topic for a meeting later this year if you'd be interested in presenting something.

Also, in the fermenter since 3/18: American IPA with Amarillo, Citra, and Mosaic!

[Jam095]

Belgian Blonde Ale- Half batch. Experimenting with open fermentation and natural temperature rise.

[Chris Norrick]

Double IPA all Mosaic hops. A little low on gravity. Shooting for 1.080 and ended up at 1.070. I did add some water after the BIAB mash and pre boil was spot on so I guess boil off was low or the honey and sugar I added wasn't enough when I scaled the recipe. I might add a little more honey today.

[Don]

Dry hopping American BarleyWine OG 1.112 FG 1.020 @ 12%ABV
Fermenting Old Ale OG 1.076 @FG1.018 7.5%ABV

Brewing an English BarleyWine on Tuesday and using the yeast cake from the Old Ale.
Next winter I'll be stocked up

[Mike]

What I call Mosaic Monster, FWH with Millenium. We'll see how it turns out.
Wheat with Simcoe and Amarillo.

Also made my first pressure cooker starter wort and used it for these two brews. Sooooo much easier.

[Don]

Also made my first pressure cooker starter wort and used it for these two brews. Sooooo much easier.

[Chris Norrick]

The krausen on this thing is just insane. I've knocked it down twice. I think the extra honey addition caused it.

IMG_0747.JPG

Double IPA all Mosaic hops. A little low on gravity. Shooting for 1.080 and ended up at 1.070. I did add some water after the BIAB mash and pre boil was spot on so I guess boil off was low or the honey and sugar I added wasn't enough when I scaled the recipe. I might add a little more honey today.

[SkyBrew]

1.080 Belgian Golden Strong aging on month 2 for the big turkey, and I brewed a 1.055 roggenbier today, both triple decoction mashes. I was going to do a 90 minute boil on the roggenbier but I dropped my hose during sparge and sprayed myself with hot sticky wort and lost some volume so I did a 60 minute boil instead to conserve volume which was fine because the target was 1.054 and I ended at 1.055 anyway. I adjusted the gap in my mill recently and it appears either that or the triple decoction mashes have increased my efficiency above the 68% I have set in beer smith

[Mike]

I was going to post pictures of my pressure cooker starter and the shelves I put up in my Brew/Pool house but they all come over upside down.

Anyone know if there is a setting or something else I need to change to rotate the view on these? I use an iPad but not sure that has anything to do with it as I post pictures on FaceBook and they are fine.

Sky I saw that you had a picture a few weeks ago that was upside down and some one ask if you were standing on your head. I notice that you picture in your last post is fine. Did you do something to correct it?

[SkyBrew]

Mike, I got the imgur app on my phone and have been uploading the pictures to imgur which corrects the orientation, then I resave the picture to my phone and upload... Kind of a hassle but its working so meh.