Cascade Draught

[quachy]

Adventually got to 1012, stayed ther for 3 days and I bottled. The beer tasted OK, not fantastic, but drinkable. Beer in the bottles look very cloudy, been in bottles for 3 1/2 days. Carbonation seems a bit slow (has only been a few days granted). I read somewhere that if carbonation is low, then give them a shake and then let rest for another two weeks. Can anyone confirm this?

Not overly confident with this one, but maybe it will improve with time - lots of time perhaps.

On a brighter note, doing a coopers stout at the moment with be2 and kit yeast. After a slow start (almost 48 hrs before any real action) it went nuts for two days now has slowed right down. Tasted and did a sg reading today 1016 down from 1050. Had a wicked taste! Can't wait to bottle age and drink and drink some more!

Coming up to my fifth brew after the stout. Have a cascade choc mahagany porter, cascade larger, coopers pale ale and coopers canadian blonde all in kit. Thinking of leaving the cascade larger until I get some real yeast. Was going to do the pale ale next with kit yeast and then later on do another pale ale with harvested yeast from coopers bottle to see difference. This homebrew thing is getting addictive!

Quachy

Quachy

 

[boingk]

Nice work quachy! Good to hear everything is running along well for you. I wouldn't be too miffed at the bottles being 'slow' to carb - they usually take a week or so. I don't try my beer until its been in the bottle for two weeks [just leave it sitting, don't shake], and three weeks onwards will see a definite improvement in your beer as residual proteins and yeast sediment out and the bitterness mellows. Head retention also improves out of sight.

One suggestion for the Cascade Choc-Mohogany Porter kit that I like a lot is to add 1kg of Liquid Chocolate Malt to it as well as 500g honey. Failing that, try 1kg of Coopers Light Dried Malt as well as the honey.

Also good to see you want to experiment with yeast - I think you'll be surprised at the difference between the two.

Cheers - boingk

 

[itguy1953]

Barry, yeah can get cold here. Got the fermenter inside with a thick towel around it. Also got a digital thermometer which measures max/min temps stuck to the outside of the fermenter. The variance has been 19-22 degrees over the past 16 days. Will be moving to the garage next and will have to either use different yeast or buy a pad or belt heater. Npt sure which yet, any ideas?

Using the yeast cake, how does that work, do you just put ingredients directly over the top of the yeast cake or do you take a few spoonfulls and culture????? Please excuse the ignorance here

Quachy

What sugars did you use to add to the kit? Malt typically takes longer to ferment than sucrose (table sugar) or dextrose, and remember that only 80% of malt is fermentable. The remaining 20% gives the beer body, but also adds residual sweetness. You can reduce this sweetness ie. dry out the beer, by adding an enzyme (improzmye or modiferm). These enzymes break down the long chain sugars into smaller pieces that the yeast can ferment.

If you have added a lot of malt, your final SG could be close to 1015. As it has been fermenting for so long now, I would carefully open the lid, put in a long handle sanitised plastic spoon, and give the yeast cake a good stir. Then seal up, and leave for another 4-5 days for the yeast to settle out. It should be finished then.

If you think that the beer is still too sweet now, further fermentation will reduce this, but most likely you will need to add more bitterness to balance out the beer ie the bitterness to sweetness ratio. To do this, buy some isohops from your LHBS, and add 12 drops to 23 litres to increase the IBU by approx 6 units. Do this just after you stir up the yeast, as it takes 3-4 days to spread evenly throughout the brew.

While you are at you LHBS you could also buy a hop tea bag to add to the fermenter just after you stir it up. Add 12-25g of Saaz for a fantastic fragrance and flavour. Once you start adding hops like this, you will be hooked, as they add a new dimension to your beer. Another good hop to add in a tea bag is Amarillo. Only leave the tea bag in contact with the beer for a week, as after that you can start to get a grassy flavour in the beer.

Keep us up to date on how you are going.

Barry

 

[itguy1953]

Using the yeast cake, how does that work, do you just put ingredients directly over the top of the yeast cake or do you take a few spoonfulls and culture????? Please excuse the ignorance here

Either method will work, but be careful when adding your water/wort to the yeast with temps. You should only add wort to yeast when it is under 25degC. If you add hotter wort to the yeast cake you will kill some/all of the yeast.

Best idea is to drain your old brew out of the primary fermenter into bottles/kegs, or even into plastic cubes for secondary fermentation/cold conditioning. Then you are left with a yeast cake approx 20mm thick on the bottom of the fermenter.

Make up your brew in another fermenter/bucket, adding your hot water to dissolve the extract and sugars, then the cold water to bring the temp down. Ideally the wort should be at room temp before adding it to the fermenter on top of the old yeast cake, but a few degrees above room temp will not matter. I have read that a high temp difference can shock the yeast.

When you pour the wort into the fermenter, do it vigorously to both stir up the old yeast, and help aerate the wort. Seal up the fertmenter, and you should have bubbles within 2-3 hours, and vigorous fermentation within 8 hours. If you use this technique, the ferment will finish much quicker.

A downside of reusing yeast cake like this, is if you had an infection in the original brew, you will get it in the new brew as well. To try and avoid this, make sure you taste the beer as you are taking SG's along the way, and see if you can detect any infection. At the slightest hint of infection, make sure you discard the old yeast cake, and start with a new one. You should be able to get several reuses of yeast cake before throwing it out.

Another effective way to get a good healthy slug of yeast into your brews is to bottle off the yeast cake into 2-3 stubbies. Add sugar to carbonate the beer, and put aside. Make sure you label it as yeast starter with the date and type of yeast. Discard after 6 months. Do not use the yeast until you have drunk some of the beer it made, and if you were not happy with the beer (ie. infection, funny tastes etc), discard the yeast.

Happy brewing

Barry

 

[PhilS]

Cascade use xtal malt, wheat flour and sugar in their recipie. From memory they also use a belgium yeast strain and POR hops.

13C for fermenting, with an original of 10.5 plato