Step Starter For Wyeast 1318 London Ale III Yeast

Posted on October 30, 2017 by mikehoover

On October 29, 2017, at 6:00 pm, I made up a step starter for my Wyeast 1318 London Ale III yeast that I had from a previous step up from the original package. A month ago I split a starter into three jars and used two of them for my NEIPA and kept one to step up. I used three quart jars of canned starter. I pulled 180 mL of one jar to step start some Mudking yeast in a 250 mL Erlenmeyer flask. The rest went into the big 5 L Erlenmeyer flask and yielded about 2.3L of starter wort. I placed the flask on a stir plate in my fermentation fridge at about 64°F.

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Loquat Flowers Yeast Wrangling October 29, 2017

Posted on October 30, 2017 by mikehoover

On Sunday, October 29, 2017, I did some yeast wrangling with some 1.036 canned starter wort and some flowers picked from the Loquat tree the kids love to climb. I dropped about seven flowers with some stem attached to a few into approximately 120 ml of wort, capped and placed into the fermentation fridge at about 61-65°F. I will strain into another container after day or two.

10/31/17 – 10:25 am: I filtered the capture wort through a nylon mesh into another container to remove all the solids. The jar smelled of honey.

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Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Yeast Starter

Posted on October 30, 2017 by mikehoover

10/29/17 – 8:00 pm: Put together a step starter with some Wyeast 2124 Bohemian yeast. I used approximately 3.5 quart jars of canned starter with a gravity of 1.036 I had made up a while back. This yielded just at 3 liters of wort in the 5L Erlenmeyer flask. Put on the stir plate in the ferment fridge at 61-65°F.

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Pressure Canning Starter Wort With A Pressure Cooker

Posted on October 23, 2017 by mikehoover

I am low on canned starter wort so I decided to make up some jars this morning. I moved all the implements to the kitchen, including seven quart jars, lids and rings, my 23-quart Presto pressure cooker and some dry malt extract (DME).

I usually put about 28 ounces of wort in the quart Ball jars. So I calculate that I need 7 x 28 = 196 ounces of wort. Make it 200 to make sure I have plenty. I use the common ratio of 10 mL of water to 1 gram of DME. I weight out what DME I have and it came to 578 grams. Instead of guessing at 5.78 L of water (1:10 ratio), I just went with 6 L. This yielded right at 215 ounces of wort. The 1 gr DME per 10 mL water should yield around SG=1.038. I used a bit less DME and a bit more water. If my gravity is a bit lower, this is not problem. Multiplying the yeast is the mission here, not making alcohol.

I heated the water in an adequately sized pot and poured the DME in, stirring to keep it from scorching. There is no need to boil. That will happen in the pressure cooker. I just heated it up enough to make sure all the DME went into solution with no lumps.
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Yeast Wrangling Attempt with Berliner Style Weisse Wort & Muscadines

Posted on October 17, 2017 by mikehoover

I have been thinking about trying my hand at yeast wrangling in my backyard for months. Some muscadine grapes finally ripened and I happened to have fresh wort handy. This should be an interesting experiment. The wort sample I have is from my recent Berliner style weisse beer, which has a pH=3.51 and Brix=8.0.

On Monday, October 16, 2017, I put about 190 mL of the low-pH wort in a sanitized Ball pint jar and dropped three ripened grapes right off the vine into the jar. Placed a lid drilled to hold a rubber stopper and airlock, and placed in my fermentation refrigerator which is currently at around 65°F.

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PBW Alternative Using Oxiclean Free and TSP/90

Posted on October 15, 2017 by mikehoover

With PBW being rather expensive, I was looking for an alternative for cleaning my brewing equipment. After a Google search, I found this solution on Bertus Brewery website. They use 70% by weight Oxiclean Free and 30% by weight TPS/90. I found Oxiclean Free at my nearby Publix. I obtained my Red Devil 0265 TSP 90 Heavy Duty Cleaner, 4-Pound at Amazon.com. As Bertus Brewery states, PBW also contains a chelating agent, which prevents scaling on brewery equipment. This alternative doesn’t have it. I use 1 oz. per gallon of water to clean my fermenting buckets. I usually let them sit full overnight and rinse them VERY well. Same with my corny kegs.

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Berliner Weisse Brew October 14, 2017

Posted on October 15, 2017 by mikehoover

Tried my first attempt at brewing a Berliner Weisse style beer on Saturday, October 14, 2017. After reading everything I could get my hands on about brewing the style, I decided on a combination of methods I discovered. I went with kettle souring because I did not have a yeast blend available. I chose to use two Goodbelly Straight Shots, each of which contain “20 billion live and active probiotic cultures per serving” according to their website. I used the “Original” oat one. That is all that was available at the store. As for the fermenting yeast, I am using Safale 05 since I do not have a German ale yeast handy. We shall see how it goes.
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Avg. Perfect Northeast IPA (NEIPA) Brew Session October 1, 2017

Posted on October 12, 2017 by mikehoover

I brewed my first NEIPA (Northeast IPA) on Sunday, October 1, 2017. While doing a little research on the style, I discovered “Avg. Perfect Northeast IPA”, Kevin Quinn’s recipe at Brewersfriend.com which laid out clearly how to proceed. There are many positive reviews for this recipe. That made me feel confident that this would be a good start to my NEIPA adventure. The hop bill is huge and almost turned me off, but I was compelled by curiosity and put in a hop order.

I tried to stick as closely to the recipe as possible. I didn’t hit the numbers given for the water profile. I ended up with calcium 96, sulfate 89, chloride 131 using gypsum and calcium chloride additions. These additions to the mash water and sparge water are similar to what the recipe said, but Bru’n Water showed lower sulfate and chloride levels in the finished water profile.
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Water Report

Posted on September 18, 2017 by mikehoover

Here is the water report from Ward Laboratories for Forest Acres in Columbia, SC, dated 10/21/2014:

Ward Labs Water Analysis Report

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Cicerone Certified Beer Server!

Posted on August 3, 2016 by mikehoover

I achieved the first level at Cicerone.org – Certified Beer Server on July 29, 2016. I studied their BeerSavvy program beforehand and it was well worth the investment.
CertifiedBeerServer072916

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