Brewday 12/08/07 - Conical's first outing

[steve_flack]

Well after much faffing with water in the conical fermenter today was the day to actually make some beer with it.

I was asked to post some pictures but there's not really a lot that's different with using a conical to any other fermenter until it comes to the end of the process but hey ho...here goes.

Today's beer was a wheat beer. This was my usual 49:49:2 lager:wheat:melanoidin mash but in a totally out-of-character move I did a step mash - a 30 minute rest at 45C and then an hour at 66C. This was an attempt to increase the clove flavour in the beer.

Cutting to the chase, after the mash and the boil comes the chill. I use a counterflow chiller but redirect the chilled beer back into the kettle so it cools all the wort down - not just the little bit in the chiller.



The tin foil was there to deter Kamikaze fruit flies....

After cooling to around 30C (15 minutes) the wort was pumped into the previous sanitised conical.



The conical has been thoroughly sprayed inside with StarSan in a sprayer and the ballvalves had been prevously boiled.

I use an inline wort aerator and an air compressor to aerate my wort. Here's the inline aerator.



This works so well at making foam it nearly filled a 12 gallon conical with foam from a 23L batch....

When the fermenter was filled the temperature inside was 27C (our tap water is a bit warm right now) but with the cooling coils on the temperature dropped to 17C in three hours and the yeast (WLP-380) was pitched using a sanitised funnel through the bung hole.

[oblivious]

Very nice set up, I though you where off brewing for a while?

[steve_flack]

I thought I'd test my back out....I'll learn the wisdom of that decision tomorrow.

I didn't have much lifting to do though...a lot of bending whilst cleaning stuff but not much lifting as it's all pumped.

[steve_flack]

Yes I still use hop bags most of the time (I'm gradually moving to pellets as well so will defo use hop bags for those).

The end of the hose is below the surface of the wort so there's no aeration while the wort is hot. The flow is pretty high so I get good mixing of the cooling wort.

[J_P]

the yeast (WLP-380) was pitched using a sanitised funnel through the bung hole.

[steve_flack]

I guess the thing is now I don't need to filter through a hop bed as I can drop the trub in the conical pretty easily.

[Barley Water]

I must admit that I am guilty of coveting your equipment, that fermentor is a very impressive piece of equipment. It makes it so easy to get the trub out of your fermenting beer and also makes yeast harvesting a snap. Your beer will be all the better for it and at the same time you should be able to save money on yeast at least partly offseting the hight cost.

I have a question for you concerning the quick disconnets you are using. Like you, I am using them after the wort has been cooled down between my counter flow chiller and the fermentor. The guys at Beer Beer and More Beer suggest you not do that because you risk infection, have you ever had any problems with that? Those guys claim that the internal mechanisms of these gizmos have alot of places bacteria and other beasties can hide. I clean my lines by running boiling water through them and so far (knock wood) I have not had any problems. I would be interested in hearing your experices and also how you clean your gear before use.

By the way, I always use hop pellets and have had problems with them plugging up my chiller. I currently use a stainless scrubbing pad in my boiler to filter out the hop debris before pumping the wort to the chiller. How do you deal with that situation in your system?

[steve_flack]

Those guys claim that the internal mechanisms of these gizmos have alot of places bacteria and other beasties can hide. I clean my lines by running boiling water through them and so far (knock wood) I have not had any problems. I would be interested in hearing your experices and also how you clean your gear before use.

I recirculate boiling wort throught the whole cooling system for 5 minutes before starting the cooling water. I've not had any infection problems either. My lines both pre ad post chill are treated the same and are made of norprene. The aerator is boiled in the pressure cooker before use.

If some of the guys on US homebrew forums saw the inside of many traditional British (and indeed Belgian and German) Breweries they'd have a fit....

By the way, I always use hop pellets and have had problems with them plugging up my chiller. I currently use a stainless scrubbing pad in my boiler to filter out the hop debris before pumping the wort to the chiller. How do you deal with that situation in your system?

The times I've used them I used a hop bag, the pickup for my kettle is fitted with a cut-down Bazooka filter and I don't use a plate chiller (I use a CFC which would take one hell of a hop particle to block (the internal bore is something like 8mm).

[steve_flack]

Beer Update: 28 hours in and the beer's got to 1.040 (started at 1.049) and is bubbling away nicely. Temperature control working fine at 17C.

I wasn't getting any bubbling even though the beer was obviously fermenting (my sample was fizzing). I've discovered you need to do the lid compression band up a bit tighter than I thought.

[flytact]

I use an inline wort aerator and an air compressor to aerate my wort. Here's the inline aerator.

What psi do you set your compressor at to avoid blowing out the filter?

I've been trying to figure out a way to incorporate the compressor into the process.

[steve_flack]

It's a tiny little compressor that stops if the pressure builds up too much. I think it's normally used for nail art airbrushes.



It hasn't blown a filter out yet.

Another bargain ebay purchase

[flytact]

I've got a hard core compressor for nail gun use, but it's got a regulator. Never thought of dialing it down to a manageable pressure until I saw your post. Duh!

[steve_flack]

I'm now drinking this beer. The combination of the 45-66C stepped mash, WLP-380 and fermentation at 17C has produced a really nice smooth, really drinkable, Weizen. It has very little banana and a good amount of clove. It's turned out so much better than my first effort (that used the same grain but different mash schedule, yeast and fermentation temp).

I can't see this lasting too long....

[mysterio]

Good stuff. Would you do the acid rest again?

[steve_flack]

I don't know what made all the difference as I changed three variables after reading a lot of stuff on the web. Apparently the mash step and the fermentation temp all affect the flavour substantially. My plans are to try the same mash and fermentation conditions but try using the safale WB-06 next. If that gives a good result then it will save a few pennies.

Whitelabs HefeWiezen IV (WLP-380) is a definite winner if you like less banana though - and a very fast worker.