My brain has been working a million miles an hour at this ester problem. A couple of things to note.
1. The furlough beer was underpitched. Nottingham website says about 55 billion in a packet. For 5 gallons of 1.045 beer I want something like 250 billion. So about 4.5 packets. I pitched 2 packets. I wonder if I had pitched 4 would the beer be great.
2. The realization from #1 leads to a problem. The last split batch I added one vial of WLP001 to 2.5 gallons of wort and two vials of WLP001 to a different 2.5 gallons of wort. I was adding just about as much yeast as you can into the second and it was still horribly estery. What was the difference between furlough beer and the split batch.
- The ingredients? Split batch had munich. Furlough had crystal and rye.
- The temp swings in the chest fridge? The split batches were smaller in volume and would be affected more by the temp swings. The really small (3 quart) infected test batches should then exhibit very estery taste when done.
- Yeast? Split batch had WLP001 and Furlough had Nottingham.
All things to test. Gotta go fly now.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Ester Report 1
What I want in life is to make a beer like Widmer's Citra Blonde. A clean blonde beer. Unfortunately, I suck. All I have been making is ester beer. They really come through when you have a light beer. To re-cap I've tried different air locks, different temperatures, more yeast, and now clean gear. In all cases one was more/less estery than another but still they were all estery. I made furlough beer and used two packs of dry english yeast. At first I thought it was a bust after I sampled it 4 days in. But now after 10 days I would say it is drinkable. Maybe my least estery blonde yet. Could it simply be the english yeast? All the others were the Chico strain. Three days into the fermentation of clean gear beer I can say they both taste the same. I'll try again next weekend. But something tells me that they will continue to taste the same. So where do this leave us? Temperature! I really need to get going on my sexy temp controller.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Infection?
I went to sample the furlough beer. It tasted ok, but noticed a little ester in there. Is it just green beer taste that will clear up in a few days? Maybe. But I think not. I think it will get steadily worse over the coming weeks.
All my beers for a while now are too estery/cidery. What's happening? Why? One key thing I noticed is that it gets worse the older it gets. This led me to do some thinking and I'm now guessing that the issue is an infection. Some type of acetobacter I'm guessing. They work slowly which is why as the days/weeks go by the beer get worse. I wonder if I were to add oxygen to the beer after a few weeks, would it turn into vinegar? There are a couple of ways we can test this.
1. I plan to make a small batch of beer in the kitchen on Saturday. Nothing fancy. Just some DME, water, and a little hops. Once the wort is cooled I will put it two separate 1 liter water bottles. One of these water bottles will not have any of my gear touch it. From the pot to the bottle. Shake it up to add some O2 the old fashion way, add yeast, and done. I'll use ballons with little holes poked in them as air locks. Then, add wort to another 1 liter bottle but use the funnel, O2 stone, and thief (to check gravity). Basically, all the plasticy things I normally use (except the racking cane). Then I put these in the chest freezer for a couple of weeks and sample.
2. The furlough beer will be given O2 after another week and we can see if starts to become vinegar. Of course if the furlough beer is amazing I'll drink it and not experiment with it. I check it again in a week.
My guess is the O2 stone is the culprit. I jam it in the fermenter every time and I have never completely taken it apart to clean it. All it ever gets is a rinse after use and a boil before use. The boil is only the top 3 inches as well. I'm looking to sanitize just the O2 stone itself. I've never put effort into the tubing.
If this test shows that there is an infection the plastic stuff that touches the beer after it has been cooled must be replaced.
All my beers for a while now are too estery/cidery. What's happening? Why? One key thing I noticed is that it gets worse the older it gets. This led me to do some thinking and I'm now guessing that the issue is an infection. Some type of acetobacter I'm guessing. They work slowly which is why as the days/weeks go by the beer get worse. I wonder if I were to add oxygen to the beer after a few weeks, would it turn into vinegar? There are a couple of ways we can test this.
1. I plan to make a small batch of beer in the kitchen on Saturday. Nothing fancy. Just some DME, water, and a little hops. Once the wort is cooled I will put it two separate 1 liter water bottles. One of these water bottles will not have any of my gear touch it. From the pot to the bottle. Shake it up to add some O2 the old fashion way, add yeast, and done. I'll use ballons with little holes poked in them as air locks. Then, add wort to another 1 liter bottle but use the funnel, O2 stone, and thief (to check gravity). Basically, all the plasticy things I normally use (except the racking cane). Then I put these in the chest freezer for a couple of weeks and sample.
2. The furlough beer will be given O2 after another week and we can see if starts to become vinegar. Of course if the furlough beer is amazing I'll drink it and not experiment with it. I check it again in a week.
My guess is the O2 stone is the culprit. I jam it in the fermenter every time and I have never completely taken it apart to clean it. All it ever gets is a rinse after use and a boil before use. The boil is only the top 3 inches as well. I'm looking to sanitize just the O2 stone itself. I've never put effort into the tubing.
If this test shows that there is an infection the plastic stuff that touches the beer after it has been cooled must be replaced.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Furlough Beer
Clare says we should make a furlough beer. We are DoD employees and we are being furloughed. Ok Clare here we go. I thought I'd try a little rye. Also I think I'd like to try some dry english yeast. We are going to be sure to cool the wort down today to 65F.
Here's a breakdown of the recipe. I'd like to lower the gravity a little too, so less malt.
8 lbs 2-row
0.5 lbs Crystal 15L
0.2 lbs Rye
0.4oz Northern Brewer 10% AA @60min
0.5oz Amarillo 8.4% AA @10min
0.5oz Amarillo 8.4% AA @1min
Lallemand Nottingham 11.5g x2 - Dated 01/2015 - Lot# 1081064V
Servomyces
Whilfloc
5 gallons Ridgecrest filtered water
5 gallons distilled
4 grams gypsum
4 grams calcium chloride
1 gram epsom salt
8:44pm - So I've been at this for a few hours now and all is going ok. Currently I am mashing and should start the sparge in 15 min or so. Two things are different at this point then normal. One is that I used the grain mill cabinet that Ellie's dad made for me. It worked wonderfully. I set the mill on top, a bucket on the bottom, attached the drill, and milled away. I'm defiantly going to need to give him my thanks. Also, I boiled up some tap water for re-hydrating my yeast and it is simmering in a covered pot in the kitchen as I type. Other than that the day has been the same.
Had some problems with hitting my mash temperature today. I did myself a favor and made sure that I got the temp real close before I put the grains in. I'll never make that mistake again. Also, when I did get the grain in, the temp was a little high which is correctable. If it's too low then we normally are screwed. It's nice that I seem to be getting a process down such that even when things don't go perfect the whole brew day is not lost.
12:55am - Whew! All done. I did not cool the wort to 65F as planned. I cooled it to 68F. I just couldn't get it colder than that. I need to change my cooling method. Maybe I'll try an aquarium pump in a bucket of cold water. I don't know. But I bet this beer is as estery as any other batch. Nothing was different like I wanted. I guess we will see. Something I noticed about these blonde beers is that they are drinkable very early and the esters really kick in as the beer cleans up. So, if I really want to drink this batch I guess I could do it early.
I was thinking another way to skit this issue was to just set the fridge at a higher temp, which I have done. It is now at 67F. English yeast doesn't do well any higher in temp than that. In fact the chest freezer was much cooler than 67 more like 60F when I put the beer in. In no time at all the temp had crashed from 70Fish to 66F. So, 3 degrees in just a few minutes. I needed to warm up the freezer so I plugged in a fan and put it in the freezer with the hopes of it pushing the cold air out and pulling warmer garage air in. This worked great and I was able to warm up the fridge to 68F in about 30secs. That's when I noticed the temp strip change back to 68F. There is no way to liquid could cool that fast. This leads me to feel like the temp strip is not as accurate as I have thought. I rely in this temp strip to tell me what is going on in the beer. Maybe I need one of those thermowells.
Anyhow, the day is done. We will see what we get. I don't want to say this day was a bust but I wan unable to achieve the 65F I was looking for when cooling the wort. I think if this batch comes out too estery again I need to re-evaluate how I cool the beer and amend the process and try again. It's late. I'm going to bed.
Here's a breakdown of the recipe. I'd like to lower the gravity a little too, so less malt.
8 lbs 2-row
0.5 lbs Crystal 15L
0.2 lbs Rye
0.4oz Northern Brewer 10% AA @60min
0.5oz Amarillo 8.4% AA @10min
0.5oz Amarillo 8.4% AA @1min
Lallemand Nottingham 11.5g x2 - Dated 01/2015 - Lot# 1081064V
Servomyces
Whilfloc
5 gallons Ridgecrest filtered water
5 gallons distilled
4 grams gypsum
4 grams calcium chloride
1 gram epsom salt
8:44pm - So I've been at this for a few hours now and all is going ok. Currently I am mashing and should start the sparge in 15 min or so. Two things are different at this point then normal. One is that I used the grain mill cabinet that Ellie's dad made for me. It worked wonderfully. I set the mill on top, a bucket on the bottom, attached the drill, and milled away. I'm defiantly going to need to give him my thanks. Also, I boiled up some tap water for re-hydrating my yeast and it is simmering in a covered pot in the kitchen as I type. Other than that the day has been the same.
Had some problems with hitting my mash temperature today. I did myself a favor and made sure that I got the temp real close before I put the grains in. I'll never make that mistake again. Also, when I did get the grain in, the temp was a little high which is correctable. If it's too low then we normally are screwed. It's nice that I seem to be getting a process down such that even when things don't go perfect the whole brew day is not lost.
12:55am - Whew! All done. I did not cool the wort to 65F as planned. I cooled it to 68F. I just couldn't get it colder than that. I need to change my cooling method. Maybe I'll try an aquarium pump in a bucket of cold water. I don't know. But I bet this beer is as estery as any other batch. Nothing was different like I wanted. I guess we will see. Something I noticed about these blonde beers is that they are drinkable very early and the esters really kick in as the beer cleans up. So, if I really want to drink this batch I guess I could do it early.
I was thinking another way to skit this issue was to just set the fridge at a higher temp, which I have done. It is now at 67F. English yeast doesn't do well any higher in temp than that. In fact the chest freezer was much cooler than 67 more like 60F when I put the beer in. In no time at all the temp had crashed from 70Fish to 66F. So, 3 degrees in just a few minutes. I needed to warm up the freezer so I plugged in a fan and put it in the freezer with the hopes of it pushing the cold air out and pulling warmer garage air in. This worked great and I was able to warm up the fridge to 68F in about 30secs. That's when I noticed the temp strip change back to 68F. There is no way to liquid could cool that fast. This leads me to feel like the temp strip is not as accurate as I have thought. I rely in this temp strip to tell me what is going on in the beer. Maybe I need one of those thermowells.
Anyhow, the day is done. We will see what we get. I don't want to say this day was a bust but I wan unable to achieve the 65F I was looking for when cooling the wort. I think if this batch comes out too estery again I need to re-evaluate how I cool the beer and amend the process and try again. It's late. I'm going to bed.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Split Batch Results
So after three weeks I sampled the split batch and two things were noted. First, the beer with more yeast was less estery. Second, both beers were still horribly estery. So, I've learned what things I can do to get less esters but I still have an ester problem in my brewery. What am I doing to cause this problem? It will be a fun adventure to figure it out. Who knows. Maybe I will never figure it out and my career as an amateur brewer is over. But I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet!
Possible issues:
1. I think I need to keep the wort cool before I pitch. I usually get impatient and cool the wort only to 72ish, pitch the yeast, and then cool to 65ish in the chest freezer. Maybe this drop in temp pisses off the yeast. So next brew I think I will cool the wort more before I pitch.
2. The chest freezer is currently set at +-3F. I always thought this was sufficient since the beer is a large thermal mass and would not fluctuate all that much. Also, this will keep the compressor from cycling on and off like a boss. Perhaps this is causing the beer temp to fluctuate too much. Once I get the temp controller working I will be able to gather data about this issue.
3. Equipment issues. Maybe the stuff that measures the temperatures is broke. Maybe the O2 stone is broke. Maybe some other equipment is to blame. I'm going to try #1 and #2 before I start thinking about this.
Wish me luck.
Possible issues:
1. I think I need to keep the wort cool before I pitch. I usually get impatient and cool the wort only to 72ish, pitch the yeast, and then cool to 65ish in the chest freezer. Maybe this drop in temp pisses off the yeast. So next brew I think I will cool the wort more before I pitch.
2. The chest freezer is currently set at +-3F. I always thought this was sufficient since the beer is a large thermal mass and would not fluctuate all that much. Also, this will keep the compressor from cycling on and off like a boss. Perhaps this is causing the beer temp to fluctuate too much. Once I get the temp controller working I will be able to gather data about this issue.
3. Equipment issues. Maybe the stuff that measures the temperatures is broke. Maybe the O2 stone is broke. Maybe some other equipment is to blame. I'm going to try #1 and #2 before I start thinking about this.
Wish me luck.
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