Hops

[cavey]

Hi all,

Going to try doing my first hops today and was going to just boil 20 grams cascade in two litres for 20 mins and then pour the whole lot into the fermenter (not straining the old hops out). The guy at the store I just bought from said that I should strain the hops first? Thoughts?

I will also be dry hopping another 20 grams at 5 days. Does it matter that I leave all the sediment in the fermenter?

Thanks again

 

[Phoney]

Dont bother straining, they will settle to the bottom eventually.

 

[bum]

In two litres of what?

Wort = good. Water = bad.

I reckon you'll be right not straining them out but a lot of people do. If you can do it without much trouble and you'll feel better about it then go for it. Remember to keep everything sanitary, of course. You'd hate to filter the lot through something that might infect your brew.

 

[carniebrew]

Agreed, in this situation with only a 20 minute boil, no strain = more yum.

 

[cavey]

Thanks guys.

One last question re Yeast. I bought an American ale yeast from craftbrewer, I want to rehydrate before using. I have actually cooled some water down to 13degrees, so my end temp before adding yeast will be around 18 degrees. Should I rehydrate yeast in room temp water or in the 13 degree water? I was thinking the lower temp might not work all that well? Does the yeast go ok when rehydrating at say 24degrees and then adding to the wort at a lower temp?

I have been known to be an over thinker.........!

 

[Yob]

check the manufacturers websites, different yeast have different needs, you should be able to dig up the spec sheet for it and it should say..

what yeast?

 

[rehab]

Thanks guys.

One last question re Yeast. I bought an American ale yeast from craftbrewer, I want to rehydrate before using. I have actually cooled some water down to 13degrees, so my end temp before adding yeast will be around 18 degrees. Should I rehydrate yeast in room temp water or in the 13 degree water? I was thinking the lower temp might not work all that well? Does the yeast go ok when rehydrating at say 24degrees and then adding to the wort at a lower temp?

I have been known to be an over thinker.........!

Hi cavey what was the yeast? US 05?
This is from how to brew:

Re-hydrating Dry Yeast
1. Put 1 cup of warm (95-105F, 35-40C) boiled water into a sanitized jar and stir in the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap and wait 15 minutes.
2. "Proof" the yeast by adding one teaspoon of extract or sugar that has been boiled in a small amount of water. Allow the sugar solution to cool before adding it to the jar.
3. Cover and place in a warm area out of direct sunlight.
4. After 30 minutes or so the yeast should be visibly churning and/or foaming, and is ready to pitch.

Note: Lallemand/Danstar does not recommend proofing after rehydration of their yeast because they have optimized their yeast's nutrional reserves for quick starting in the main wort. Proofing expends some of those reserves.

 

[carniebrew]

Is it US-05 dry yeast? Personally I wouldn't bother re-hydrating, the Fermentis instructions themselves say it's perfectly fine to just sprinkle it on top of your wort. No matter what the yeast though, you should follow the manufacturer's instructions...for example some yeast specifically says NOT to make a starter with wort, only water...other yeast says water or wort.

13 degrees is also too low for re-hydrating ale yeast...again Fermentis say for US-05 to pitch it into 24-30C water, let it rest for 15-30 mins, then stir for 30 minutes before pitching. Again...so much easier to pitch it dry, hasn't failed me yet.

 

[cavey]

The yeast is from craft brewer and it just says American ale 12gms?

 

[cavey]

In two litres of what?Wort = good. Water = bad.I reckon you'll be right not straining them out but a lot of people do. If you can do it without much trouble and you'll feel better about it then go for it. Remember to keep everything sanitary, of course. You'd hate to filter the lot through something that might infect your brew.

I was just going to boil the hops in water and then use this as the base for the kit?

 

[Yob]

Is it US-05 dry yeast? Personally I wouldn't bother re-hydrating, the Fermentis instructions themselves say it's perfectly fine to just sprinkle it on top of your wort. No matter what the yeast though, you should follow the manufacturer's instructions...for example some yeast specifically says NOT to make a starter with wort, only water...other yeast says water or wort.

13 degrees is also too low for re-hydrating ale yeast...again Fermentis say for US-05 to pitch it into 24-30C water, let it rest for 15-30 mins, then stir for 30 minutes before pitching. Again...so much easier to pitch it dry, hasn't failed me yet.

bollox, they also provide rehydration procedure. Personally, I always rehydrate dry yeast.

To get it to the pitching temp I add 200 ml of the wort from the FV every 5 mins to the rehydrated yeast and this slowly brings the temp down to within the right zone. as per the method set out in dot point 4. of THIS , it always seemed to make quite a lot of sense to me.

US-05 spec sheet

 

[felten]

Hi cavey what was the yeast? US 05?
This is from how to brew:

Re-hydrating Dry Yeast
1. Put 1 cup of warm (95-105F, 35-40C) boiled water into a sanitized jar and stir in the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap and wait 15 minutes.
2. "Proof" the yeast by adding one teaspoon of extract or sugar that has been boiled in a small amount of water. Allow the sugar solution to cool before adding it to the jar.
3. Cover and place in a warm area out of direct sunlight.
4. After 30 minutes or so the yeast should be visibly churning and/or foaming, and is ready to pitch.

Note: Lallemand/Danstar does not recommend proofing after rehydration of their yeast because they have optimized their yeast's nutrional reserves for quick starting in the main wort. Proofing expends some of those reserves.

I don't have the latest how to brew book, but I'm pretty sure Palmer does not recommend proofing with extract/sugar any more.

 

[cavey]

Ok......might try sprinkling on the top, leave for 30 mins and stir in......next time I will get better instruction for rehydration.

So is it ok to just boil my cascade hops in water and use this as the base for the kit?

 

[sp0rk]

Don't even bother stirring, i've never stirred mine and about 50 batches later it's still working fine for me

 

[cavey]

Thanks for all the help guys........I need to do a little more reading it would seem.

 

[sp0rk]

www.howtobrew.com is your best friend

 

[benno1973]

No need to stir (as sp0rk said) - you're just adding one more variable that could contaminate the brew.

As far as rehydration, you can get away without rehydrating your yeast and it will still work. Despite it working, the better practice is to rehydrate to increase the number of viable cells that you are pitching. That's maybe something that you can look at next time, as it's easy to do and it does make a difference. To give you an example, here's a quote from Dr Clayton Cone of Lallemand:

Let me give you some facts regarding rehydration and you can decide for yourself where you want to Compromise.

Every strain of yeast has its own optimum rehydration temperature. All of them range between 95 F to 105F. Most of them closer to 105F. The dried yeast cell wall is fragile and it is the first few minutes (possibly seconds) of rehydration that the warm temperature is critical while it is reconstituting its cell wall structure. As you drop the initial temperature of the water from 95 to 85 or 75 or 65F the yeast leached out more and more of its insides damaging the each cell.

The yeast viability also drops proportionally. At 95 – 105 F, there is 100% recovery of the viable dry yeast. At 60F, there can be as much as 60% dead cells. The water should be tap water with the normal amount of hardness present. The hardness is essential for good recovery. 250-500 ppm hardness is ideal. This means that deionized or distilled water should not be used. Ideally, the warm rehydration water should contain
about 0.5 – 1.0% yeast extract.

For the initial few minutes (perhaps seconds) of rehydration, the yeast cell wall cannot differentiate what passes through the wall. Toxic materials like sprays, hops, SO2 and sugars in high levels, that the yeast normally can selectively keep from passing through its cell wall rush right in and seriously damage the cells. The moment that the cell wall is properly reconstituted, the yeast can then regulate what goes in and out of the cell. That is why we hesitate to recommend rehydration in wort or must. Very dilute wort seems to be OK.

How do many beer and wine makers have successful fermentations when they ignore all the above? I believe that it is just a numbers game. Each gram of Active Dry Yeast contains about 20 billion live yeast cells. If you slightly damage the cells, they have a remarkable ability to recover in the rich wort. If you kill 60% of the cell you still have 8 billion cells per gram that can go on to do the job at a slower rate.

And for boiling the hops, you should boil them in wort, not water.

 

[Yob]

www.howtobrew.com is your best friend

In the yeast subject, the yeast book is the one you want. (JZ / White)

 

[beerdrinkingbob]

In two litres of what?

Wort = good. Water = bad.

Not trying to start a Bum fight.... what is the theory behind it?

 

[bum]

I don't know the "theory" (i.e. the science of it). I do know that a 20 min boil in water tastes like crap though - tastes pretty great in wort. I do know that the lower the gravity of the boil medium the higher the IBU extraction will be and the less (or less effective?) extraction of flavour and aroma compounds will be. Can't explain it, sorry, but I'm sure someone else will. I do know from experience that it is true though.

I'm assuming you have done/do boils in plain water - give it a crack in some of your wort next time and see what you reckon. Keep in mind that your IBU will be lower though so you may need to adjust for that.