Posted on 06/15/2012 3:30:28 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time!
Happiness is a bubbling airlock!
GLASS OF MY CRANBERRY MEAD – MELOMEL – HONEY WINE
While we all enjoy a mug or glass of our favorite beer or wine I thought we could discuss the most important ingredient we all need to make our homemade beers or wines.
Yeast
I have used both Wyeast and White Labs liquid yeasts and also dry yeasts mostly Safale 05 and 04 for fermenting my homebrews. I always keep at least one or two of the Safale yeast packs in the fridge as a backup, just incase. Last summer the heat during shipping did in a smack pack of Wyeast I had ordered and the backup dry yeast I had in the fridge saved my beer. If you use the liquid yeasts it is advised you use your supplier’s cold pack shipping option, especially during the warm months. If you don’t have a local homebrew store near you, having a backup yeast supply is essential. I also keep at least 1 lb of Dry Malt Extract around so I can make a yeast starter.
Use a yeast starter
Some experts recommend pitching at least 192 to 200 Billion yeast cells into a five-gallon wort of a medium gravity ale. Higher gravity ales and lagers will require more yeast cells. Both of the liquid yeast brands mentioned above only contain 100 billion cells and the 11.5 gram dry yeast packs of Safale only have 70 billion cells. A yeast starter will boost your cell count to the proper range suggested for a quick start and efficient fermentation and reduce your costs for yeast. Below is a link to why BeerSmith recommends making a starter;
Making a Yeast Starter for your Home Brew Beer
Here are some basic guidelines and instructions, from Midwest Supply:
1. Activate a Wyeast pack and allow it to swell. Wait until the yeast package has swelled to at least 1 inch thick. Or shake up a room temperature White Labs vile. Dry yeast packs just need to be at room temperature.
2. Heat 4 cups water in a saucepan and when hot, dissolve 1 cup Dry Malt Extract (DME) in the water. If you have any yeast nutrient available, you can add ½ tsp to the mix. It’s ok to leave out the nutrient. Lightly boil the wort for 20 minutes. The goal is to create a starter about 1.040 in specific gravity.
3. Sanitize your flask, growler, mason jar etc.
4. When the boil is complete, gently pour the hot wort into the sanitized container. Cover the opening of the flask with aluminum foil. Be careful when doing these steps, use a pot holder to move the flask.
5. Cool the flask in an ice bath. It helps to gently swirl the flask and periodically add ice to the bath to hasten cooling.
6. When the starter wort has cooled to around 70°F (the flask is cool to the touch), shake the flask vigorously to introduce oxygen, and then pitch the yeast. Attach the stopper and airlock.
7. Ferment the starter around 70°F for 24-36 hours for maximum cell growth. Do not expect to see a vigorous fermentation or layer of foam as you would see in a primary fermentation. To increase cell growth, you may wish to agitate the starter periodically to introduce oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. Stir plates are an excellent way to significantly increase the culture’s population. The starter may be refrigerated for up to a week before using, if need be. If refrigerated, allow the yeast to warm up before pitching on brew day.
8. Pitch yeast starter into cooled, aerated wort. Agitate the flask to get the yeast into suspension before pitching. Alternatively, you can drop the yeast by refrigerating the yeast starter for a few hours and decant the fermented starter liquid leaving the yeast cake on the bottom. Add a few ounces of boiled and cooled water and swirl to create a slurry. Then, pitch the slurry into your wort. Some brewers prefer this method to leave the fermented starter wort out of their batch or to do a subsequent, larger starter to generate an appropriate pitching rate for high gravity beers or large.
Another thing I have found helpful especially at bottling time and to help determine if a beer is carbonated. I like to use one PET bottle when bottling. I can squeeze the PET bottle and feel the carbonation level. If it is firm and hard to squeeze, I know it is ready.
I hope this was useful info for some of you. Now let's get brewing! Please let the thread know what yeast you prefer and why and how you use it.
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The last time I made mead, some of the bottles spontaneously exploded. Either I need to refine the recipe, or procure stronger bottles...
Added
What’s the oldest known beer recipe?
Indeed! We are living in a Golden Age of beer. Drink up! How long can it last?
Could have been it needed to ferment for a longer time and the yeast had not done a complete fermentation yet. Same thing happens to beer if the yeast is not allowed to do its job. A mead can take a while to ferment - 3-4 months in the primary and about the same time in a secondary.
Asked the egyptian working on a pyramid.... ;)
Beer, onions, bread... They can't take it away from us.
/johnny
Yeast is a most magical friend of man.
You can easily culture yeast from some bottle conditioned beers made commercially. You will quickly learn how to make starters if you keep a yeast library on slants. I start my starters about 2 weeks out because when using a slant you are starting with a pinhead size cluster of cells.
First a 12oz starter then a 1/2 gallon starter. Pitch a half gallon to a 5 gallon batch and you will be rolling in a few hours.
Please add me to your list. Cheers!
Added.
My neighbors have been admonishing me not to make any more homebrew. They tell me, “it makes me do funny things after I drink it”...........
I forgot where I read it, but was told that cane sugar gives a cidery flavor to the brew and should be avoided. Your opinion?
/johnny
Meh... my neighbor learned about specific gravity and checks all my new brews. He battens down the hatches if it's starting around 9%. ;)
/johnny
I cook all my own bread as well, so I rely on them for food and drink.
Nothing like having a trillion of your dearest friends eating, fornicating and dying so you can have a loaf of bread or glass of beer.
/johnny
This is my fourth batch. Neighbors and relatives clean me out fast so I thought 9 gallons might last awhile.
It is warm-hot and does have a nice taste. Some people use it as a marinade or in salad dressings.
I would definitely not get drunk on it. Unless you follow it up with lots of ice cream.
How many Jalapenos do you use in that wine? Are the fresh when you use them?
There are demo cane boils all over Florida in the fall I like the one in Gainsville the Saturday after Thanksgiving because they have a fiddle contest for my daughter to enter.
On another note what does everyone do for wine bottles? the bottles are priced reasonably until you get to the shipping then they tend to average out to about $2 per bottle. At that price I’d rather go down to the local Wally World and buy their plonk at $2.97 per bottle and dispose of the content in the approved way and own a bottle for a buck net. Any better ideas out there?
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