What process / technique / piece of equipment has improved your beer the most?

[Hoppyland]

What the hell is a brew lab yeast slope!? 🍻

Well, they might be a little obscure, perhaps, but quite a few homebrew suppliers sell them. I buy mine direct.

Basically, a yeast slope is a pure laboratory culture of a specific yeast strain. It's called a "slope" because they are usually provided in a small sterile bottle (identical to the ones you'll have seen for urine samples. Into this has been poured, under sterile conditions, a quantity of agar that contains the correct nutrients to maintain the yeast. This "agar" is quite similar to gelatine - and it is poured into the wee bottle as a hot liquid. The bottle is held, and cooled, at an angle. Like gelatine, the agar "sets" as it cools - and so the resultant jelly-like solid appears to "slope" from one side of the bottle to the other.
Why do they make it slope? Because it makes the next bit easier. The initial "slope" is a sterile medium that will support yeast vitality. The next step is to take a pure culture of a particular brewery yeast and transfer it - again under sterile laboratory conditions - to the slope. (Usually, a red hot - then cooled - loop of wire is used for the transfer. The "slope" of the receiving medium makes this as quick as possible)

So, that's a yeast slope. The "Brewlab" bit refers to Sunderland University. They were the first I came across to offer pure commercial yeast strains to the general public. I guess it's now a for-profit offshoot of the Uni. I think they now mainly support small-scale commercial operations (their website isn't really geared to homebrewers - but I still buy through it!):
http://www.brewlab.co.uk/services/home-brew-yeast

By the way, I DO NOT have any financial affiliation to this company (I say that, cos I seem to keep mentioning them :))

The rumour that more info is available from:
[email protected] is a malicious lie :twisted:

Hope this helps!
Bill

Edit - blimey, a bit surprised the site would reckon my "Sycophant" mail address was a real one! Must try ot out tomorrow to see if it really is :lol:

 

[dad_of_jon]

1. Discovering Brewlab yeast slopes (in the late 1980s??). Totally changed the quality of my beers - I'd been using crap dried yeasts up until then. Still my first choice.
2. The realisation that keeping oxygen away from my beer would prevent a lot of infections & also improve flavour & keeping quality no end. I now liberally use CO2 from a big Hobbyweld cylinder to purge air ever time I transfer beer. (works for food too - my good quality olive oil doesn't rancidify if purged, Pesto doesn't go mouldy etc :))

re 1.

can't imagine how dire dried yeast would be in the 80's :sick:

re 2.

I use 16g co2 cartridges to purge my bottling bucket and stick the autosyphon tube in at the bottom of the bucket. BUT I don't purge the bottles with co2. so far I'm more than chuffed with the results.

it would be nice to be able to use c02 on a more cost effective scale :thumb:

 

[IainM]

What the hell is a brew lab yeast slope!? 🍻

One of these: http://www.brewlab.co.uk/store/home-brew/s-3
I haven't tried them, but they look really interesting.

 

[Hoppyland]

re 1.

can't imagine how dire dried yeast would be in the 80's :sick:

Well, it wasn't great. But you could definitely brew something with the same "quality" as Double Diamond!
But with better yeast, and hops that actually had flavour and aroma, then a new world beckoned!

What's your difficulty with cost-effective CO2? I use Hobbyweld - no deposit on the cylinder and about �£26 for a refill (which lasts ages! These are big cylinders :))
And this is on Skye! Prob better deals further south!

So far, I don't purge the bottles. I've thought about it, but never gone that far. Mainly lack of space/kit in a rented house. I have, though, just bought some "oxygen scavenging" caps from the Malt Miller (cheaper than plain ones - presumably cos their logo is on them). Do they work?? Am I competent to find out???? :smile:

 

[Hoppyland]

One of these: http://www.brewlab.co.uk/store/home-brew/s-3
I haven't tried them, but they look really interesting.

Go for it Ian! Yep, not as easy as pouring a hit of 005 into your wort. You certainly will need to make a starter from the slope - but the yeast should be in great condition if you do it now (they'll culture a fresh slope to your order). Then, posting at this time of year virtually guarantees no excessively hot or cold transit conditions in the UK.
Clean, crisp beer? Try East Midland 1
More characterful? Burton. (could be a bit on the farty side.... I like it, wife has banned it :twisted:. Unfairly, in my opinion - I blame her chicken & lentil soup :))
For me, if you're after a beer using traditional English/British yeast, you won't do better than a fresh batch of this, direct from the supplier.

Don't forget to tell all your friends - and of course mention me at:
BillCook@PayoutFromBrewlab#Direct-to-BahamasA/C.NoTax
You guys think that's a joke??




Bum - yes it is :-?

 

[IainM]

Yes Hoppyland I'll give it a shot. Got my jars, and my first liquid yeast arrived yesterday and is in the fridge. The Erlenmeyer is the next on my list, so I can get my moneys worth from it. For sure I'll need to get a traditional English AG brew on soon, to quaff while the high gravity stuff is conditioning, and a slope is tempting. I like the idea of getting it straight from the supplier, as opposed to having something of undisclosed age or storage conditions.

 

[JapanBrew]

Brumbrew, nice!!!!

I'm making a brew chamber now so I'm sure that'll be the best.
As of now, my pumps.

 

[sponge_]

Fermenting fridge and stir plate for sure. You can make good wort taste like crap with bad yeast management, but you can still make drinkable beer using crap wort but with good yeast management.

PS. I use the work drinkable loosely. You get the idea though.. Keep yeast happy - they do the most important step of brewing.

 

[Godfather50]

All grain brewing. The hike in taste from kit brewing was remarkable.

 

[davereal]

+1 on the planning. Usually pre clean the day before and get all my figures right.No brew fridge thou , just trubs and fish tank heaters but still keeping the temps on the ball is a huge difference from when i started with blankets then brew belts. But got to say the biggest plus was just boiling the total water and a bit extra to death for half an hour a few hours before a brew.

 

[davereal]

I do have the luxury of a cellar. Nout fancy, but great for all year brewing. Gets down to about 12c in winter and up to 16 c in summer. Still got brew fridge envy thou. Defo next on the upgrade list.

 

[Crawfordid]

I second the fermentation chamber but before I had the space and resources a simple heat pad and temperature controller like the inkjet made a huge difference to my beer! Mainly because of where I live I don't need to worry about beer overheating but getting warm enough to ferment in the first place!

 

[JohnnyR]

Money.:smile: When I was first brewing, back in the mid 1990s at the tender age of 22, I had no job and bugger all money and couldn't afford decent kit (not that much was available in that line back then). I'm not what you'd call rich now, but being able to afford decent kit - a dedicated mash tun instead of a mashing bag in a bucket, a Burco boiler and a dedicated HLT, and so on - has made an enormous difference. That, and a counterflow chiller; back in the day I never bothered to crash cool my wort, mostly because my Garaham Wheeler books seemed to imply that it was optional, and I lost so many beers to infections because of the delay in pitching the yeast. Being able to drain the boiler through my cooler and pitch the yeast straight away makes a big difference. Next on the list is a fermentation fridge ...

 

[CraftyZA]

The process of cold crashing.
After primary and secondary fermentation, i drop the temperature down to 1 degree Celsius and leave it there for a few days. I have not seen a cloudy beer since I started doing that


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[strange-steve]

Good yeast management. This is probably the most important aspect of brewing. Proper pitching rate and temperature control means happy yeast which equals great beer.

 

[johnbarleycorn]

Definitely the fermentation fridge. I used to have a nightmare finding places in the house which were the right temperature without annoying the wife. Now I have the shed to myself and can really fine tune at what temperature the fermentation happens.

+1 from me......no more fusel compounds !!

 

[JapanBrew]

I think I posted on here before but that money thing really stuck to me. It does cost a lot to brew. Everyone says different but it's based on their view point.
That post, somehow shot me back to age 11. My family and I were homeless and I got a job at a printing shop. Because I was under age the owner thought it to be fair to pay my $1.50 an hour. I worked hard. Now, so many decades later, I still haven't had a day off from work. But the money is different. I just spent $50 on a hop spider. It's funny how hobbies cover over the history of pain and sweat. I remember being so hungry that I took a bunch of bagels from the dumpster behind a supermarket and lied to my mom that I bought them.
JonnyR, not being rude, really thanks. Makes me respect what I put into this hobby.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Bump for members who joined after 07-10-2016.

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[CX500T]

Temperature controlled fermenter.

I have a SS Brewtech Conical, and I built a "field expedient" glycol chiller as the cold source.

 

[Dads_Ale]

Temperature controlled fermenter.

I have a SS Brewtech Conical, and I built a "field expedient" glycol chiller as the cold source.

Same here although mine is more basic using a chiller coil, cool box, ink bird and ice blocks...
Has dramatically improved brews in the summer months.