Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

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Vreten
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Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Vreten » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:08 pm

Hi folks, first post (no, didn’t introduce myself after joining (shame)j. I am seeking some more info re this yeast and it’s performance. The plot is as follows: brewed an ag smoked beer yesterday
2,5 kilos of pilsner malt
2,3 kilos of peatsmoked malt made by a small swedish maltster/distillery on the island of Gotland
0,13 kilos of rosted wheat
0,165 kilos of different sugars and honey
OG 1.049
23 litres of wort into a FV with a 30 litre capacity
and one packet of Liberty Bell, pitched at around half past seven in the evening.

Decided to try to ferment w/o an airlock, never tried it before but read some posts by brewers that are for it. Placed a small shotglass over the hole in the lid, hard to tell when fermentation started but it did really take of today. When I came home from work today this had happened
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DHM8byGuANf7fuJs5
Anyone got any ideas, or explanation, how this came about. Never had this with worts of similar gravity, fermented with several different dry yeasts, all in this type of FV, but with airlock. Ie everything is as I usually does it except the lack of airlock.
Thanks in advance, Vreten.

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Northern Brewer
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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Northern Brewer » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:52 pm

My experience of M36 is that it's pretty "ordinary" - not crawling out of the fermenter like T-58, not slow like BRY-97, just "normal". At least with normal grists of 90+% pale malt.

So I guess the possibilities are that something was "wrong" with the yeast - either it wasn't M36 or you have a really lively contaminant - or there is something weird about the grist that makes it blow up like that.

The obvious suspect would be the peat malt - have you used it before? My only comment would be that peat malt is normally very strong, much stronger than wood-smoked malt, and normally <=5% is plenty just from a taste point of view, never mind the effect it might have on the fermentation.

Vreten
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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Vreten » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:27 pm

They do two different malts, one less smoked than the other, and I got around 4 kilos of each. This is the third batch, with the leftovers from the two previous ones who were made with 2,5 kilos of pils and 2,5 kilos smoked per batch, one with the less and one with the more smoked. I used K-97 for the first of those batches, W 34/70 for the second. All three were fermented at ambient temp, those two first batches with an airlock but this, the third, without. So, some differences but also some similarities. I’m mostly surprised by the vigouros fermentation, never have had a blowout before, except when using two packets of yeast in a strong chiliporter that took of like a rocket, and I’ve been brewing on and off since the early nineties, mostly with dried yeast, always with an airlock and seldom over 1.055 OG. Hopefully no contamination, aren’t too used to that either (no funky smell from this one, yet…). I’ll get back with progress reports, and thanks for the reply. And I like smoked beers, Schlenkerla is in my top ten and also Spezial Lagerbier, which inspired this recipe.

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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by sandimas » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:51 pm

Strange one that.

I've never had anything like that in 170 brews, in fact I recently posted on another forum asking how people got those huge Krausen and the replies suggested very high OGs. I've done beers up to 1070 and still not got one like that.

Clutching at straws but could there have been twice as much yeast in the packet?

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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Kingfisher4 » Sun Oct 27, 2019 8:11 pm

I have used Liberty Bell about a dozen times and have never experienced this. The only recurring issue I have seen is continuing slow fermentation/ over gassing in bottles when stored at ambient temperature in the garage in bottles, when hot over the summer.

I did see a similar very vigorous start with Empire ale yeast M15 with a higher 1.065ish OG beer and 2 sachets in 23 litres.

Did you keep initial temperature controlled down at 18 degrees or so??

Vreten
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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Vreten » Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:56 am

@ sandimas. I think so too, OG 1.049 and one sachet of yeast, so nothing out of the ordinary, only exception no airlock to begin with. I fitted an airlock after 36 hours-ish but it seems that the initial fermentation was quite fast and furious, not much activity now.
@ Kingfisher4. I don’t do temeperature control (Cool Sweden you know) but the ambient temp in the room where it fermented is at around 20˚C. I also got the same from a 1065-ish porter with two sachets of, I think, US-05 (not sure, though, since the app I used at that time don’t work with the latest iOS).
Well, I’m a bit intrigued and will try the same fermenting setup, the first one will be with the same yeast but a different grainbill, and after that that same grainbill with a different yeast, just to see if this was one-off or if there is some consistency to it. ’Til next time, cheers/Vreten.

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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Bertie Doe » Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:15 pm

I was about to submit a new Mangrove Jack post, so I'll jump on this thread if that's ok Vreten? My experience is in a completely different direction. On the 19th of Sept, I did 3 back-to-back brews. 2 were Black Sheep Rigwelter using Nottingham yeast. Steady ferment which has now stopped.

The other brew was St Austel 'Proper Job' IPA using Mangrove Jack's M36 Liberty Bell. Ferment was steady for a week - then it stopped ?? Tightened the fermenter's cap but no sign of leaks. 10 days ago it restarted and today I'm getting one bubble thru' the trap every 10 seconds. This is the 6th time I've used M36 in this IPA recipe and never had this Hibernation before. Temperatures have been between 20c and 18c. As Northern Brewer suggests, there may be a problem with this batch. Still have empty sachet BBE : 04/2021 Batch # 908101. Regards Paul

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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Robwalkeragain » Thu Oct 31, 2019 3:32 pm

I’d guess the peat smoked malt is contributing a higher than normal level of polyphenols in the beer. These bond with proteins and cause big foamy heads, remain difficult to clear after brewing and taste quite acrid. Basically you’ve got a bunch of trub floating around in your beer.
I took the time to re read this as I didn’t know that peated malt was full of polyphenols compared to regular pale malt.

https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/ferme ... -00020.pdf

Fine it or let it settle plenty!

Vreten
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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Vreten » Thu Oct 31, 2019 3:39 pm

@ Bertie Doe. I’ll see if I still got my sachet and haven’t tossed it yet. Talked to the guy who runs the LHBS and his take on it was that the lack of an airlock could mean that more oxygen was present at the start of fermentation than it usually is when you fit an airlock.
Cheers, Vreten.

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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Vreten » Thu Oct 31, 2019 3:46 pm

@ Robwalkeragain, thanks for the link, I’ll read later when time allows. It was the third batch with this malt and neither of the previous two fermented that vigorously, but different yeasts for every batch, the first with W 34/70, the second with K-97 and this with LB.
Cheers, Vreten.

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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by PeeBee » Thu Oct 31, 2019 7:55 pm

"Liberty Bell" was once called "Burton Union". A "Burton Union" yeast needs to be a good top cropper to perform as it is supposed to, but any top fermenting yeast, "British" in particular, will have the capacity to "go off on one" if it is enjoying the conditions. The Wyeast "Yorkshire Ale" was the last one to do it to me, a 45L batch overflowed a 70L fermenter. Don't worry, it happens, and it is much more likely to happen because of happy yeast rather than an "unhappy" contamination.

I don't use a fermentation trap. Purely for practical reasons, I generally brew 45L batches and the CO2 produced would blow the contents of the average airlock over the ceiling. Even with a 25L batch, the evolution of CO2 through that little hole will prevent any ingress of atmospheric gases. Many years ago there was a belief that fermenting beer must have access to air, but I guess only because that's what happens in breweries. Possibly has some truth relating to propagating yeast from brew to brew, but for the homebrewer it is mainly just a risk and best avoided.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Vreten
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Re: Mangrove Jack’s Liberty Bell.

Post by Vreten » Fri Nov 01, 2019 12:57 pm

@ PeeBee. Ah, a BU-strain, remember reading something stating that now, somewhere. I wasn’t worried, more curious as to why it happened. If this is repeatable, I will as mentioned try this yeast under the same circumstances but with different grainbills, it will definitely be a yeast if interest, and I think I will try to construct a semi-open fermenting system (I’m more adverse to CO2 thanO2😉) if possible.

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