Carbonation Tablets

[b_thomas]

Hi All,

First post so if I've dropped this in the wrong spot please let me know

Ok here's my problem description. I'm looking at racking off into a secondary (first time I've tried it), however my secondary is the same size (30L) as my primary fermenter. The brew is roughly (20L) so minus 1L worth of gunk at the bottom I've got around 19L going into the secondary. From what I imagine and have read 11L worth of oxygen is going turn my beer stale very quickly. I'm wondering if I were to drop some carbonation tablets into the secondary it would push the air out without affecting the beer too much. The other alternative was to wait until fermentation had slowed but not yet stopped and have the natural CO2 production push the air out.

All that being said 11L is a lot of air, should I really be looking at buying a 20L jerry from the camping section BigW? (No airlock on these and I don't see how to create one either).

Another piece of info is that it's a Dunkelwiezen, so maybe it would be best just to bottle condition the beer, as it's supposed to be a pretty cloudy beer anyways?

Cheers,
Brad

 

[ozpowell]

Just rack it without the carb drops - your beer will be fine. You should rack before you have reached your FG (usually 3 to 5 days after fermentation begins for ales) - 2 or so bubbles per minute if you're using an airlock would be fine. The racked beer will create enough CO2 (which is heavier than air) to protect itself from aeration.

Just be careful not to splash the beer too much during the racking process - that is more likely to damage the beer than anything else....

Cheers,
Michael.

 

[b_thomas]

Thanks for the info! and yep I have a syphon tube (sterilised) to do the transfer with a minimal amount of air getting in.

 

[pint of lager]

You are obviously keen on your brewing if you have two 30 litre fermenters and are brewing a dunkelweizen.

I would suggest you buy yourself a cube to rack to with zero headspace. That way your primary is freed up again for another brew. Plus a cube is an ideal next step with your brewing.

If you are worried about an airlock, drill a hole in the lid, put in a grommet and airlock. Or just leave it screwed up loosely so any excess pressure can escape. With no airlock, these 20 litre drums stack neatly in a fridge.

11 litres is a big headspace. During primary, the act of fermenting flushes the headspace with CO2 and most of the oxygen is removed. You would need to rack quite early to make sure there was enough flushing to remove the oxygen. Same with adding more sugar to flush the headspace. Plus you are trying to remove the yeast, not make more.

The cloudiness in a wheat is due to using less flocculant strains, not by leaving an excess of yeast in the beer.

 

[b_thomas]

Is this where I get varying different techniques that confuse the hell out of me? I think I might go with the $20 20L jerry can, not sure if I trust my science enough to trust the density of gases to protect my beer.

 

[pint of lager]

Yes, this is one topic that if you ask 10 brewers, you will end up with 11 answers.

Alot of members were very keen rackers, but some of us have reverted back to "no rack."

There are good reasons to rack, and another lot of reasons why you shouldn't rack.

Then there are the rack after fg is reached school, and the rack when you are about 5 points off fg school.

 

[b_thomas]

All part of the joy of home brewing I'm actually pretty new to it, this being my second batch. I'm pretty comfortable around the kitchen having had worked as a cook so I'm always interested in looking at the more advanced techniques, just that with homebrew it's like skinning a cat!

I got Charlie Papazian's complete joy of homebrewing so hopefully I'll learn some more of the craft before I venture into my next batch

 

[pint of lager]

Being your 2nd batch, I would suggest to keep it as simple as possible at the moment.

Keep it at the correct fermentation temperature for at least the first seven days, leave it in primary for another 5 days, start checking that the sg is stable and bottle around day 14.

Concentrate on your sanitation and temperature control, use good quality ingredients and do a few more brews. Then you can if you wish move onto racking to secondaries.

And wow, your second brew is a dunkelweizen. Lookout, the mashbug will bite.

 

[b_thomas]

Getting a little off track but here was the recipe I reworked from another source, a little conversion to metric and change of grains due to shortages at my online and local suppliers (sorry it's a cut and paste from my online beer diary so there's extra info). I guess I may be getting a little cocky, I call it adventurous, but things like sanitation and temperature control are all pretty stock standard skills you carry across from cooking. You're right once I track down a good hot water urn I'll be mashing away . Next step though I think will be to replicate this recipe and see what my consistency is like.


Dunkelweizen

Ingredients:

2 cans (3kg) Liquid Wheat Malt Extract (Wals) countrybrewer.com.au $22.00

250g Chocolate Malt (Bairds) craftbrewer.com.au $1.13 - Steeped

350g Wheat Caramel Malt (Weyermann) craftbrewer.com.au $3.36 - Steeped

3tbsp / 40g / Sachet Hallertauer Mittlefrueh Hops (Craftbrewer) craftbrewer.com.au $3.50 - 60min Boil

1 Sachet Weizen Yeast (Craftbrewer) craftbrewer.com.au $4.00 - 1:2 Yeast to Water Cream


For Bottling:

150g Dark Dry Malt Extract craftbrewer.com.au $1.17 - Bulk Primed



Total Cost:

$35.16

 

[pint of lager]

Recipe looks fine. You do want to record the alpha acid rating of your hops and the expected IBU's.

Definitely start gathering your mash gear and we will lookout for your name at the next homebrew show. When you do start mashing, have a crack at the recipe but as an AG version. Try and keep some of your bottled extract version and do some taste comparisons.

Unless you have been bottling fruit or making jam, not much comes across from cooking about sanitation. But I guess you have already been reading the online discussions about cleanliness and sanitation already.

 

[b_thomas]

My partner and I both make all of our own preserves, it was her crazy idea, so we've now got cranberry sauce, plum jam, raspberry cordial and peach syrup coming out of our ears. The only fault that I found was when the seals on the bottles were breaking - they were reused franklins glass soda bottles with a soft metal twisttop - these ended up growing some interesting fungi.

Oh and if you've been cooking commercially then sanitation definitely carries across Every tried a faecal test on your own hands just after you've washed them? It's a scary experience let me tell you! It makes shudder everytime a sandwich hand gives me my change with their rubber gloved hand.

On another note, I'm really struggling with a lot of the 3 letter acronyms IBU's (Internation Bitterness Unit right?) and AA (alpha acid, which is more to do with bitterness right?), I work in IT these days and have enough floating around in my head . I guess that's some more study I need to do.

 

[pint of lager]

Ahh, commercial cooking and preserves, you will have a very good working knowledge of sanitation. Should have guessed that you had a good working knowledge as you didn't use the word sterilise.

There is a very good article floating around on the website that contains all the acronyms. Simon W put it together. I forget if it is in the articles, wiki or an airlocked thread.

Blackberry season is just coming on so you will be making blackberry jam. Just made a failure of a mulbery jam, too many unripe berries with too much pectin. Can hardly get the knife into the jam.

 

[b_thomas]

I hate Blackberries, actually I don't, but I hate the fact that you pay $4 a punnet for a noxious weed! You can't go blackberry picking anymore either for risk of dying from tryclopor poisoning. I saw a gorgeous bramble the other day out at Bathurst, I could have easily nabbed 2kgs of berries from it minus 2 litres of blood

Something I would really like to try down the track is to swap Raspberries with Blackberries in a Frambois, but that's something I'd work on after mastering things like the secondary fermenter considering I'd need to use a tertiary from what I've researched. I'm picking up that 20L jerry on Thursday and will augment it to fit an airlock.

Speaking of which I'm using an S bend single piece airlock but am kind of concerned with inflow, at this stage the pressure in the fermenter has pushed the water out of the initial chamber, and if I try to fill it it just fills the secondary chamer and then gets blown out at the next bubble. Im concerned that when the pressure drops it will suck the water (and any nasties) back into the fermenter. I've heard that vodka is a good substitute for water, but I'd rather mix it with the aforementioned raspberry cordial. Are there any better solutions to airlocking that the S bend? The two piece jobs look interesting but not sure if they'd be just as susceptible to inflow.

and Sterilise is something you do to your dog/cat that keeps peeing on the furniture

Sorry for not keeping to topic (not sure if a mod would like to split this topic at the appropriate post)

 

[Steve]

Sorry for not keeping to topic (not sure if a mod would like to split this topic at the appropriate post)

its your thread....you can ramble on and off topic for as long as you like. :lol:

Cheers
Steve

P.S. Dont worry about the s-shaped airlock and the water going backward n forwards. The more you fiddle with it the more chance of something getting into your fermenter. Best just to leave it completely alone. You'll soon realise that the airlock isnt the b all n end all. Many people dont use them at all. Have Fun!

 

[pint of lager]

Keep the vodka for your rasberry syrup.

Only add a small amount of sanitiser to your airlock, that way, when it sucks back, none gets pulled into the fermenter.

The two parters are better, easier to clean, easier to fit a blowoff tube to, and they don't suck back in as badly as the single s style.

Better to ramble on in the same thread. Yes, you are right, it has wandered off topic. Often, new users start a few threads when the information is better in one thread.

To avoid blood when picking blackberries, wear gumboots and long pants, one leather glove on one hand, the other hand is gloveless for picking. A pair of secatuers in the back pocket help. Also, sheets of old corrugated iron to "walk" on the bushes. I use metsulfuron methyl on blackberries.

Keep the Frambois plans on the backburner for a bit longer till you have the basics ironed out.