It’s Beer Thirty FReepers! Time For The Homebrewing / Wine Making Thread #3 June 15,2012

Free Republic | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time!

Happiness is a bubbling airlock!

 

GLASS OF MY CRANBERRY MEAD – MELOMEL – HONEY WINE

While we all enjoy a mug or glass of our favorite beer or wine I thought we could discuss the most important ingredient we all need to make our homemade beers or wines.

Yeast

I have used both Wyeast and White Labs liquid yeasts and also dry yeasts mostly Safale 05 and 04 for fermenting my homebrews. I always keep at least one or two of the Safale yeast packs in the fridge as a backup, just incase. Last summer the heat during shipping did in a smack pack of Wyeast I had ordered and the backup dry yeast I had in the fridge saved my beer. If you use the liquid yeasts it is advised you use your supplier’s cold pack shipping option, especially during the warm months. If you don’t have a local homebrew store near you, having a backup yeast supply is essential. I also keep at least 1 lb of Dry Malt Extract around so I can make a yeast starter.

Use a yeast starter

Some experts recommend pitching at least 192 to 200 Billion yeast cells into a five-gallon wort of a medium gravity ale. Higher gravity ales and lagers will require more yeast cells. Both of the liquid yeast brands mentioned above only contain 100 billion cells and the 11.5 gram dry yeast packs of Safale only have 70 billion cells. A yeast starter will boost your cell count to the proper range suggested for a quick start and efficient fermentation and reduce your costs for yeast. Below is a link to why BeerSmith recommends making a starter;

Making a Yeast Starter for your Home Brew Beer

Here are some basic guidelines and instructions, from Midwest Supply:

1. Activate a Wyeast pack and allow it to swell. Wait until the yeast package has swelled to at least 1 inch thick. Or shake up a room temperature White Labs vile. Dry yeast packs just need to be at room temperature.
2. Heat 4 cups water in a saucepan and when hot, dissolve 1 cup Dry Malt Extract (DME) in the water. If you have any yeast nutrient available, you can add ½ tsp to the mix. It’s ok to leave out the nutrient. Lightly boil the wort for 20 minutes. The goal is to create a starter about 1.040 in specific gravity.
3. Sanitize your flask, growler, mason jar etc.
4. When the boil is complete, gently pour the hot wort into the sanitized container. Cover the opening of the flask with aluminum foil. Be careful when doing these steps, use a pot holder to move the flask.
5. Cool the flask in an ice bath. It helps to gently swirl the flask and periodically add ice to the bath to hasten cooling.
6. When the starter wort has cooled to around 70°F (the flask is cool to the touch), shake the flask vigorously to introduce oxygen, and then pitch the yeast. Attach the stopper and airlock.
7. Ferment the starter around 70°F for 24-36 hours for maximum cell growth. Do not expect to see a vigorous fermentation or layer of foam as you would see in a primary fermentation. To increase cell growth, you may wish to agitate the starter periodically to introduce oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. Stir plates are an excellent way to significantly increase the culture’s population. The starter may be refrigerated for up to a week before using, if need be. If refrigerated, allow the yeast to warm up before pitching on brew day.
8. Pitch yeast starter into cooled, aerated wort. Agitate the flask to get the yeast into suspension before pitching. Alternatively, you can drop the yeast by refrigerating the yeast starter for a few hours and decant the fermented starter liquid leaving the yeast cake on the bottom. Add a few ounces of boiled and cooled water and swirl to create a slurry. Then, pitch the slurry into your wort. Some brewers prefer this method to leave the fermented starter wort out of their batch or to do a subsequent, larger starter to generate an appropriate pitching rate for high gravity beers or large.

Another thing I have found helpful especially at bottling time and to help determine if a beer is carbonated. I like to use one PET bottle when bottling. I can squeeze the PET bottle and feel the carbonation level. If it is firm and hard to squeeze, I know it is ready.

I hope this was useful info for some of you. Now let's get brewing! Please let the thread know what yeast you prefer and why and how you use it.

[Red_Devil 232]

Nope my first Mead I used a commercial clover honey. I will use a local filtered honey for my next batch of mead.

[american_ranger]

I got nine gallons of Jalapeno/Raisin wine in jugs. About 4 weeks and it will be time to bottle.

[Red_Devil 232]

Whoa Japs and raisin wine? Had a taste yet? Recipe?

[Red_Devil 232]

I have been trying my best to keep some homebrews ready to drink. But missed my schedule this week. Hate it when I run out of the tasties!

[JRandomFreeper]

I always boil what I brew. Yes, it was required to get the sugar and molasses into solution. Other thing is that I was surprised at the color just 5 oz of molasses gave the brew. And the flavor.

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

The yeast was what I had... trub from a batch or two ago that was in the fridge. Fast yeast, this time of year.

I'm not brewing for competitions. ;)

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

Sounds good. Here in Texas, there are 'local' oranges from from a long way away that are small and ugly and make great marmalade. I make a jalpeno and native orange marmalade that is to die for.

Jalapenos are so mild this year that I may not can any, unless they pep up.

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

I've been calling it George. ;)

/johnny

[Red_Devil 232]

I guess a sub for the molasses could be some Steen’s cane syrup for the molasses it would be a bit stronger though.

[JRandomFreeper]

Could, I suppose. Never had it, so I can't speak to it. I was just researching hot weather 'beers' and came across that in a book from the late 1700s.

Sugar of almost any kind, preferably flavored, water and yeast seem to be the key elements. ;)

Don't get me wrong... I love a harsh IPA in the middle of the hottest August day, but none of the recipes I looked at had hops in them. And I didn't start an IPA back in December when I should have.

/johnny

[brewer1516]

Yup. My brewing buddy and I had been on a good schedule. Always had 10-15 gallons kegged. We’ve both been busy with life the past few months. Time to go solo.

Maybe a simple light ale or a Kolsch. Yum.

[JRandomFreeper]

Other thing about that batch of yeast is that it is the one that produced 'cidery' results that I was talking about a few weeks ago. But not bad.

It may be infected with a lactobacillus of some kind, but so far... I'm ok with that. I'll keep propogating it.

And keep it FAR, FAR away from my other stuff.

/johnny

[brewer1516]

That’ll work!

Funny, we used to name our beers but got to the point that we just labeled them by style and date.

We did have a beer that tasted like ass and band-aids that we named Ass and Band-Aids Ale, but that got dumped PDQ.

[JRandomFreeper]

I won't ask how you know what those two things taste like. ;)

I did give a neighbor most of my experiment with Kool-aid(tm) wine. She loved it and it was 8%. Very quiet week, that week.

/johnny

[brewer1516]

That reference to ass and band-aids is kind of an inside joke with the brew-bud. We have had a couple of less than stellar batches, but have had more than a few that were spot on style and world class.

I fondly recall an oatmeal stout that was killer. A Belgian Golden that I believe had the hand of Providence involved. We even tried to replicate that batch and, while good, was just missing something.

I still want to do a really big beer. Like a Thomas Hardy’s Ale clone.

Dang! I’ve got to brew soon.

[Red_Devil 232]

The Steen's syrup is a very Dark molasses made from sugar cane and is made in Abbyville, La. I did not know it was a molasses when I asked the question.

[JRandomFreeper]

Depending on how it tasted on biscuits in the morning... I might try brewing with it in the evening.

/johnny

[Red_Devil 232]

Damn tasty on a biscuit! Add a pat of butter and it is heaven on a plate. Cannin' Syrup: Grandma always said when you have a good thing going - then don't change it. Grandma Lillian lived by these words. After marrying Charley Steen Jr. in the early nineteen hundreds, she and her mother-in-law worked side by side canning syrup. "In those days one of us would fill the can with freshly cooked syrup and the other of us would snap on a lid. A man would take it from us, place it on a platform and roll it under a large fan to cool it off (which stopped the can of syrup from further cooking.) After the cans could be handled, it was time to label them. We would make a homemade paste, brush it on the identifying tag and place the tin cans in cases. I remember it was really hard work; we truly put our hearts and souls into what we were doing. You know I have seen the Mill run by four generations of Steen's. We've been through a lot together – the times have sure changed in all these years. I tell you one thing – it's a lot easier on those canning lines they have now than the way we had to do it then." – Lillian B. Steen

[JRandomFreeper]

Wonder what Lillian would think about me brewing with her syrup? ;)

/johnny

[decal]

“It helped a lot, but I didn’t share that beer with friends.”

Yup, sometimes “I make the beer I drink” turns into “I drink the beer I make.” - we've all been there.