New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. Help!

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

72F isn't gonna cause fusel's, especially if you're using Ale yeast. Star San isn't it either. The most that would do is sour your beer, and that's if you added pure Star San to the bottles. what's the temp of the beer when you pitch the yeast? and you're using dry yeast? age should be a factor, but do you re-hydrate before you pitch or just sprinkle on top. I've always used liquid yeast in my 25 years of brewing.

If you are using kits, maybe the ingredients are bad/old/stale. taste the wort next time to ensure the problem isn't with the ingredients. save a quarter cup after the boil, let it cool and taste.

That was the air temp at 72 degrees. Like some have mentioned, I guess ferment temps could have been considerably higher. I've since got some stick on thermometers for the buckets and carboy and converted my freezer into a fermentation chamber. Yes, I've just been pitching dry as that is what the kit tells you to do. Can you just directly pitch the liquid yeast, or do you have to make a starter? I'm not sure how to do that at this point. I'd switch to liquid or one of those smack packs if I can pitch those directly without making a starter until I understand it better and learn how to do so.

 

[jeffpn]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

I'm a fan of those BB extract kits. I do BIAB now, but I still pitch dry yeast because that's what I've always done with those kits. While your buckets could of course be infected, lots of people ferment in buckets without problem, including me for a long time. At some point, I decided to get 6.5 gallon carboys. I think it was so I could ferment a couple batches at the same time.

I believe that the yeast fact sheets are going to give ambient temperature ranges for optimal performance. I believe the people who make the yeast know it gets warmer than ambient when the yeast is chugging away.

So where do you live? I'm wondering if it's somewhere in the Midwest, as Brewers Best is in my state, Ohio. If you live anywhere near Dayton, we'll have to brew together some time!

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

So where do you live? I'm wondering if it's somewhere in the Midwest, as Brewers Best is in my state, Ohio. If you live anywhere near Dayton, we'll have to brew together some time![/quote]

Sorry, I live in central PA. Wish I could brew with some experienced brewers so I quit making drain cleaner. Lol. Btw, GO Browns!!!

 

[jeffpn]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

I'm just glad your not a Steelers fan!

I've been brewing on and off for a little over 20 years. Pretty soon I'll consider myself "somewhat experienced!"

I once had a job interview in Coalport, PA, near Altoona.

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Not a chance! A little tricky though, my Dad's a Browns fan and father in law is a Steelers fan. Lol. Our home terminal is in Claysburg. I just want to start making some good beer. 20 years, I'd say your an expert.

 

[jmcnamara]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Im not one for clubs, but there might be a few homebrew clubs in your area that you could check out. At least it'll be more feedback about your beer directly

Also, I think it'd be extremely helpful to watch / help someone else brew. I almost guarantee you they'll have a neat trick you never thought of and they'll do something that you'd probably never do. But at least you'd be getting a baseline for "am I doing this right?"

In a bit, you'll be able to teach or guide someone else through the process, which will get you thinking about it in a slightly different way. By no means do I have as many years and batches under my belt as some people here, but i was surprised that I could give a coherent answer to a non brewer as to why that black ipa is black or what ferm temperature does.

Turns out I'm smarter than the average beer (that was intentional, I'll step away from the iPad now :roll: )

 

[TheZel66]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

The Wyeast packs can be directly pitched into the wort after activating (smacking the pouch inside the container). White Labs have new packs of liquid yeast that can be added directly. Both assume the yeast has not gotten too close the "best used by date".

It's really hard to make non-drinkable beer. If you've had several beers that you've dumped in a row now, my guess is that its the equipment. use a brand new plastic bucket fermenter, and don't over-sanitize. get a stainless boiling kettle (especially if you are using an aluminum pot).

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

I was reading a little about trub giving off flavors and realized I have been dumping my boil kettle into the fermenter to pitch the yeast. Please tell me I'm an idiot and caused the off flavors by transferring ALL the trub over!?!?! I'd feel stupid but at least be to the bottom of my problem. Could I just have been misidentifying the off flavor??? Someone please chime in because I'm hoping I had a eureka moment. Lol

 

[jmcnamara]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

I've pretty much always dumped everything into the bucket with no ill effects. I tried using a strainer but it clogged so fast it wasn't worth it. Also tried using hop bags, but those were finicky too and had my hands way closer to boiling wort than I wanted

In fact, it seems to be that at least a bit of trub is actually good for the yeast

 

[Nosybear]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

I was reading a little about trub giving off flavors and realized I have been dumping my boil kettle into the fermenter to pitch the yeast. Please tell me I'm an idiot and caused the off flavors by transferring ALL the trub over!?!?! I'd feel stupid but at least be to the bottom of my problem. Could I just have been misidentifying the off flavor??? Someone please chime in because I'm hoping I had a eureka moment. Lol

Short answer: Beer lore. Read long enough and you'll find someone has written the day of the week and the sign of the moon cause off flavors. And people will argue vehemently that their beer brewed on Thursday under a new moon tastes better than a Monday with the moon in the third quarter. You didn't have a Eureka moment: Trub is neutral in taste (it's protein - think of eating an egg white omelette with no butter, salt, pepper or filling and you get the picture). Hop debris could hypothetically contribute some bitter or astringent flavors but I've never noticed any of them in my 200+ batches, most of which have involved "dumping." Acknowledging the possibility but without empirical evidence, I've started bagging my hops so I can leave them in the kettle. And it's easy to bag without getting hands close to wort: Tie the bag off and drop it in from any height.

And there's no evidence that dropping the bag from more than one foot causes off flavors due to excess oxygenation of the hop pellets.... ;-)

Man, I would laugh if I were to see THAT one on the internet some day!

 

[jmcnamara]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Maybe I was doing it wrong or something.
Drawstring bag, cinched and tied off to one of the kettle handles.

The first addition was fine, but to try to open the bag and dump in more hops and close the bag to add more, i gave up and just dumped the third addition straight in. Do you use multiple bags? Or maybe untie it off to add more and retie when done

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Yeah, thanks. Just got back from talking to the local homebrew expert at the homebrew store and he said the beer I had him test went nuts after I left. It was bacteria.....I am going to clean beginning to end with bleach and rinse and then sanitize and start fresh.

 

[J A]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

If you've got any bucket with a spigot on it, take the spigot apart and soak it with PBW or vodka. I had a couple of small batches go funky because of leftover skunge in the spigot innards. Soak everything you have in PBW. I started doing that routinely along with sanitizer and I've had no problems since.

 

[jeffpn]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

That's good advice. My only spigoted vessel is my bottling bucket. I always completely disassembled it.

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Thanks guys. I only have one bucket with a spigot, and I only used it for my first batch since I got an auto-siphon. I actually think the auto-siphon might be the culprit of the bacteria. I'm chucking it and got a new one. I'm also going to clean everything start to finish with PBW or bleach.

 

[jeffpn]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Yeah, racking canes and tubes bother me. Tough to dry the insides! I fill up my laundry tub with Dawn and Clorox, and I pump my auto siphon through my hose and cane attached to the other end of the hose for about 30-60 seconds before I use it. Of course I run water through it afterwards to rinse the soap and bleach. All I can do is hope that that kills anything in any of it.

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Yeah, I've been curious every time I use the siphon if running One Step through it is sufficient to clean it. I'll use bleach or PBW to clean from now on. I've been pretty crushed about basically wasting the time and money for multiple batches and having nothing drinkable to show for it. I'm gonna be a CLEANING fool and THEN seriously sanitizing.

 

[J A]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

I keep a bucket of PBW (lasts through several cleanings) and I rack it into carboys/kegs/etc for cleaning them. That way my auto-siphon gets cleaned inside and out every time. I rinse everything and then transfer One-Step the same way. So far so good with that regimen.
When it comes time to bottle, I'll make sure they don't have leftover yeast skunge or bugs and put a case or more into a square tub or stainless pan and fill them with PBW to soak for at least 15 minutes. Then I use a bottle washing attachment to blow water through them to rinse. From there I can just soak in One-step for a few minutes and set them in my (home-made) drying racks and feel confident that they'll be very clean.

 

[jeffpn]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Here's something to worry you! Neither PBW nor OneStep is rated to sanitize. That said, I use OneStep to sanitize my kegs at packaging time. I use Dawn and Clorox for everything else.

 

[BilliardGuy74]

Re: New Brewer dove in head first and landed on my head. He

Here's something to worry you! Neither PBW nor OneStep is rated to sanitize. That said, I use OneStep to sanitize my kegs at packaging time. I use Dawn and Clorox for everything else.

Yeah, I was aware of that. Read somewhere and heard the same from the local homebrew expert at the LHBS that One Step did actually sanitize though. Something about getting it certified as a sanitizer would be much more expensive?