Getting The Wort Right

[LightLager]

Hello to all,

Bottled brew number 3 this morning. Beermakers' Old. Straight out of the fermenter it only had a slight home brew twang, so hopefully it should condition out ok.. *fingers crossed*

Using the Kit & Kilo method.

For brews 1, 2 and 3: I have just chucked the kit yeast in, sealed the fermenter and put it on the tiles in the bathroom. Bottled and stuck it in the cupboard.

I have cracked open Brew #1, colour is good and smells ok, but it tastes like home brew, I guess this is to be expected; It fermented at about 32C for 4 days (30/10-5/11 a hot week here in Brissy) and I used 1Kg of dextrose (done before receiving advice from this site).

OT: At this point I would like to say how good it feels to be drinking your own beer?

Back on topic:

So am I up to brew number 4.

My plan is to:
2L of boiling water to melt the dex/LDM/maltodextrin mix I got from the LHBS
1L of boiling water to melt the goo in the tin

I am planning on using American Ale yeast, US-05. Following the yeast cream procedure outlined elsewhere on this site.

For this one, I have hijacked the wine fridge (!), the fermenter just fits and I am going to set it to 18C. Hopefully this will give me some stable tempreatures.

The questions:

Can anyone see anything wrong with the above methodology?

How important is it that you wait for the wort to cool to ~25C?

Can you put the US-05 yeast in at say 32C?

Does the wort temp at time of pitching the yeast have much affect on the final flavour/taste of the beer?

Cheers...

 

[Goofinder]

Put a couple of litres of water in the fridge to get it cold first. By adding that and cold tap water for the rest should should be able to get it down enough pretty quickly. You should try and get it down to at least 25C like you said... don't put the yeast in at 32C, especially if you have done the yeast cream thing and got it ready to go already.

The other way you could do it is to dissolve your HBS mix in a stock pot (7L or bigger), bring it up to boiling then add the kit and mix in. The amount of water you've listed (3L) should be enough for this. Turn off the heat, cover, and put the pot in a cold water bath (with ice if you've got any) in the sink. Move the water about a bit, and when it has warmed up, replace with some more cold water. Once the second lot gets warm, dump it in the fermenter and top up with cold water. That should get you reasonably close to 25C.

 

[Fermented]

With 3l of boiling wort and the remainder of your top-up at 20C your wort temp will be >26C, maybe 28C. S-05 spec calls for 24C max, but it can be used hotter without too many nasty things happening.

Throw in a few kilos of ice when you're ready to add the top up water to the fermenter. Don't use servo bulk ice as it might not be clean enough. Just make blocks in plastic takeaway containers and it will be fine.

If you're planning to ferment at 18C, then you might like to be closer to 22C at pitching imho.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[Nickwrighty]

From memory, the us-05 needs to be piched between 17-23/5
as i say from memory.

 

[LightLager]

Cheers gents.

The plastic takeaway containers for ice is a good idea. I will use that.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[flattop]

Imperative that you brew below 28* as the temps will give off bad alcohol and you will have a bad headache, pitching at high temps will cause a fast fermentation not necessarily a good one. A fridge at 18* is good, pitch below 24* if you can.
I've usually found 3 litres of hot water topped with 19 liters of tap water usually brings my temp in at around... 24* good enough to pitch at.
I'm not a big fan of ice in the fermenter, i guess it's all good if it melts before you pitch. The main aim is to pitch at a temp that will keep the yeast healthy, extremes of temp are probably to be avoided.

Ohh as for the homebrew twang, i think it fades with age, a cerveza i pitched 35 days ago is just tasting right now. Different brews and yeasts will hide that back taste also.

 

[Fermented]

I tend to use the cubed ice from my auto-icemaker. Wife wanted the mother of all fridge and freezers a couple of years ago. I wanted the mother of all plasmas. We had a deal.

A couple of kg in the bottom of the fermenter melts rather rapidly when the very hot wort is tossed on it. Top up to volume and then pitch (not forgetting to aerate before the pitch). Just check your top-up water temperature before deciding to use ice and how much ice as tap water temps are all over the joint at this time of year.

I would be concerned about adding ice to the hot wort and top-up mix as it wouldn't bring the temp down swiftly enough. I guess.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[DKS]

Hello to all,

Bottled brew number 3 this morning. Beermakers' Old. Straight out of the fermenter it only had a slight home brew twang, so hopefully it should condition out ok.. *fingers crossed*

Using the Kit & Kilo method.

For brews 1, 2 and 3: I have just chucked the kit yeast in, sealed the fermenter and put it on the tiles in the bathroom. Bottled and stuck it in the cupboard.

I have cracked open Brew #1, colour is good and smells ok, but it tastes like home brew, I guess this is to be expected; It fermented at about 32C for 4 days (30/10-5/11 a hot week here in Brissy) and I used 1Kg of dextrose (done before receiving advice from this site).

OT: At this point I would like to say how good it feels to be drinking your own beer?

Back on topic:

So am I up to brew number 4.

My plan is to:
2L of boiling water to melt the dex/LDM/maltodextrin mix I got from the LHBS
1L of boiling water to melt the goo in the tin

I am planning on using American Ale yeast, US-05. Following the yeast cream procedure outlined elsewhere on this site.

For this one, I have hijacked the wine fridge (!), the fermenter just fits and I am going to set it to 18C. Hopefully this will give me some stable tempreatures.

The questions:

Can anyone see anything wrong with the above methodology?

How important is it that you wait for the wort to cool to ~25C?

Can you put the US-05 yeast in at say 32C?

Does the wort temp at time of pitching the yeast have much affect on the final flavour/taste of the beer?

Cheers...

Hi lightlager welcome to the best homebrew sight in the world of beer
Most important things first.
Brissy temp can be a killer for brewing. Very imprtant to keep temps down to around 18-20 for your ales IMO.
As this morning very cool around 4:30 - 5:00am I needed a jumper. By 6:30 am, a fan or air con req"d.
Try to control brew temps as best you can. Hints and advice on other threads. At the mo Im using 2lt frozen water bottles with my fermenters in big tubs or huge garbage bins of water. Seems to work OK as brew fridge being used by relos atm.
Ive found it easier to desolve dextrose, maltodextrin and dry malt in cool water first, it doesnt seem to clump and make malteezers.
It is very very important to get your pitch temps down to 18 - 20 or so for pitch and keep it there, given that the temp will rise as ferment begins it should be controlled.
The US- 05 yeast is supposed to be clean and crisp. At 32C your in for a nasty result, which could put you off HB for life. Reguardless read these forums Its all there Good luck. :icon_cheers:
Daz

 

[LightLager]

I've usually found 3 litres of hot water topped with 19 liters of tap water usually brings my temp in at around... 24* good enough to pitch at.

I have found that 3L of boiling water with 20L of tap water still ends up at 30C.

I will try starting with a lump of ice at the bottom of the fermenter to which I will put on the boiling wort. Might give this a go with just water to find out what kind of tempreature I can expect.

 

[LightLager]

Ive found it easier to desolve dextrose, maltodextrin and dry malt in cool water first, it doesnt seem to clump and make malteezers.

I will try this. Sounds like a good option to only have 1L of boiling water and some cooler water for the sugars.

The US- 05 yeast is supposed to be clean and crisp. At 32C your in for a nasty result, which could put you off HB for life. Reguardless read these forums Its all there Good luck. :icon_cheers:

I will be using the wine fridge set to 18C so it will be interesting to see what the actual temp of the brew is. 1-2C higher? I have been reading avidly for the past two weeks or so. I am working the principle that my procedures suck and I need to become more disciplined when preparing the fermenter and bottling the beer. For now I am just trying to get a "nice" brew out of a standard kit and a dextrose, maltodextrin and dry malt mix.

I agree that I have created some nasty tastes. My second lager had a really hot time during the ferment. I bottled it, it will be 2 weeks in the bottle on 2/12; had a really strong "home brew" taste at bottling. I will use it as a bit of test case for tasting over the next 8-12 weeks or so. However, if need some bottles desperately, some may be sacrificed in the pursuit of better beer.

 

[buttersd70]

Final temp - (boil temp - final temp)xboil volume/cold water volume = temp of cooling water

Seems like your tap water is around the 20C mark. for a 3L boil, 8L of water at 6C, followed by 12L of water at 19.5C will give you 23L at 25C. Given that most fridges are at less than 6C, you should be able to easily hit 25, if not 20.

 

[BobtheBrewer]

LightLager

You don't need all that boiling water. I use 2l of water. boil, add malt, dextrose, corn syrup etc, hops as required, then take it off the stove, Add can, stir and dump into fermenter. If making a lager I used to freeze a couple of litres of water, put it in the fermenter and pour the wort on top, then add water from the (water purifier) tap. Have since got myself a temp controller. Good luck, practice may not make perfect, but it makes your beer taste better.

Bob

 

[mfdu]

yeah - i've done it with as little as one litre of water to dissolve the can of goo + kilo of crap.

then while i'm cooling that pot in a tub of cold water + ice blocks, i'm doing my hop boil with 1 litre of water and prepping my yeast.

filled to 23 litres and came up bang on 20degrees. but obviously our tap temperature is lower, down here in mexico.

mfdu

 

[DKS]

I will try this. Sounds like a good option to only have 1L of boiling water and some cooler water for the sugars.



I will be using the wine fridge set to 18C so it will be interesting to see what the actual temp of the brew is. 1-2C higher? I have been reading avidly for the past two weeks or so. I am working the principle that my procedures suck and I need to become more disciplined when preparing the fermenter and bottling the beer. For now I am just trying to get a "nice" brew out of a standard kit and a dextrose, maltodextrin and dry malt mix.

I agree that I have created some nasty tastes. My second lager had a really hot time during the ferment. I bottled it, it will be 2 weeks in the bottle on 2/12; had a really strong "home brew" taste at bottling. I will use it as a bit of test case for tasting over the next 8-12 weeks or so. However, if need some bottles desperately, some may be sacrificed in the pursuit of better beer.

Looks like your onto it lightlager. You will be impressed with the results over what youve been doing The adventure begins. :icon_cheers:
Daz