Q&A: Homebrewing

[cdh]

Wow... I must apologize to everybody for writing in my Northeast USA dialect and assuming that you'd understand it. Please keep up with the terminology questions, since I think I was being clear. Obviously I wasn't.

Yes, seltzer means unflavored fizzy water. Whether you call it Club Soda or Soda Water, both pass for seltzer. Buy the generic stuff... your beer won't be made any more happy by the brand name bottle. Don't use bottles from anything flavored if you don't want to risk your beer picking up some of that flavor.

[FoodMan]

A 4-foot length of flexible ½" (or so) tubing. Transferring beer from vessel to vessel should be done by siphon, and you need a tube to get a siphon going.

A racking cane and a bottle filler. These are rigid plastic tubes that attach to the flexible tubing. The racking cane has a device on the bottom end so that your siphon will not draw up sediment from the bottom of the vessel. The bottle filler has a pressure activated valve at the end, so that you can fill bottles without overflowing. Buy these and your tubing at the same time from the same place to insure that everything fits together.

Chris, before I rush off to my local homebrew shop can you please clarify why you mean by "siphon"? Is the siphon part of the racking cane? or do we need to buy it seperatly?

BTW, I was really tempted to go the "live yeast" way after reading the comments above since I make my own sourdough bread pretty much every week from my own starter and have been doing so for a few years now. This is a whole new process for me though and I would like to keep up as much as possible with your class, so a packaged dry yeast it is. After a few successful batches with that...who knows...

[slkinsey]

In re to using live cultures of liquid yeast, one way to really kick off the fermentation is to brew a small "pitching batch" a few days before so you can grow up some extra yeast (Chris may be planning on explaining this later). This is easy to do, since you don't really care about the taste: smack the pack & when it is inflated, boil some malt powder (maybe with a few pellets of hops) with maybe a quart of water, decant it into a sanitized glass bottle and chill, pitch the yeast and put on an airlock. In a day or two, the yeast will have fermented the liquid into "beer." What's more important is that the population of yeast cells you have on hand will have radically increased. While you're boiling your wort, etc. just put the bottle in the refrigerator so most of the yeast goes temporarily dormant and sinks to the bottom of the bottle. Decant off most of the liquid, and when it is time to pitch the yeast for your actual batch of beer just swirl the bottle to stir up the yeast and pour it into your fermenter.

[cdh]

Chris, before I rush off to my local homebrew shop can you please clarify why you mean by "siphon"? Is the siphon part of the racking cane? or do we need to buy it seperatly?

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By siphon, I simply mean using the property of water in a tube to pull the water behind it along with it once some of it has fallen below the top level of the source. Here's a quick sketch that should get the idea across.

Click here for more on the siphon principle.

Edited April 6, 2006 by cdh (log)

[cdh]

BTW, I was really tempted to go the "live yeast" way after reading the comments above since I make my own sourdough bread pretty much every week from my own starter and have been doing so for a few years now. This is a whole new process for me though and I would like to keep up as much as possible with your class, so a packaged dry yeast it is. After a few successful batches with that...who knows...

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This brings to mind an issue that you must consider. Sourdough cultures are wild yeasts, the exact kind we want to be very sure to keep FAR away from our beer. If you've got live wild yeast cultures in your kitchen, your chance of getting infected by them is higher because there are more of them around. They may well be wafting around on the air currents.

It would be better if you didn't expose your unfermented beer to the air in your kitchen. Put the lid on it just after the boil ends, and get it out of there. Don't bottle in your kitchen either, unless you're absolutely meticulous about sanitizing everything.

Same goes for folks who make vinegar. Acetobacter can get everywhere if you're not careful... no fun making a good beer only to feed it to the vinegar mother.

Edited April 7, 2006 by cdh (log)

[Rombot]

1 Can I use a large aluminum pot for the boil?

2 For the hops does it make a difference if I get pellets plugs or flowers?

3 My Brew shop www.esbeer.com.au doesnt have the same yeast, I presume I just ask for a equivalent.

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1. For the boil, yes. As a fermentation vessel? I'd recommend against it. Aluminum is somewhat reactive, especially to acids that may be produced by yeast.

2. Doesn't matter. If you use whole hops, they do absorb more liquid than pellets do, so you'll want to add excess water to the beginning of the boil to compensate not just for evaporation, but also for hops rehydration too.

3. Your shop carries the Fermentis products, so I'd recommend the S-04 or the US-56.

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Thanks

I have done my shop and everything should be arriving shortly. Harrah

cant wait till the next installment.

Thanks again for your effort

Rom

[FoodMan]

Chris, before I rush off to my local homebrew shop can you please clarify why you mean by "siphon"? Is the siphon part of the racking cane? or do we need to buy it seperatly?

←

By siphon, I simply mean using the property of water in a tube to pull the water behind it along with it once some of it has fallen below the top level of the source. Here's a quick sketch that should get the idea across.

Click here for more on the siphon principle.

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My question was not clear. I do know what the process is. To get a siphon going the liquid needs to be initially pumped/sucked out of the source, right? My question was refering to what we would need to get it going. I am assuming that simply sucking the beer out is not very hygienic and could lead to contamination of the beer. So, do we need to buy a small pump or does one come with the racking cane?

Sorry if I am being too thick here or if this is all discussed in the bottling course.

[cdh]

There are all kinds of siphon tricks out there in the world. There are gadgets available sold as siphon starters that get the siphon going without anybody sucking on the tube like a giant crazy straw... (which is kind of fun, and hasn't led to any problems when I've done it, but then again I drop the destination end into a bowl of sanitizer and let the first little bit run into there after using the crazy straw method.)

There is also the technique where you fill the tube with water from the tap then use that water to start the siphon, which works quite well and is fairly low risk.

As I'd said in the course, I'm trying to steer people away from gadgets they don't necessarily need. If you want to pick up a siphon starting gadget, by all means do so.

Edited April 7, 2006 by cdh (log)

[mtigges]

Hope you don't mind me chiming in Chris.

The best way to start a siphon is by sanitizing it (and your fermentation vessel). Use your mouth to start siphoning from the container carrying the sanitizer. Clamp the tube before everything runs out, now the tube is full of sanitizer. Let the tube sit in the remaining sanitizer thereby sanitizing the outside of it.

When it comes time to transfer simply put the cane in the wort, unclamp, letting the sanitizer pull the wort into the tube. Redirect the bit of sanitizer to waste (the sink, or some temporary container) then once wort is flowing, fill your fermenter.

This requires a large amount of stable rinseless sanitizer (like iodopher, or star-san). Obviously you don't want to do this if you're using bleach to sanitze.

I recommend star-san, it's a brilliant product and helps ease the work involved in brewing tremendously.

Mark.

[cdh]

You are, of course, welcome to chime in. As is everybody else.

I do ask, however, that everybody keep in mind that this course is for folks who might not know if they want to invest a lot in brewing equipment, and who don't know much about the process. Recommending toys, gadgets and involved processes should kept to a minimum.

And you are right about the rinseless sanitizers working as you describe. I'm just trying not to bombard new brewers with a huge list of specialized goodies to buy. This course is all about keeping the barriers to entry to homebrewing low.

Siphon starters cost what? $15 maybe? A length of hose costs what? $0.75? You can start a siphon with either. Starsan works well, so does bleach water.

[FoodMan]

There are all kinds of siphon tricks out there in the world.  There are gadgets available sold as siphon starters that get the siphon going without anybody sucking on the tube like a giant crazy straw...  (which is kind of fun, and hasn't led to any problems when I've done it, but then again I drop the destination end into a bowl of sanitizer and let the first little bit run into there after using the crazy straw method.)

There is also the technique where you fill the tube with water from the tap then use that water to start the siphon, which works quite well and is fairly low risk.

As I'd said in the course, I'm trying to steer people away from gadgets they don't necessarily need.  If you want to pick up a siphon starting gadget, by all means do so.

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Thanks Chris! "Crazy Straw" it is

[jsolomon]

In regards to siphoning, I do the mouth method directly from the fermentor. I generally don't worry too much, however before I siphon, I swish regular, over-the-counter peroxide in my mouth for a full 60 seconds. Then, I "crazy straw" with abandon.

[cdh]

Thinking about Sam's having mentioned the "starter" method of dealing with liquid yeast, I guess I should address it a bit to explain what it is all about and the easiest way to do it. This is most applicable to people using liquid yeast rather than dry yeast. (Both of the above preparations are "live", just because it is dry doesn't mean it's dead.)

Yeast multiply by budding. That means that their growth is not arithmetic, but rather geometric. Every reproduction cycle doubles your yeast population. (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,... but starting with upwards of 100 billion cells and ramping up from there.) The more yeast you've got, the quicker they can eat all the sugar in your wort, and the less chance anything else has to get established in there. To really give your yeast a kick-start, which is the idea behind the starter technique, you let them warm up a little and multiply a few times before they actually get pitched into your wort. ("Pitch" is brewer speak for tossing yeast into wort.) That way, there are more of them, they do their work quicker, and your beer benefits. This is not, however, to say that more yeast is always better. If you end up with too many yeast going at it all at once, you risk overproduction of the yeast's flavorful esters and phenolic compounds, and some yeasts produce their characteristic flavors more effectively when stressed, rather than when pampered. But it is easier to underpitch than to overpitch yeast.

Now the question becomes where and how to let the yeast warm up and reproduce a couple of times. Sam's method, below, does work fine... but there is a simple shortcut that can make it even easier. Instead of worrying about mixing up some dry malt and water and hops, you can (in most parts of the US at least) purchase unfermented bottled malt beverages. The brand I know is Malta Goya, but there are others out there too. You'll find them in hispanic markets, and often in the "ethnic" aisle of your supermarket. They're priced like soda, or cheaper, and are of the right sugar concentration for yeast to comfortably get warmed up for beer fermenting.

A bottle of malta emptied into a sanitized glass container is a fine training ground for your yeast. So, follow the instructions on your yeast package with regard to activating any internal nutrients that might be in there (Wyeast does this, others do not), and then add the yeast to the malta and cover up the vessel to keep airborne stuff out of it. In a day or two you'll see a sediment building up on the bottom of the vessel. That sediment is yeast cells that you can use to ferment your beer. Refrigerating the starter will encourage more of the yeast cells in there to fall out of suspension and join the cake on the bottom. That way you can decant most of the liquid (and the maltas are dark and might darken your beer if added) and just add the slurry of yeast cells that built up.

For beginners using fresh modern dry yeast in a two gallon batch, you really don't have to worry about this step. Once you graduate to five gallon batches and start exploring the varieties of yeast that are available in liquid but not in dry form, then this step will aid you in maximizing the deliciousness of your beer.

In re to using live cultures of liquid yeast, one way to really kick off the fermentation is to brew a small "pitching batch" a few days before so you can grow up some extra yeast (Chris may be planning on explaining this later).  This is easy to do, since you don't really care about the taste:  smack the pack & when it is inflated, boil some malt powder (maybe with a few pellets of hops) with maybe a quart of water, decant it into a sanitized glass bottle and chill, pitch the yeast and put on an airlock.  In a day or two, the yeast will have fermented the liquid into "beer."  What's more important is that the population of yeast cells you have on hand will have radically increased.  While you're boiling your wort, etc. just put the bottle in the refrigerator so most of the yeast goes temporarily dormant and sinks to the bottom of the bottle.  Decant off most of the liquid, and when it is time to pitch the yeast for your actual batch of beer just swirl the bottle to stir up the yeast and pour it into your fermenter.

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Edited April 10, 2006 by cdh (log)

[FoodMan]

I love Goya Malta! I have a six pack in my fridge right now. Good to know that about it if I ever decide to use wild yeast in the future.

[slkinsey]

Heh. Liquid yeast. Liquid yeast is what you want. The wild stuff you definitely do not want.

[FoodMan]

Heh.  Liquid yeast.  Liquid yeast is what you want.  The wild stuff you definitely do not want. 

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Right! I think I had "Wyeast" stuck in my head and I translated it into wild yeast .

[cdh]

I love Goya Malta! I have a six pack in my fridge right now. Good to know that about it if I ever decide to use wild yeast in the future.

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Thinking of wild yeast, you could do a fun experiment to see just how yeasty your kitchen air currents are. Open a bottle of malta, pour it into a glass bowl, and watch it for a week. I bet it self-innoculates and starts growing whatever the predominant wild yeast in your house is. You'll see a sediment build up on the bottom of the bowl, and you might see little colonies floating on top.

If you really want to isolate it to what's in the air, then sanitize the bowl by putting a couple of drops of bleach in, fill the bowl up, swirl it around, rinse it out, and rerinse it out. (Fermentation in the presence of chlorine makes some pretty awful flavors... chloraseptic is one way it has been described.)

When you see some sediment on the bottom, have a taste of the liquid. You'll know what your wild yeast's flavor profile is... there is a small chance it might be nice, but odds are that it will be nasty.

Edited April 11, 2006 by cdh (log)

[jsolomon]

When you see some sediment on the bottom, have a taste of the liquid.  You'll know what your wild yeast's flavor profile is... there is a small chance it might be nice, but odds are that it will be nasty.

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You are being quite generous in using the descriptor "nasty".

Some are downright foul. Let your nose be the first guide!

[FoodMan]

Ok, did my shopping and I am ready to go

Now I am off to waste a bottle of perfectly good Malta for the sake of "fun" experimentations. Maybe I'll post some picks of my local-resident-yeast growing in Malta....

[cdh]

Looking good, Elie! I see you got a big grain steeping bag there, and a little nylon drawstring bag. Are you planning on using the drawstring bag in place of the hop socks?

Put those hops and the yeast sachet into the fridge to keep them the freshest.

[FoodMan]

Looking good, Elie!  I see you got a big grain steeping bag there, and a little nylon drawstring bag.  Are you planning on using the drawstring bag in place of the hop socks? 

Put those hops and the yeast sachet into the fridge to keep them the freshest.

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the little drawstring bag is what the saleperson gave me when I asked for "hop bags". Are they not what you had in mind? The nylon grain bag is indeed large, actually "Jumbo" since the only sizes they had available were "small" and "Jumbo".

I do have the hops and yeast in the fridge per their instructions. I took them out so they could pose

BTW, all I can find are 1 liter soda/seltzer bottles or those itty bitty 250 ml ones. I still think 1 Liter is too large for me and would rather have 500ml bottles. Any idea if this size is even available?

[Mayhaw Man]

Heh.  Liquid yeast.  Liquid yeast is what you want.  The wild stuff you definitely do not want. 

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Unless you happen to be a Belgian guy. In that case, you just mash, lauter, cool, throw open the windows and turn on the fans!

[cdh]

the little drawstring bag is what the saleperson gave me when I asked for "hop bags". Are they not what you had in mind? The nylon grain bag is indeed large, actually "Jumbo" since the only sizes they had available were "small" and "Jumbo".

I do have the hops and yeast in the fridge per their instructions. I took them out so they could pose

Well, you've bought the reusable ones rather than the single use hop socks that are pictured with the lesson. More investment, but more return, whether it is proportional is up to you. Both will work fine, though the drawstring does mean you could probably get away with using just one. Just pull it out, open it up, add the next hop addition and pull the drawstring again.

BTW, all I can find are 1 liter soda/seltzer bottles or those itty bitty 250 ml ones. I still think 1 Liter is too large for me and would rather have 500ml bottles. Any idea if this size is even available?

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Availability of different sized PET bottles will depend on your local market. Here in the northern Philly suburbs, a soda bottler out of Allentown packages their seltzer in 500ml bottles. Dunno if anybody in Dallas does or not.

[cdh]

Hey Elie-

Has your Malta grown anything yet? Any signs of sediment on the bottom or bubbles on the top?

Edited April 18, 2006 by cdh (log)

[FoodMan]

Hey Elie-

Has you Malta grown anything yet?  Any signs of sediment on the bottom or bubbles on the top?

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Actually no. I tossed it down the sink this morning and all it grew was a couple of spots of greenish mold. Maybe my kitchen is more sterile than we expected .

I am a little behind on the brewing BTW. I need to buy a big enough pot sometime this week. the one I had was smaller than I thought.