Session’s brewdays

[Session]

I’ve started brewing again recently after having to sell all my previous gear.

This gave me a great excuse to start building my brewery the way I would have done the first time around if I knew what I know now. In case anyone is interested, here is my current set up. If not, skip to the brew day posts!



I am using a 35L BrewZilla to make my wort. I am currently brewing 20-25L batches, and transferring the wort at 69’C into HDPE cubes to no-chill and ferment at a later date when my beer stocks are dwindling.



This is fermented in the standard fashion in a corny keg. I have fitted mine with a floating dip tube, external heating and neoprene insulation. Temperature is controlled by an Inkbird ITC-308.



Once fermentation is at its peak and there is a good rocky head, I’ll top crop and store this for subsequent brews. I mainly use Voss kveik these days so this happens pretty quickly.

CO2 from fermentation is run out of the gas out post to any empty serving kegs that need purging of oxygen.



After top cropping I cap the pressure at 10 PSI and let it run until there are around 4-6 points left (depending on style), when I’ll increase the pressure on the spunding valve to 30 PSI. This is usually the time I dry hop.

Dry hopping is done by attaching a muslin bag with a stirbar and dry hops to the underside of the top of the keg with a neodymium magnet (before pitching the yeast). There’s just enough room around the lid opening to fit the magnet. Removing the magnet drops the dry hops into the keg without exposing the beer to oxygen.

I’m interested in experimenting with hop tea instead of hop pellets in the future but haven’t had experience with this yet.



Once fermentation is complete the carbed beer is transferred under counter pressure to the CO2-purged serving kegs which go in the fridge to chill ready for drinking.

 

[Session]

I brewed a simple APA to get things going.

85% maris otter
10% golden naked oats
5% oat hulls

45 min magnum addition to get 30 IBU
5g/L dry hop after 3 days w/ amarillo
Dry hop for 3 days then transfer to secondary.

The brew day went well overall, I had a bit of loose grain under the malt pipe after sparging, but most of this was filtered by the bottom plate on the BrewZilla. Next time I will try to be less excited when doughing in and stir more gently. It’s also possible the grain crush was too fine, which is difficult for me to correct as it’s done by the malt miller.

I’m not currently using the fine mesh bottom screen on the BrewZilla due to reports of stuck mash/sparges when this is used, but it may help to fix my problem so I might try using it next time and see how things go.

The wort was transferred to cubes to cool overnight, and subsequently transferred to a clean and sanitised keg for fermenting.

I did a 12L batch in my corny, so have pitched 6g of left over US-05 and will see how fermentation goes over the next few days.

Things to try next time:
1. Consider the fine mesh filter.
2. Put less wort in each hot cube - I had four cubes which were due to be filled with 6L of wort each. As they hold 6.5L each my last cube only had 4.5L in, and so was difficult to squeeze all the air out.
3. Consider heating the FV once the wort is transferred over. I had decided to just leave it at room temperature as it has been so hot recently, however I think the temp is a little on the low side so will add initial heating next time to help things start more quickly.

 

[NPi]

The dry hopping is inspired, have you seen this elsewhere or is it something you came up with? I had always wondered how anyone who ferments underpressure could dry hop without exposure to oxygen.

How long do you plan on keeping your cubes for before fermenting?

Cheers, Nick

 

[foxbat]

Great setup!

 

[Session]

The dry hopping is inspired, have you seen this elsewhere or is it something you came up with? I had always wondered how anyone who ferments underpressure could dry hop without exposure to oxygen.

How long do you plan on keeping your cubes for before fermenting?

Cheers, Nick

Thanks Nick!
It’s something I thought of doing myself after thinking there must be a better way than opening the lid. It seems to work well - currently I have over 100g of hops suspended and being gradually purged of oxygen by the fermentation process. I guess a stronger magnet could be used if doing bigger quantities of hops.

I guess this doesn’t need to be limited to pressure fermenting, and could be used in regular buckets as well to purge oxygen from the dry hop charge.

My plan for the cubes is to use them within a month or so. As I am experimenting with using a standard boil addition and then switching up the dry hop charge it’s fun to have a cube or two to experiment with without needing to go through a whole brew day again.

 

[Braufather]

Quite interested about the HDPE cubes, I hate the amount of water wasted used chilling with a coil. Do you find there is any compromise using them?

 

[Session]

Quite interested about the HDPE cubes, I hate the amount of water wasted used chilling with a coil. Do you find there is any compromise using them?

I haven’t noticed any issues yet... I used them a lot when brewing in New Zealand, and have just recently started back using them over here. They seem like a great solution.

One issue I could see is the extended contact time with the hops is likely to necessitate alteration of your late additions. I currently get around this by only using a bittering addition at 45minutes, then dry hopping like a beast to give flavour and aroma.

Other ways to mitigate this would be using a hop tea (thanks to @MyQul for this idea) instead and steeping late additions for the same amount of time you would in the boil, then adding these to your fermenter, or adding hops later than usual in the boil.

 

[Braufather]

I haven’t noticed any issues yet... I used them a lot when brewing in New Zealand, and have just recently started back using them over here. They seem like a great solution.

One issue I could see is the extended contact time with the hops is likely to necessitate alteration of your late additions. I currently get around this by only using a bittering addition at 45minutes, then dry hopping like a beast to give flavour and aroma.

Other ways to mitigate this would be using a hop tea (thanks to @MyQul for this idea) instead and steeping late additions for the same amount of time you would in the boil, then adding these to your fermenter, or adding hops later than usual in the boil.

you could just use a hop spider for boil and hop stand additions then remove it before transfer to the cube maybe?

 

[Session]

you could just use a hop spider for boil and hop stand additions then remove it before transfer to the cube maybe?

Yeah good shout. I currently use a hop spider for my boil additions and it seems to work really well.

 

[Session]

Great setup!

Thanks @foxbat - I really enjoyed putting the system together. It’s nice designing something with the benefit of hindsight!

I think this will work much better for me in terms of fermentation control and minimising oxygen exposure, and manages to get around not having space for a dedicated fermentation fridge, which is a big plus.

 

[Session]

So today I did my first top-cropping in my new system and - curses!! - when I moved the FV so I could do the top-crop I must have knocked the magnet. When I opened the keg the hops and their bag of delicious hoppy goodness had sunk without trace.... balls!

I think I’ll either have to get a stronger magnet or move it so the bag is stuck to the upper wall of the keg rather than the lid, as I suspect the upper wall will be more secure.



The top-cropping seemed very straightforward despite the fact I am fermenting in a corny, which is encouraging. I’m going to put the jar* in the fridge and top it up again with more cooled boiled water tomorrow.

I’ve increased the pressure in the keg from zero to 10psi using my spunding valve and a quick lick of CO2 to seal the keg back up. I’ll take a gravity reading tomorrow from the tap to see how things are progressing.

*the photo shows it after I added cooled boiled water - I didn’t just scoop up a load of wort!

 

[Session]

Just tasted the first pint - it’s good!

The golden naked oats (GNO) have given it a lot of haze but also a beautiful colour, without the overwhelming sweetness I usually get from a heavy crystal addition.

It has a reasonable fine white head. Not shaving-foam like a good weissbier but a decent structure. It doesn’t persist down to the end of the glass and this is something that could be improved in the future.

I capped the beer with six points left and without any additional CO2 it has settled at 10PSI at a serving temperature of 3’C, so almost spot on my hoped-for 2.5vol of CO2. The effervescence seems smoother, which I wonder whether is due to spunding rather than force-carbonating.

Mouthfeel is excellent. Full but not cloying, with a clean refreshing finish.

Hop aroma is full, with citrus and some stone fruits as you would expect with Amarillo. There is some faint malt aroma but overshadowed by hops.

There is only a little citrus hop flavour here, which is disappointing. I would like far more on my next batch, and will split the 5g/L dry hop addition between dry hop and a 70’C hopstand to see if that improves things.

Bitterness is moderate, with no specific character I can ascertain.

There is a prominent bready malt backbone to the beer which is very pleasing given I only used MO and GNO.

No yeast flavour or esters coming through at all, which is what I had hoped for when fermenting at 10psi. I was concerned fermenting with no temperature control would cause problems however I can’t find any off-flavours at all, which is very welcome.

 

[Session]

Hello again!
I have not brewed for a long time due to living in a flat. We have recently moved to a new house with a garden, so I thought it high time I got back in the saddle.

Today I wanted to detail my process for creating a frozen yeast bank. Having not brewed for a while, I baulked at the cost of fresh yeast when picking up a vial, and decided there must be a way to make it more affordable.

Obviously therefore the next step was to buy loads of equipment to ranch my own yeast! I bought the following:

• Stirplate - £40
• 3L conical flask - £16
• 50x 15ml centrifuge tubes - £12

I already had a pressure cooker, glycerin and isopropyl alcohol at home.

My process for yeast ranching and subsequently creating a frozen yeast bank was heavily influenced by the excellent post ‘maintaining a healthy yeast bank long term’ by user PoppinCaps on the HomeBrewTalk forum. I have detailed the process I use below.

1. Make up a 25% solution of glycerin and water (25ml glycerin and 75ml water)
2. Pressure cook at 15psi for 10 minutes
3. Put 5ml of this solution into a 15ml vial
4. Make a 1000ml starter (100g DME to 1L water) and add a fresh pack of yeast
5. Put on stir plate until the krausen has fallen
6. Cold crash in the fridge for 48hrs
7. Decant off the beer and then add 5ml of slurry to each vial - you will get approximately 10x vials’ worth of yeast
8. Shake well, stand the vials up in a jam-jar or other suitable container and add isopropyl alcohol up to the level of the yeast mixture, then freeze for 24hrs
9. After 24hrs the tubes can be removed from the alcohol and kept in an insulated cold box/bag in the freezer*
10. To make a new starter add one vial to a 1000ml starter and stir for 48hrs, then cold crash, decant and pitch into your wort

*the insulated bag or box is there to prevent the auto-defrost cycle from thawing your vials

I hope this post helps anyone else considering starting a yeast bank, and am very happy to answer any questions on the above.