Yeast and fementing questions

[WM7793]

Hi, while waiting for remaining bits and pieces to arrive for my first ever all grain brew and control panel build, I have thought of a few simple and stupid questions to ask the more informed members of the forum.

Q1. from what little I know there seems to be quite a number of strains of yeast available. Is there a list for example, to emulate your favourite ale, TTL for example. As a first time all grain brewer, would you recommend a dry or liquid yeast and what are the cost/taste comparisons, and recommendations to purchase such.

Q2. Having used the Muntons/Woodfords kits, I have brewed these in the house and controlled the temperature using a STC 1000 controller and heatpad. Now I intend with the new set up to brew small batches in the garage. With the onset of winter, would I need to insulate the plastice 5 gallon bucket, even though it is controlled by the STC1000?

Your advice would be very much appreciated.
No doubt I will have further stupid questions until I have my control panel built.

Best regards,
WM7793

 

[dennisking]

Good luck with your first AG. Although I am a big fan of liquid yeast for your first brews you would probably be better stick to dried yeast for easy and simplicity. Liquid yeast are more expensive but with proper management you can get several brews from the same vial/pack. Here is a link to the websites of the major yeast suppliers.

 

[TheMumbler]

I agree with dennisking that going for a dry yeast would probably the best thing to do for your first brew. You can always have a go with a liquid yeast later. You get more choice with liquid yeasts but they are more work (usually need culturing up a bit) and you can get good results with dried yeasts.

Safale S04 is quite popular for ales, and settles and compacts well that would be my recommendation for your first beer assuming you want something along the lines of a bitter or english pale ale.

What would you like to brew?

If your probe is in the wort then I would insulate the FV, why pay for heating that you don't need to? When I started AG I usually just wrapped the FV in a sleeping bag when it was cold but I wasn't using any heating. If you can get an old fridge from freegle/ freecycle then you could use that as an insulated cabinet.

 

[brewtim]

Bear in mind that you need ~180-200 billion yeast cells for a 23l brew of ale, more for lager, so for liquid yeast you will need multiple packs of factory fresh yeast and/or make a starter.

With dried yeast a single 11g packet will provide enough cells for ale and all you need to do is rehydrate before pitching.

So unless you are planning a starter stick with dried to make life easier.

For liquid yeast Google mrmalty for yeast calculators and the white labs and wyeast web sites contain lots of info about their own yeast products for various styles.

Also search this forum as there is a ton of info on here. Good luck with your first AG :thumb:

 

[anthonyUK]

+1 on the above.
Get your AG process sorted as it will have a much bigger impact on quality at this stage than yeast choice as you are using temperature control for fermenting :thumb:

 

[JonnyD]

Q2. Having used the Muntons/Woodfords kits, I have brewed these in the house and controlled the temperature using a STC 1000 controller and heatpad. Now I intend with the new set up to brew small batches in the garage. With the onset of winter, would I need to insulate the plastice 5 gallon bucket, even though it is controlled by the STC1000?

Hello mate,

the benefit of insulating your bucket would be reduced cost in heating and less fluctuation in temperature i.e. more stable. It also depends where the STC1000 is taking its temperature reading from. If you are heating from the bottom you need to make sure all the wort is at the desired temperature and measure at 2/3's up. But i deffo would say insulate. I use one of these. Worth it for a £10er.

 

[graysalchemy]

I made a cupboard out of some waste timber and chipboard insulated it with loft insulation and heated it with a tube heater and a temp controller. Which is fine in winter as my workshop only hovers above freezing :lol: . I now have a maxi chiller which pump chilled water round a pipe through a copper coil in the beer. This enables me to chill and heat the wort keeping control of the temps. A cheaper method would be a fridge and small tube heater and an stc1000. :thumb:

 

[jonnymorris]

With dried yeast a single 11g packet will provide enough cells for ale and all you need to do is rehydrate before pitching.

Dry yeast may have 20b cells/g when new but this will reduce over time and assumes it's being stored correctly. In other words, you may need more than one packet.

 

[WM7793]

Hey thanks guys for all your advice, really appreciate all your help on this matter.

As I said in my opening post, I am waiting for a few bits to build my control panel, consisting of a Eurotherm PID controller, (maintaining temperature control on the S/S 50L pot via a kettle element), STC1000 to control the fermenting bin, and a Sestos timer to keep an eye on things.

Can't wait to give this all grain a go ! Certainly much different to the Muntons kits !!!

Thanks again for your advice,

Best regards,
WM7793