Topics

1

Beer Recipes / Upslope Brown Ale

« on: April 07, 2013, 03:34:11 PM »

I haven't brewed many brown ales, and I can't find the recipe for Upslope Brown Ale anywhere online.  Does anyone have a recipe that might get me close?  All-grain preferably.

Thanks!

2

Yeast and Fermentation / Repitching yeast?

« on: November 08, 2012, 06:32:25 PM »

I rarely harvest and repitch my yeast and I wanted to have a reality check on how much to pitch into a barleywine I'm planning.

In the photo below you can see the yeast I harvested from 5.5 gal 1.052 bitter.  I pulled this from the primary about 1.5 weeks after pitching.  I washed once and threw out the bottom 10 or 20% of sediment that looked dark and had hops in it.  I poured what was left into three 1-pint mason jars.

According to the Mr Malty calculator, I need 370 billion cells, which, depending on how I set the Yeast Concentration and Non-Yeast Percentage settings, means I need 87 to 436 mL of yeast slurry...or  181 mL if I just accept the default settings.  If that's right, I'll need to pitch most of the first two jars.  Does that seem right?  I'm just a little surprised that I need most of the yeast harvested from a full batch of beer.

Also, I am a little concerned about the quality of the yeast I have.  Some of the yeast washing videos I looked explained that the good yeast is the light colored layer that settles on top.  I seem to have very little of that.  How much of this is good yeast?

Finally, if I'm not brewing until Sunday, should I do a small yeast starter to refresh this?

Thanks!


Hmmm...the image isn't coming through.  Here's the link:
www.flickr.com/photos/89851777@N04/8168288606/in/photostream

3

General Homebrew Discussion / Dry pasteurizing sugar?

« on: January 26, 2012, 07:50:55 AM »

I forgot to add sugar to the kettle in a Belgian golden strong ale, so I'm adding the 3 lb in two doses to the fermenter.  In the first dose, I added 1.5 lb of sugar to a small amount of water heated to around 180 for 12 minutes.  I really don't want to add more water.  The fermenter is close to full, and the amount of water needed to dissolve the sugar is significant.  Could I dry pasteurize it in a pot in the oven at 180 F?  Anyone ever do this?  Sugar melts a good bit higher than this temperature doesn't it?

4

Questions about the forum? / Most recent thread view?

« on: December 09, 2011, 10:54:21 PM »

Is there a way to see the most-recently-commented-on threads, regardless of category, besides the most-recent post view?  That view becomes less useful when there are multiple new posts per thread.  In order to see the most recent threads, you have to scan through several pages.

5

General Homebrew Discussion / US Supreme Court may consider online alcohol sales case?

« on: December 17, 2010, 10:39:40 PM »

Does anyone know if the Brewer's Association is taking a position on this?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-white-online-wine-20101217,0,7042280.story

Seems like it could open up distribution for craft brewers and make it easier to get out-of-state beers for craft beer drinkers.

6

Ingredients / Wavelengths of light that lead to skunking?

« on: July 01, 2010, 10:47:49 PM »

Anyone know what particular wavelengths of light lead to skunking?  Is it all of the visible spectrum, or just a portion of it?

The reason I ask is if it's only certain wavelengths, this might be another reason to consider LED lighting for reach-in coolers...more energy efficient, less heat output, and the possibility to select LEDs that lack the offending wavelengths.

7

Yeast and Fermentation / Predicting yeast cell counts

« on: June 15, 2010, 09:34:47 PM »

Can anyone recommend any good books or other resources for me to learn more about yeast propagation?

Specifically, I’m interested in understanding a little more about predicting yeast quantities resulting from starters.  I’ve got a vial of White Labs yeast that is pretty close to its expiration date.  The Mr. Malty pitching rate calculator says it’s only about 20% viable at this point.  It also shows that even with a starter on a stir plate, I can’t scale this up to a good pitchable quantity without adding another vial.  Then I tried the Wyeast calculator, which allows for two-step starters.  According to it, I can make a 1 L starter, then add another 1 L and get to the target pitch rate.  Curiously, simply doing one 2-L starter doesn’t cut it; it results in 40% fewer yeast cells than doing 1 L plus 1 L.  I’d like to understand all this better, and not have to rely on web calculators.

Thanks!

8

General Homebrew Discussion / FWHing and batch sparging

« on: March 12, 2010, 09:24:17 PM »

The only times I used first wort hopping was back when I fly sparged, which took 45 minutes to an hour to complete the sparge.  Now that I'm batch sparing, I'm done in probably half the time or less.  Does that reduce the effectiveness of FWHing?  Should I slow the sparge down?

Thanks!