# weird science in the das brauhus



## droid (2/1/15)

hi all happy new year and all the best for your brewing in 2015

did a grain brew which was cubed, made a starter using *wyeast 1278 west coast ipa and the wort from the brew. got nothing at all even after the starter pack ballooned so added some sugar and got small wifts of bubbles coming up from the yeast on the bottom but after two days there is no action

ditched it this morning and thought about re-firing some other ranched stuff from the fridge

went out to the cube and it has ballooned? now i'm thinking infection

what a friggin start to the new year eh

then i open the cube and it has a beautiful yeast layer of bubbles on the top and smells really nice?? it looks like a normal fermenting beer but the only yeast in there would have been some microscopic amount from my wine theif from extracting some wort days ago for the starter and even then i can't remember having any yeast on the end of it only wort but maybe...

the mrs says grain has yeast on it and that's how you make a sourdough but it couldn't survive surely?

could a couple of tiny bits of yeast have got this going and if so why are we adding 300 billion yeast cells if they reproduce anyway?

infection?

in the confusion the wort has been transferred and aerated and another smack pack of 1278 has been chucked in cold along with a small amount of bry-97 also cold out of the glass in the fridge cold

welcome to 2015 brewing i thinks to myself... egad!







*the mrs overstocked our bar fridge with champagne for christmas and I came home from work to find the door open and the wyeast sitting under the fridge light and all warm and toastie wtf! say it isn't so...but it be so. put it (2packs) back in big fridge wondering if it was stuffed


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## Ducatiboy stu (2/1/15)

Did you taste it ?


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## droid (2/1/15)

well there's an idea! just tasted it to me it smells like apricot and has a citrus taste
my sister is here and she thought it smelled funky
the mrs thought it smells sour

?

you still on a duc stu
i'm on a modified honda xtourer 1200


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## doon (2/1/15)

You opened a cube to remove wort then closed it for a few days before going to pitch again

Most likely an infection


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## squirt in the turns (2/1/15)

doon said:


> You opened a cube to remove wort then closed it for a few days before going to pitch again
> 
> Most likely an infection


Yep, based on your sister and mrs' descriptions, some wild yeast/bacteria got in. Could turn out great or could be disgusting.

It doesn't matter if your wine thief was squeaky clean - there's tons of stuff floating about in the air which will quite happily chew through the sugars and nutrients in your wort if not outnumbered by yeast you deliberately put there. You let them in as soon as you opened the cube.

In future, if you want to use the same wort as your main batch to make a starter, reserve some in a separate container on brew day. Unless using straight away, store in the fridge (or freeze it) and re-boil before cooling and pitching.


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## Ducatiboy stu (2/1/15)

droid said:


> well there's an idea! just tasted it to me it smells like apricot and has a citrus taste
> my sister is here and she thought it smelled funky
> the mrs thought it smells sour
> 
> ...


Call it a sour saison


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## mosto (2/1/15)

I'd be guessing infection.

With regards to a small amount of yeast kicking off a ferment, a small amount is indeed capable of reproducing enough cells to ferment out a batch. The reason it's advisable to pitch more is to not stress the yeast, which can throw unwanted esters and flavours. If you tipped say a quarter or less of a 1278 smack pack into a wort, and then built the rest up to the correct pitching rate and put into an identical wort, they would both ferment, but they would have different flavours, possibly not pleasant in the underpitched batch. Stressing the yeast a little can be desirable in some styles, but generally, pitching at the correct rate is strongly advised.


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## droid (2/1/15)

ok well thanks very much for the replies, at the mo the fermenter is not needed so will let it ride, and in future will keep some aside rather than open

cheers


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## manticle (2/1/15)

My method for same wort starter is as follows droid - saves opening the cube to take wort.

Drain to cube as per normal. If I've calculated my volumes and boiloff correctly, I normally have about 2-4 L of wort at the bottom of the kettle once the cube is close to full. I keep my break material separate from my wort as much as possible.

I have an 8L stainless pot with fitting lid. This is cleaned, starsanned (usually I boil up my transfer hose in it while waiting for whirlpool to settle) and then the remaining wort is transferred without too much concern for trub. lid goes on, pot sits to cool a bit, then goes into the fridge. Next day I ladle or gently pour the clear wort into a sanitised container, leaving the trub which is rinsed from the pot. Wort is then returned to the pot, usually reboiled and cooled in the same container and then yeast is added for starter wort.

It means a couple of days before pitching to the main batch but is a good way to recover wort from trub and use the same wort for the starter. If the wort is lower gravity, I'll just pitch a full wyeast pack and add the cleared extra wort straight to the fermenting vessel.

Occasionally I can fill a cube and decant enough starter wort without getting much trub - in this case I'll simply add the yeast when the starter wort is cool - no decanting and reboiling needed.


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## droid (2/1/15)

thanks m8 process is clearly a concern here at present!


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## bradmccoy (9/1/15)

Infection, sure. But if it smells and tastes good, go with it. People are paying a lot of money for infected beers these days.


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## droid (10/1/15)

yep I just popped the lid open and it looks normal so I chucked in 50gms of Galaxy which will do its thing for the next few days then cold crash it till I can bottle it. It's been down since the 2nd of jan and at each reading I've tasted it - no probs...yippee!

this was it, the time I looked previously there was no air in there as I had squeezed it out. It wouldn't stand on its own here

Got lucky me thinks


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