Brewday 10/06/2007: TTL

[wooyay]

My original plan was to have a double brewday today, but I've been having problems sourcing CO2 cylinders so it's meant that I've had to cut back and only do the one. Providing I can source a cylinder during next week, I'll do the other brew (Castle Eden Ale) next weekend...

Sorry, no photos again this time but I will try next time.

TTL from BYOBRAAH but this time slightly adjusted to compensate from the heavy losses I had during the boil when doing the Wherry clone.

Mash produced 29.30L @ 1.035 with the final runnings at 1.021.

Currently 45 minutes in to the boil and dying of heat (trying to keep doors and windows closed to keep out the nasty pollen ).

[spearmint-wino]

Have a good brewday!

My Crouch Vale Best is approaching end of boil. Its the first time I've done the boil outside and a) the house doesn't "stink of that bloody stuff" and b) it appears I get less loss to evaporation.

[wooyay]

Well, got 21L in the FV @ 1.036 when it should've been 1.043 so I'll have to content myself with a lower gravity beer. I've got no idea why the gravity is so low (I can only assume it's because I collected 21L instead of 23L in the FV) but it means that my overall efficiency is dismal 56.8% according to BeerAlchemy.

[wooyay]

Just checked on this one and I'm a bit concerned by it...

I lifted the lid to be confronted with an unpleasant smell and this sight:


I've never seen a yeast head look like this before - usually it's fairly dry and matt looking not wet and shiny. For the first time, I skimmed off the trub which was thrown up after a couple of days which seemed easy enough and the yeast head had reformed to its previous size after an hour or so.

I've taken a hydrometer reading which shows 1.009 so fermentation looks as if it's complete and the sample I took tasted okay (given it's only four days old). A little sweet, but that was probably because of the mash temperature being 68C.

Should I be concerned about this? Previous beers I've used S-04 yeast on are usually losing their head by now...

Would dropping it into another fermenting bin for secondary be a prudent move?

[wooyay]

Thanks, DaaB. It's good to hear that it's not the end of the world - after all I've got loads of Cornies coming from Ianb which I need to fill!

[Vossy1]

Nothing wrong with that yeast head WY

Skimming wont hurt, especially the dirty brown stuff

[wooyay]

Skimming wont hurt, especially the dirty brown stuff

You should have seen the head after 24hrs. Never before have I seen so much trub get thrown up so I decided to try skimming for the first time. I was rather impressed at how it simply peeled off.

Not wanting to get too cocky, I think I'll leave this one alone to be on the safe side.

[wooyay]

Sorry to bring up an old topic, but this has bitten me again :

I did an experimental mini-mash towards the end of last year and its yeast head looked the same as this. Like before, it developed quickly (within 48hrs), looked shiny and sticky and sat on top of the "proper" yeast head. It also doesn't dissapear either (not even after two weeks).

Both the TTL clone and this mini-mash have had to be thrown away because they are simply undrinkable. Both beers taste identical, but they were hopped differently (the mini-mash was bittered with Target and late hopped with Cascade). They are incredibly bitter, of the type which lasts in the mouth for a very long time. Both beers also failed to show any signs of clearing (even after six months for the TTL).

Other beers, before, between and after have been fine although I've recently been using Nottingham yeast whereas the two bad batches were done with S-04. I've used S-04 in the past with great success so I doubt it's the yeast. Something has gone wrong though and it would be nice to figure out what it is so I can try to prevent the same from happening again...

[wooyay]

What are the recipes you used?

Did you pay attention to the alpha acid content of the hops and adjust the quantities appropriately when adding them, target are some of the more bitter of the hop varieties.

I don't have them to hand at the moment, but certainly the mini-mash was about 30IBU (the small amount of Target contributed to about 20IBU) which is fairly normal for me. I've used Target several times before so I'm aware of its AA levels. Other beers where I've used Target have the distinctive Target taste where as this doesn't have those at all - it tastes exactly the same as the TTL which doesn't have any Target in.

What if anything did you add to your water?

Camden tablet (ratio 1/2 tablet per 25l water) which I always do.

Did you acidify the mash ?

Yup, using CRS. Mash pH was brought down to approx 5.2.

Are you using a water filter?

No. All water was straight from the tap and treated as above.

Ideally you would have racked off from underneath this leaving the yeast behind. The fact it isn't clearing in the bottle is a little strange.

This was done in both cases. On the TTL clone, the tap on the fermenter was used and for the mini-mash the syphon was carefully put through the head avoiding damaging it as much as possible (hardly any was disturbed).

It's odd, but certainly annoying having happened to me twice. My cleaning routine hasn't changed at all (same products, same quantities). For the mini-mash, I had a very problematic stuck mash so I had to dump the grain into a muslin bag which caused a slightly cloudy run off but I've had these in the past without a problem.

[wooyay]

Both batches were batch sparged and the sparge water wasn't treated with CRS (only with a camden tablet). This is exactly the same as all my other (successful) brews.

I'm going to assume it's an infection of some sort and try to step up my cleaning routine to see whether that prevents it in future but I'll hang on to a bottle or two in case I get the opportunity for it to be sampled.

Thanks for trying to identify it though.