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What are you doing with homebrew today?
- Thread starter BOB357
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Your photo just answered something that has been buggin' me and I've been a little sheepish to ask about, lest I sound like a complete idiot.
Everything I've read about making a starter describes making it in an Erlenmeyer flask and using foil to cover it. And I mean EVERYTHING. Nothing indicated it was OK to just use a 1 gallon fermenter with an air-lock in the lid. I've scratched my head over and over trying to figure out what difference it makes about the shape of the container, and why covering it with foil was somehow better than corking the bugger and putting an air lock on it. After all, I'm just making a yeast farm. WHY FOIL? Why not just use a stopper or lid and an air lock? The foil imparts NOTHING to the process and has to be sanitized before putting it on the container. A lid or stopper with an airlock will certainly do more to keep the starter from getting infected. I fail to see why the foil is important. I completely understand the need for a vent so that the starter doesn't become a bomb in a sealed container, but what difference does it make what shape or size or what material the container is or what keeps the bad critters out? A 2500 ml E-flask ain't cheap, and it's barely big enough for a 2L starter. I guess it does sit on a stir table better than most gallon jugs and the flat bottom lets the stir stick stay in the middle and twirling. The E-Flasks are a lot less likely to break with boiling water, though, and boiling is the quickest way to sterilize the wort for the starter. A good brand name E-flask can be put directly on the stove for boiling, but don't let your wife see you do it on her stove. That didn't go well. This seems to be one of those questions that if you ask 5 different experts, you'll get 5 ONLY ways to do it.
Forgive the curiosity and badgering, but the more I learn, the more I want to know. It's the engineer in me. I was forcibly retired last December from a 40 year career because of musculoskeletal ailments caused by injuries and arthritis (which caused the injuries), and I'm grasping for things to keep my brain occupied so I don't get bored enough to make the missus mad enough to throw rocks at me. Gettin' old ain't for sissies, and it SUCKS.
Because you want to let air in. The yeast needs the O2
keep in mind that starter failed. and i put foil on top
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Consider it bling. The old fashioned kind work just fine. I use a refractometer throughout with a spreadsheet to calculate the corrections. A spectrometer? Really want to know your IBUs, eh?I would love to upgrade to a digital refractometer. Can't quite justify the expense yet
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Correlation, not cause. As mentioned, loose foil lets air in, needed for propagation.keep in mind that starter failed. and i put foil on top
That is my use case. However long it takes to hit FG is how long I leave it to 'finish', i.e. a diacetyl rest.
When I have to replace the battery I will take the time to reset the calibration. FG I can live with, OG should be accurate.
So, are you telling me that O2 will come through/around/under/over foil, but bacteria won't? If that's the case, why don't we just cover our fermenters with foil and why the heck would anyone worry about exposure of the beer to air? I know the answer to the last part, and that is due to the effects of air on the hops additions more so than any benefit or detriment of the Yeast. The airborne dust/bacteria/mold spores would wreak havoc on that much sweet goodness a lot faster than the yeast would.
I thought the whole purpose of the vigorous agitation or plate stirring was exactly that, to deliver O2, or at least keep it mixed into solution so the yeast can have a really good party. (Still leaves me wondering about James Bond's "Shaken, not stirred" preference on his martini). So why not drop a stone in for a bit to aerate it with O2, then once you pitch, close the bugger up to protect the starter? If O2 in suspension is the objective, little bubbles released in the liquid will do a much better job than air sitting on top of the heavier liquid. Then again, O2 is a bit pricier than CO2, and a LOT more dangerous to handle. Maybe just plain air from an aquarium pump would be better? Air from a SCUBA tank would likely be cleaner though, and isn't that O2 enriched to help displace some of the nitrogen risk? Or combine that with the stir plate, which serves the same purpose of small bubbles going through the wort. If we're helping the little critters with air, then let's give 'em plenty.
I'm allowed to keep talking until I get the right word, right? LOL. I meant refractometer not spectrometer, and yes, I do know the difference. They both use light, one measuring the reflectivity of the sample, the other using filtered light wavelengths to determine the content of the sample. Wouldn't hurt my feelings to know IBU's, Color, and ABV, exactly, so I could better tell if I was replicating previous efforts, or making something totally different every time, but I'm not likely to be buying a spectrometer. I know brewing isn't an exact science, but if we're gonna apply some good scientific tools to the process, we can certainly make it 'exacter". Wouldn't that be more better?
Failed how? Soured (bacteria or mold)? Just didn't propagate? Odd, because I thought making a starter was pretty easy. It seemed so, anyway.keep in mind that starter failed. and i put foil on top
I've done one in a flask and one in the one-gallon jug when I was making a split 10 gallon batch and needed two starters. With foil, and all I did was shake hell out them. The jug, I just put a plain lid on, shook it until it was pretty much solid foam. No stone, no plate, nuthin but a bit of muscle and some shoulder pain. Probably wasn't the smartest thing to be doing so soon after rotator cuff surgery. The flask is easy enough to just cover my hand (washed in StarSan, of course). Either case, it was some pretty rough agitation to get them aerated. I pitched the yeast and did it again. It took all day for the air bubbles to resurface and the wort to clear under the surface. There was still foam on it the next day when I pitched, but the wort had become very cloudy with good yeast colonies, and a nice white paste on the bottom of the vessels. I decanted some of the liquid, leaving enough to stir up the paste, and those were perhaps two of the best brews I made. Next to the two I made with the slurries from those batches.
Knock on wood, I've been very lucky with every batch I did except maybe one. The last Leffe Abbey Blonde I did was a little disappointing compared to one I've done before. Different yeast, different time of year (temperature), lotsa variables could have done whatever to that batch.
Yeah mine has been spot on for OG each time I’ve checked. FG is sometimes 2 points higher than actual, when I’ve checked but not every time. Great tool to help with pressure fermenting and spunding. I think of it as the “control” if I go by it every time I can adjust to it and still get what I want to drink
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The yeast was too old
You do you, but you can calibrate in the app by floating the device in a solution of known gravity. No need to open the device.
That would do it. Was dead when you put it in there, then. Bugga! Oh well, at least it was a half pound of malt and not a full fermenter. I keep a couple pounds of DME at the ready for these things. A lot easier to store and it takes no time at all to make up a 1.040 wort to farm some yeast.
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The foil (or other loose covering) also serves the purpose of keeping dust and other stuff from drifting in. I agree with you that the risk of infection is the same but the impact of losing a starter is pretty small compared to losing a whole batch of beer.
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Brewed my contribution to a club project today. So far numbers seem to be on track. Taking forever to cool down - first in an ice bath on the sink and now on the grill on the deck, in sleety rain. Was going to do no chill but I’m too impatient.
Maybe if you turned off the grill?
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Ahhhh grasshoppa, you must learn patience in beer brewing. I have traveled the impatient road many times.....it does not maketh better beer!
