Amount of pelleted hops/ gal of wort

[Nosybear]

Yeast are living funi that bud (break apart from 1ea to 2ea) as they multiply. Small yeast count will eventually make no difference as they have to reach a certain population when the real alcoholic fermentation begins. During the "build up" period there is little alcohol aka EtOH produced as they are using available oxygen for growth. When the oxygen available in the beverage is used up their conversion to EtOH then begins in real earnest. The reason for a starter or a large amount of dry yeast addition is to lessen the "lag" time from the addition to the beginning of some real fermentation that produces the CO2. EtOH is also produced in similar quantities to CO2.

At the winery we add 1 lb / thousand gallons 1lb/M and have done that for years and have great success with fermentation. Key with wine and yeast is to not add it below 53 degrees as they have little growth (cold) at that temp and takes quite a while to start doing some serious reproductions. It is the enzymes that are produced in the splitting of the yeast cell that starts the chain reactions to producing alcohol. The sugar molecule has an oxygen molecule attached and they are after that along with the minute carbohydrate they use for growing. We have some yeast, like Uvaferm 43 that have a large temperature range for fermentation, and can work optimally even up to 95 deg F. We use that almost exclusively for our red wines and use it for Icewine as well since it is a powerful fermenting yeast. Each wine yeast has a temperature range that is optimal for it. So I guess it is also with beer yeasts that come are better adapted to handling the higher temperature of fermentation than others. I have it written down at work what some of the more common yeasts we use temperature ranges are, if anyone is interested.

Wine fermentations and beer fermentations are different things. In a wine fermentation, you want to stress the yeast - when we first started doing wine, I was amazed that we were pitching 7 grams of yeast into 6 gallons of must at 1.090 or greater - that's a vast underpitch by beer standards! We weren't oxygenating, either, another no-no for beer fermentations. Then I realized most of the flavors in wine result from stressed yeast, esters and so forth. Fast forward to beer: With beer, you want a healthy pitch of yeast so that when they run out of sugars to digest, enough are still viable and hungry to clean up the fermentation by-products. Lessening the lag time is not so important - I've had good fermentations that didn't kick off until 36 hours after pitch. For beers, it's important to have enough healthy yeast at the end of the fermentation to clean up after themselves, hence the heed for a much higher pitch rate. Also, wine yeast are largely living off glucose, easy for them to digest. Beer yeast largely live off maltose, requiring a bit more energy from the cell to metabolize.

In a sense, you're right. All it really takes is one cell and time. But by adding a lot of cells, more than you as a winemaker think you need, you get much better beer. Temperature makes a difference: I participated in that experiment and could tell a difference between the two; however, I haven't had a chance to ask if the Brulosophy guys fermented monitoring the temperature in the fermentation or in the surrounding ambient air. I know and respect the Brulosophy guys but I'm not willing to throw out hundreds of years of brewing knowledge based on one test, particularly when the conditions aren't as controlled as in a big brewery.

 

[GFHomebrew]

In that EXBEERIMENT I think it was Jake he had the probe I believe strapped to the outside of the fermentor behind some bubble wrap. It seems some strains of lager yeast perform better at ale temps than others. I've used 35/70 at 18c with good results but I have to admit I'll start low for a day or two and let temp free rise from there over a few days to diacyel rest 18c.

 

[Aksarben]

Wine is from grapes that are crushed, pressed or in the case of red, pumped into a fermentor. They have plenty of oxygen since they are cold. Wort, on the other hand is a boiled product that you have literally boiled all of the O2 out of it. Oxygen is necessary for yeast to use to build population, hence the need for aeration.

We don't stress our yeast to get them to produce different esters. That is largely dependent on the strain of yeast we use, as some are more prone to floral etc notes that others. Also depends on the grapes, the resulting alcohols in wine and the acids in the original juice. Esters are formed with the alcohol and acid reactions. Hence with wine, there is Tartaric, Malic, some Lactic and a whole host of other minor acids, along with Ethanol, and also a range of minutes quantities of other alcohols.

Matt, our Associate Winemaker, and the guy with the food science degree was telling me today that yeast actually prefer fermenting Maltose over Glucose. In grape juice there are 2 sugars, Glucose and Fructose. Yeast prefer the Glucose over the Fructose and assimilate more of it during the fermentation, and pretty much leave the Fructose for last. We use that to our advantage and in wines ike Riesling we stop the fermentation using a centrifuge when it (and some others we stop) have the degree of reducing sugar that we are after for a proper sugar/acid ratio. It gives us more Fructose in the finished wine that way. Fructose tastes sweeter, so even if we let it god dry, and add sucrose, you end up with about 50% each Glucose / Fructose after the solution hydrolyzes the sugars.

Matt was also saying one can ferment at normal room temperature, Lager yeast, and after it is pretty much done, just move the whole fermentor to a very cold area in the upper 30s F for several weeks and any off favors- smells will disappear.

 

[Nosybear]

You can do as Matt said. The result will be an estery lager. The off-flavors will reduce and the haze settle out of a warm-fermented lager that's been lagered but you'll wind up with something more like a Kolsch or an Altbier than a Helles or Schwarzbier. By beer standards, wine is very under-pitched, at homebrew scale we use 7 grams of yeast in wine, not rehydrated resulting in death of a number of cells, for the same volume of beer I'd use a 11 gram sachet, rehydrated to preserve as many cells as possible, rehydrated and pitched to a starter for a lager. But the bottom line is the same with both beer and wine: If you like what you made, it was a success.

 

[GFHomebrew]

As per brulosphers latest exbeeriment on warm and cold lager fermentations. He sorta pointed to the two main strains of lager yeast the weihenstephaner and sazz (spelling probably wrong) strains one has a mixture of 2 ale and 2 lager parts the other 1 ale 2 lager parts. Maybe this is why some lager strains perform better at ale temps because of their different genetic makeup.

 

[Aksarben]

I have found that introducing dehydrated yeast directly to a liquid, such as juice, will give the same results in the same time frame "as if you had" rehydrated the same amount (grams) of yeast in water and then introduced it. The whole idea to keep in mind is that yeast needs oxygen at the onset to reproduce. It's critical. Don't worry about too much dissolved oxygen as yeast will quickly use it during the course of fermentation. There is a "lag" phase, that in which you introduce yeast to the liquid to the point that said yeast is producing CO2. Higher concentrations of yeast (more of them) result in a little less lag time, but not by much.

We inoculate at the rate of 1 lb/M grape juice. I have started millions of gallons of wine this way at 1 lb/gal. The directions say 2 lbs/ M from the seller, like Scott Labs. I have wanted to see for myself and have inoculated 2 different tanks of Vidal juice, which was in the neighborhood of 4000 gallons each, one with 1 lb/M and the other at 2lb/M Both tanks received yeast that was rehydrated with water at 101 deg F. Both tanks started to ferment at the same time, so no difference in lag period and both tanks ended up dry on the same day. Wine fermentation was monitored and corrected temperatures regulated with glycol cooling jackets, so both tanks pretty much fermented at the same temps for their duration. Smells, and tastes of the 2 different tanks were the same. HOWEVER, it is to our fortune that our juice is centrifuged and sulfur is added at 50 ppm to the juice to kill and stun wild yeast before the introduction of cultured yeast we buy for any particular fermentation. Also keep in mind the grape juice is understandably less hospitable to other micro organisms due to lower pH (sometimes around 3.10 or lower) and higher acids of 0.700 - 0.900 TA. Hence I think we can weather a longer lag period that those that make beer. With beer you have virtually no acid and pH is not in the lower 3.00 numbers like gape wine juice. It is "ripe" for a host of unfavorable microorganisms and really needs the lag period to be short and CO2 to start up and blanket the wort for protection.

It's been pretty busy at the winery this year, as we are looking at making just a little bit more then 500,000 gallons of wine on top of the 400,000+ gallons of hard cider we have fermented. Winery smells strong of CO2 and fermentation right now.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Hence the needed higher pitch rate witg beer wine guru and why SANITATION is king in the brew house. I use a little lactic acid to drop mash ph to 5.2 but other than that its all up to me yeasties.

I thought potasium metabisulphate was add to your must at beginning to kill of any wild yeast/bacteria.

 

[Aksarben]

Hence the needed higher pitch rate witg beer wine guru and why SANITATION is king in the brew house. I use a little lactic acid to drop mash ph to 5.2 but other than that its all up to me yeasties.

I thought potasium metabisulphate was add to your must at beginning to kill of any wild yeast/bacteria.

My understanding is you could also add Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) to the beer water to lower the pH.

 

[Nosybear]

My understanding is you could also add Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) to the beer water to lower the pH.

Any source of calcium or magnesium lowers the mash pH but we're talking about lowering it to around 5.4, not the low 3's as in grape juice.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Better to use lactic acid and keep water profile you want where it is.

 

[Nosybear]

Better to use lactic acid and keep water profile you want where it is.

Agreed: You adjust residual alkalinity with salts, final pH with acid.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I use 88% phosphoric so very little is needed, maybe 1 teaspoon in most 12 gallon beers

 

[Nosybear]

Same is true with 88% lactic acid - generally around 2 ml works.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I'm still flying blind in the mash I gotta get a new probe for PH meter I just go by what brewersfriend advanced water calc with grist loaded in from recipie tells me. Usually around 3 ml 88% lactic. I know brulosophy did an EXBEERIMENT on if tasters could tell difference between to two acids used most commonly to drop PH lactic and phosphoric I can't remember now if tasters could tell the difference?

 

[Nosybear]

I'm still flying blind in the mash I gotta get a new probe for PH meter I just go by what brewersfriend advanced water calc with grist loaded in from recipie tells me. Usually around 3 ml 88% lactic. I know brulosophy did an EXBEERIMENT on if tasters could tell difference between to two acids used most commonly to drop PH lactic and phosphoric I can't remember now if tasters could tell the difference?

Likely not, as we're not exceeding the flavor threshold for lactate. I use lactic acid because it's naturally present in beer and wine but if I were to be out, in would go the phosphoric.