EKA IV

Today I plan to do a split batch and have one fermenter with the silicon cap and the other with an air lock. I have a theory that the silicon cap is putting CO2 pressure on the beer and it is stressing the yeast. We will make EKA with a little less base grain.

9 lbs 2-row
1 lb Munich
0.5 lb Wheat

0.4oz Magnum 10.6 AA






WLP001 x2 - Jun-27-13, Lot PTI44-13

Servomyces
Whilfloc

5 gallons Ridgecrest filtered water
5 gallons distilled
4 grams gypsum
4 grams calcium chloride
1 gram epsom salt

1:06pm - Well into the brew day now. We are mashing now. Everything has gone smoothly. I've invited Kevin. He may get here later. It's a warm day for this time of year. It's nice. I've set up the gate so that snickers can hang with me. She seems to be happy.

Mashing at 150F. I hit a little high. Just added some room temp water. No problem.

Kevin came over. He brought Bud Black. That new Amber from the kit. It was good.

Ok. To sum up. Made a couple of mistakes. First I forgot to prepare the dry yeast for the beer. So as the beer was cooling I scrambled to get water boiled up with the mason jar. I did that and then got in it in the freezer to cool a little. Then I figured it would be better to throw it in the pre-chiller. This will be a good idea in the future. But, then I forgot to nicely warm up the dry yeast. So I fetch it from the fridge and put it under my arm pit to warm it up. This can't be good but I figure let's roll with it. After I get the water to 100F and put the yeast in I remember that I bought WLP001 from the bearded brewer.

So now I've got cold yeast in the fridge, and rehydrated yeast that I don't know what to do with. So I get the WLP001 from the fridge (two vials, one for each fermemter) and try to warm them up. In the meantime I am cooling wort with Kevin. I get the bright idea to use the dry yeast for mead. So I get Ellie to warm up the honey and put it in one of the one gallon fermenters. She didn't mix it so I had ot do that for her. After that she pitched the yeast and I told her to put in an orange and some raisins which she did. We'll see how mead that hasn't had any heat treatment at all turns out. I did sanitize the fermenter and the funnel.

So now the day is done. Aside from the yeast screw up, all went well. The two fermenters are chilling in the bathtub. It is a little warm for this time of year so it might be a challenge to keep it cool. The mead is there too. I think I may open the bathroom window at night and close it during the day.

EKA III Update

Getting real close on the EKA to what I want. The last batch ended at 1.007 which was one of the lowest it has been. I like it a little dry. The new usage of dry yeast I think is going to be a permanent stay. I will say that I think the ferment ended up with less esters but they are still there. At this point they are mild and almost pleasant but it irks me that it shouldn't be there at all.

During a trip to Big Bear with the wife we listened to The Brewing Network and on some random day back on 2009 a caller called into the show and shared how his beer suffered from strange ferments when he used the silicon stopper. I have been using the silicon stopper for months now. Simply because I'm too lazy to be bothered with filling the air lock every couple of days or whatever. Anyhow I guess the pressure builds up in the head space and angers the yeast. I can confirm that a fair bit of pressure does build up. I think it is time for another split batch with nothing different other than a stopper vs. airlock. My hope is the reason for the esters is that I've been stressing the yeast under too much pressure.