Sheepy Bitter

[Jim]

This one's named after the yeast, not the style.

4.5kg marris otter
250g crystal
250g torrefied wheat

40g Challenger (18 IBUs)
15g Progress (9 IBUs)

10g Goldings at the end of the boil.

For my water treatement I stuck a couple of teaspoons of gypsum and about 1/8 tspn of Epsom salts into 10 gal of filtered water. The last brew had calcium chloride in, but it turned out badly - a very harsh bitterness which I'm putting down to too many chlorides (the watergem filter is supposed to add chlorides as well, so maybe I ended up with too many!).

I only took a couple of photos today - they all look the same anyway!

I made the yeast starter up with cooled wort from 3/4 hour into the boil - within less than an hour it did this!



Might as well have a pic of the run-off;

[Jim]

I'm worried about what'll happen when it gets a proper hold of the main batch.

I'm using 1/2 gal of this wort to propagate the yeast. I got 6 gallons (or thereabouts) at sg of 42 - that'll be around 75% efficiency (I haven't bothered to actually work it out, though).

[roger the dog]

Looks like a tasty one Jim

[spearmint-wino]

That's the type of yeast that goes through your pockets when your back's turned! Unruly!

Have a good brewday Jim

[Jim]

.......fwiw, next time you go for a filter, the Opella filter cartridges in B&Q take the same fittings but and are a straight forward granular activated charcaol filter. You can replenish the charcoal too for a fraction of the cost. I bought 1.8kg for £13 the other day, that's a lifetimes worth almost

Sounds like a good plan.

[Jim]

Arrrgghhh!!!



At least it just leaked up through the little hole in the lid and lay on top.

I had a plastic sheet down on the floor just in case, though.

[Jim]

you gotta love a lively brewery yeast

But I though Yorkshire yeasts were supposed to be lazy! That's why they use Yorkshire stone squares, isn't it?

[Jim]

All cleaned up now. Skimmed and roused (not that it needed it, but what the hell). SG is down to 28 already.

[ashbyp]

cool piccies that's what happened when I used nottingham, although that was my fault as it i put the bucket in the utility room when it was 30 degress in there

sounds like you have it under control now though.

[Jim]

Does the Black Sheep brewery rouse their yeast ?

They use the Yorkshire stone square principle - as the wort ferments, the yeast head rises through a hole above the lower wort chamber and is trapped in an upper chamber. Every 8 hrs or so they spray wort from the bottom chamber into the top chamber which washes the yeast back into the bottom chamber (that's roughly the idea, anyway).

[ashbyp]

Does the Black Sheep brewery rouse their yeast ?

They use the Yorkshire stone square principle - as the wort ferments, the yeast head rises through a hole above the lower wort chamber and is trapped in an upper chamber. Every 8 hrs or so they spray wort from the bottom chamber into the top chamber which washes the yeast back into the bottom chamber (that's roughly the idea, anyway).

and I worry about a bit of oxidisation when bottling

[Jim]

Does the Black Sheep brewery rouse their yeast ?

They use the Yorkshire stone square principle - as the wort ferments, the yeast head rises through a hole above the lower wort chamber and is trapped in an upper chamber. Every 8 hrs or so they spray wort from the bottom chamber into the top chamber which washes the yeast back into the bottom chamber (that's roughly the idea, anyway).

and I worry about a bit of oxidisation when bottling

Well to be fair, during primary fermentation a bit of oxygen is a positive advantage - the yeast cells gobble it up and it helps them reproduce. At the bottling stage you do want to keep the air out, because there probably won't be enough yeast to remove it all.

[Jim]

I was wondering if it would finish early if you didn't rouse it.

It probably would - this yeast is supposed to ferment so vigorously that it pushes itself out of the wort. Without some method of getting it back in there I reckon it would under-attentuate.

[Vossy1]

Glad to see you had a good brew day Jim, even with the runaway yeast

[mixbrewery]

Good brew day there Jim.
What else did you manage to get hold of during your recent Black Sheep visit?