Fell off the brewing slippery slope

Personally I find 40 a smidge too cold for quality beer and keep mine closer to 43-45 (threshold setting, measured is usually closer to 43 or so). Cold numbs the taste buds so you can't taste the beer very well.. At about half or more of the bars I go to I have to warm up the beer by holding it in my hands before I can really enjoy it. Contrasted to yellow fizzy which can't be cold enough to get my taste buds numb :rofl:

It should still be able to get there though... Cool having fridge techs available!

Should have mentioned this before but forgot (been a while since I delt with a tower) but if there wasn't any insulation inside the tower it's not a bad idea to add a little something. A couple layers of mylar bubble stuff shoved up around the inside wall helps quite a bit or pipe insulation of you can find an appropriately sized and thin enough piece). This is more for not getting a warm first pour (and related foam issues) than controlling the fridge temp though (the airflow is small enough it isn't likely significant).

Couple more years and you'll need two locks as well ;D
 
Personally I find 40 a smidge too cold for quality beer and keep mine closer to 43-45 (threshold setting, measured is usually closer to 43 or so). Cold numbs the taste buds so you can't taste the beer very well.. At about half or more of the bars I go to I have to warm up the beer by holding it in my hands before I can really enjoy it. Contrasted to yellow fizzy which can't be cold enough to get my taste buds numb :rofl:

It should still be able to get there though... Cool having fridge techs available!

Should have mentioned this before but forgot (been a while since I delt with a tower) but if there wasn't any insulation inside the tower it's not a bad idea to add a little something. A couple layers of mylar bubble stuff shoved up around the inside wall helps quite a bit or pipe insulation of you can find an appropriately sized and thin enough piece). This is more for not getting a warm first pour (and related foam issues) than controlling the fridge temp though (the airflow is small enough it isn't likely significant).

Couple more years and you'll need two locks as well ;D

Yeah, we've got quite a few freezers and fridges around the institute, walked past some the other day that were set at -83 Celcius (-117 F) along with some heavy protective gear setting on the shelf next to them.

The new tower is insulated pretty well, but I think I'll try building a cooling box to push some air up there via a vinyl tube, like this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxQSBmxThxY
 
Yeah, we've got quite a few freezers and fridges around the institute, walked past some the other day that were set at -83 Celcius (-117 F) along with some heavy protective gear setting on the shelf next to them.

That's COLD! You could start to do some interesting things with one of those :D One of the "cool to think about but I'll never have one" culinary tools is a blast freezer - there are some neat tricks you can do with one of those (not that I've ever had use of one either.. but I read weird stuff).

The new tower is insulated pretty well

Cool, I was remembering the first one I built which used a two post 5 tap tower and wasn't insulated at all (it might have been at one point but I got it from a used restaraunt supply house for around $50 with 3 taps - 2 of which were usable for a while anyway).

but I think I'll try building a cooling box to push some air up there via a vinyl tube, like this one...

Not a bad idea, I might give it a couple weeks to see how well it worked before I bothered (especially once you get the main unit ironed out) but if you're getting warm first pours..
 
So I signed up for a beginners brewing class a few weeks back, even before I picked up all the equipment. Turned out I was the only one that signed up for the class and he knew I had already brewed a couple of batches. So rather than sticking to his outline he allowed me to bounce questions off him. Learned a whole lot actually, didn't know what steeping was, gave me some tips on my current batches that are fermenting (like giving it a couple more weeks than the instructions said to), steps to follow when I'm ready to keg it, got to do some sampling, and learn a little bit more about how the hops affect the process...so well worth the $20.
 
Sounds like a worthwhile day :thumb: Guessing that was at/via the local homebrew store?

Mixed opinions on fermentation length. Longer is most certainly safer up to a point so it's probably good base advice. Once you've done a few my personal take is that it's done when it's done and you can move on then.

There are basically two measures of done:
  • The specific gravity has hit a terminal and stable level. The only way to know this for sure is to measure it, a wine thief makes this a smidge easier.
  • The year has appropriately settled out (that is the beer is clear, or at least the year has dropped you can sometimes have other factors affecting clarity)

Happily these two things usually coincide so you can generally use the second as a proxy for the first (this is for your work-a-day ales; strong beers, lagers, and specialty like sours have slightly different rules).

If this isn't happening in a timely fashion (I claim two weeks or less as timely for most ales up to say 7-8%) you should look at your process. It's possible your yeast isn't healthy (vigorous initial fermentation, good flocculation), your temperature is of (to hot or to cold can both do it), or you have a contamination issue of some sort (not sanitized properly or something left in that's hurting the yeast or some infection from somewhere - you'll petty much always also notice this in the taste, although sometimes differentiating it from year stress can be hard).

The downside to leaving it to long is mostly threefold: oxygenated beer (mmm wet cardboard, minimize headspace, keep airlock full), possible dead yeast flavor (autolized yeast - not good unless you like marmite..), and increased risk of contamination (mostly mitigated by airlock maintenance - don't let it go dry, but also if you have a small bug problem your increasing the of they might be able to get a foothold.. hops also mostly eliminate this issue). Somewhere around a month on the original yeast is where you might start noticing some dead yeast flavor, and most of the other issues take a bit longer than that to really set in (except possibly contamination but then you already had a problem so....).

It's generally also worth being more conservative and waiting longer if you're bottling because bottle bombs are bad!! But even then I'd recommend taking gravity reading because you can have a stuck fermentation and if it restarts in the bottle it can be a little exciting!! In kegs you mostly have flavor/appearance issues if you get to far ahead of yourself.

As a side note, I don't actually rack any of my beers to secondary unless they're a strong beer (or some sours) that's going to sit in the fermenter for over a month. After some research and tests (and mostly reading an excellent article in byo magazine that kicked off the idea a few years back) the downsides way outweigh the upsides. Basically you're exposing your beer to more air, more risk of contamination, and doing more work. The payoff is that is slightly easier to not pull over any yeast ( and since I go straight to keg, meh!! If the first pour has a smidge of yeast in it no big deal).

I thought I'd mentioned this before but can find no evidence to support having done so so at the risk of repeating models.. If you haven't read it yet it's worth a quick perusal of John Palmer's online book "how to brew" (http://www.howtobrew.com). It's not super technical but it'll get you through your first few dozen batches well enough and lays out the basics in a nice clear way (as well as not having any major errors of fact that I know of). I generally suggest folks read chapter 1, but make the beer using the process from chapter 2 and on. Adding some grains in addition to the extract does a lot to support yeast health and will make a much cleaner "fresher" tasting beer.
 
Ryan, Thanks for all the feedback, it's been very educational. :thumb:

I tested the gravity again and it's holding steady, so I went ahead and kegged today, also had about 3/4 of a gallon left so mixed in some priming sugar and got a six pack bottled. Taste was good, mildly hoppy, but not too hoppy so think I'll be happy with it.
2014-09-20 14.56.29.jpg

Tomorrow I may start the pumpkin ale so it will be ready for halloween.
 
Thanks Darren, glad to hear it's been useful or at least informative :D

Out of curiosity what was the initial and terminal gravity of that batch?

Good luck with the pumpkin ale! Are you using actual pumpkin (or squash anyway, mostly end up using butternut)? I had one that went real smooth the other ended up in a morras of pumpkin pulp that took forever to get the wort out of.
 
Thanks Darren, glad to hear it's been useful or at least informative :D

Out of curiosity what was the initial and terminal gravity of that batch?

Good luck with the pumpkin ale! Are you using actual pumpkin (or squash anyway, mostly end up using butternut)? I had one that went real smooth the other ended up in a morras of pumpkin pulp that took forever to get the wort out of.

Initial was 1.041, terminal was 1.010, both taken about 75* so give or take a couple of points. Given temps were the same, the calculation should come out about the same.

For the pumpkin ale I've got some canned pumpkin the recipe called for. It said to roast it for about 30 minutes in the oven on a cookie sheet to caramelize it a little (but not to burn). I planned to put the pumpkin in a muslin bag to try and cut down on the pulp that has to settle out.

pumpkin ale recipe_1.jpg
 
Yeah the bag of e likely a good idea :D. Let us know how it works out, I've only done it with all grain which is a bit of a different beast for this situation.

So around a 4% beer, nice and easy drinking. Definitely sounds like it's done fermenting. There are a few yeasts that will attenuate more than that but for most that would be a decent final gravity. If you started stronger it might end up .005-.010 higher but there aren't a lot of beers that end a lot below 1.010.
 
And on a final note for this thread, it turned out...well...tasty! :wave:

It is a little cloudy, but I can live with that while I work on another batch.

Great success! :thumb: Looks perfectly acceptable from here and if it tastes good you can't ask for a whole lot more.

Pretty soon you'll be ready to turn pro and can work long hard hours for short pay like all my brewer friends! ;)
 
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