Tess Tickle's Brewdays

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

After a disappointment as our new PH meter didn’t work, we decided to carry on without it.

First off we connected the kitchen telly to the laptop, so we could see Brewfather instructions clearly.

Filling the Brewzilla with the mash water

Organising the water salts (made a right mess!)

Mashing in

Toasting the marshmallows

Sparging

Chilling

Right at the end of chilling the pump blocked, so we improvised to fill the fermenter

24L of Toasted Marshmallow Stout ready to rock and roll! We got the idea from Clawhammer Supply YT channel. Phew. My recipe tomorrow!

 

[matt76]

Great job, looks like you guys are having fun together

Second pic - what's the blue hose you're using to fill the kettle? Hopefully not just a regular garden hose...

If so I'd avoid doing it again as water strips nasty plastic off flavours from garden hose (I can't remember the exact science but it's a general no-no).

Second to last pic - nothing wrong with filling your FV like that, I do mine the same except with the kettle even higher up on the kitchen island - it's an easy way to aerate the wort

Hey, by the way, you didn't do the boil indoors did you? Bet that must have made things rather humid!

 

[DocAnna]

Loving the idea of Brewfather on the TV! I've taken to printing out the brew sheet for the day to make notes on as I go, and using the mobile app for timings. I agree with @matt76 on filling the fermenter that way, it does seem an effective way to aerate the wort initially. As for using toasted marshmallows for an initial brew crikey you really are pushing the envelope with your brews there!

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Great job, looks like you guys are having fun together

Second pic - what's the blue hose you're using to fill the kettle? Hopefully not just a regular garden hose...

If so I'd avoid doing it again as water strips nasty plastic off flavours from garden hose (I can't remember the exact science but it's a general no-no).

Second to last pic - nothing wrong with filling your FV like that, I do mine the same except with the kettle even higher up on the kitchen island - it's an easy way to aerate the wort

Hey, by the way, you didn't do the boil indoors did you? Bet that must have made things rather humid!

Yes we did the boil inside with the windows open

Thanks for the hose tip, didn’t know that! I use bottled water but the hubby doesn’t so I’ll mention to him.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

My peach ale is in the fermenter as of about an hour ago

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

3 hours in and this crazy Voss yeast is going wild in there

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

I’ve decided I’m not putting up with any more of this oxidation nonsense. I am capturing the CO2 from the fermentation into my second vessel which I will serve out of. I’ve done this for two reasons.

1. To ensure I put enough gas in my secondary vessel when I do the closed transfer, so that I don’t cause oxidation as in my last attempt.

2. To save money on gas as I then don’t need to use my gas bottle to fill up the secondary vessel.

Everything is of course clean and sanitary. Hopefully I’ll have a better result this time. Not leaving anything to chance!

 

[Brewnaldo]

Lisa, at what point did you add the marshmallows?

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

We added them to the boil at 10 minutes to go. But I insisted my husband melt them in a pan first until they were fully dissolved, as I wanted to prevent burning on the bottom of the BZ.

Edit - there was some wort in the pan too!

 

[Buffers brewery]

Great job @LisaMC and OH!
On the subject of CO2 capture, are you flushing the second vessel (originally full of air) with the gases from your fermenter or did you fill the second vessel with water and displace it with the fermentation gases? The first method will increase the quantity of CO2 in the second vessel but will not get rid of all the air as it will constantly mix with the additional CO2. The second method will provide a much higher CO2 concentration but even then you have to vent the initial gases from the fermentation as they will contain a high proportion of air. I used the second method with a conventional (leaky) fermentation bucket and got it to work once, but my bucket was too leaky to repeat the process. Might work with your pressure fermenter. Currently, I displace the water from my keg with bottled gas but I’m going to try and use fermentation gas collected in balloons for my next transfer. I’ll report on my success/failure on my brew day post.
Happy brewing

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

I used the first method, but I was going to purge before transfer as well with my gas bottle (not using as much as I would with the other method). Hopefully those two things together are enough?

I couldn’t use the second method as I have some flavouring in the bottom of the second vessel.

 

[Clint]

Get some shoes on! You spill hot wort on your feet and you'll be writing a "hospital " blog...

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

our name is not clumsy b’stard @Clint

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

We assumed the air was lighter than CO2 and was floating on the top of the vessel. So the spunding valve lets out the air first until it’s all gone and then the excess CO2 afterwards. Otherwise, if CO2 mixes with oxygen, what’s the point of purging a keg?

 

[Brewnaldo]

We assumed the air was lighter than CO2 and was floating on the top of the vessel. So the spunding valve lets out the air first until it’s all gone and then the excess CO2 afterwards. Otherwise, if CO2 mixes with oxygen, what’s the point of purging a keg?

Gas doesnt mix like that. I used to have a graph which I cant find which shows how effective cycle purging (pressure up then vent) is conpared to a trickle purge like you are talking about.

The TL;DR version.... Pressure up/vent/repeat x 3 for best results. Trickle purging is of course miles better than nothing.

Someone on here will have the data as it apllies to home brew I have no doubt. My graph was of industrial nitrogen but the principle is the same.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

That would be useful if you do find it. You get told lots of different things by different people and then you don’t know which one to believe lol. Hence the slight confusion.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

One of my problems on my last brew was I didn’t know if I was purging for long enough and how long to pull the PRV for, before repeating. Like someone else said, filling with sanitiser probably would’ve been better but I couldn’t do that both times, as I’ve had flavourings in the bottom of my second vessel.

 

[foxbat]

We assumed the air was lighter than CO2 and was floating on the top of the vessel. So the spunding valve lets out the air first until it’s all gone and then the excess CO2 afterwards. Otherwise, if CO2 mixes with oxygen, what’s the point of purging a keg?

Gas molecules don't form layers, they disperse randomly over time.

Don't worry though, your approach to purging is sound. The sheer volume of CO2 produced by the fermentation reduces the concentration of O2 in the vessel being purged from 21% to a miniscule 5 parts per billion (for a vessel of 20 litres). Reference.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Thank you @foxbat that's very interesting!

 

[jof]

Lol, Lisa, if you think back a couple of years, did you have any idea that you would add "chemical engineering" to your skill set?