AG11 - Ghost of Christmas Present

[Jon474]

Gotta love Ringwood Huffkin...I loved it five times.

Okay...AG11... session beer for Christmas supping.

Brewday tomorrow. All set up as at 11:40 tonight.

Using a re-started WLP013 in a 1.040 cane sugar solution. It is interesting starting yeast starters off in cane sugar solutions rather then DME solutions. I recommend it. Just watch what is happening to your yeast.

Have run out of gypsum...apparently there is a huge shortage of gypsum on Teesside (Allens Homebrew have none 'til Monday - Tony Mowbray unable to solve immediate gyspum crisis) so am winging it. Will do epsom salts and calcium chloride on their own...unless I can find my mate Ian before dawn, who I know has some gypsum. Unless anyone on here fancies coming along to a brewday chez Jon and brings their own gypsum.

Water analysis says 23mg/l of CACO3 - so no water treatment other than a campden tablet in 58 litres of brewing liquor - a campden tablet is so necessary on Teesside!!

Pale Malt 5372 grams 86.4%
Caramalt 788 grams 12.7%
Chocolate Malt 55 grams 0.9%

Fuggle Whole 4.9 % 60 mins 42 grams 35%
Golding Whole 5.7 % 60 mins 42 grams 35%
Golding Whole 5.7 % 20 mins 24 grams 20%
Golding Whole 5.7 % 5 mins 12 grams 10%

Final Volume: 30 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 53.3 Litres
Mash Liquor: 15.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 72 %
Bitterness: 33 EBU
Colour: 26 EBC

Mash 90 mins
Boil 90 mins

Target...Santa is pi**ed along with his Elves.

[Jon474]

All seems to be going well...so far.

Haven't taken any pictures yet as I am concentrating on my mash technique.

Have gone for three smaller batch sparges this time.

First: 18 litres at 1.066
Second: 8 litres at 1.033
Final: 10 litres at 1.020

This gives me 1.046 in the boiler, if my maths is correct ((18 x 1.066 + 8 x 1.033 + 10 x 1.020) divided by 36 = 1.04589).

60 minute hops have just gone in. Changed the hop schedule to:

Fuggle Whole 4.9 % 60 mins 89 grams
Golding Whole 5.7 % 20 mins 25 grams
Fuggle Whole 4.9 % 5 mins 12 grams

Having a good day.

[Jon474]

Well...finished up with 23 litres of 1.048 beer. I was aiming for 30 litres at 1.044.

No pictures of today's session...couldn't find my phone.

Day went well. It's getting a lot easier now. Mash was a lot better - more controlled using smaller batch sparges - but I lost over 1/3rd of the wort in the boiler to evaporation, trub and cooling and to the wort left behind because of the limitations of the pump. That seems a lot.

At flame out I realised that I couldn't find my orange silicone spoon/stirrer...looked everywhere for it...there was a gradual realisation that it must have fallen into the boiler. I toyed with the idea of binning the whole batch but it was a silicone spoon so, sod it...I'll take the risk.

Igloo already showing signs of stress. Bulges appearing underneath the plastic inner layer. I need to move to a SS mash tun but am a bit daunted by the conversion of one of those thermopots.

One more brew for Christmas still to go.

Jon

[Deebee]

interesting. so how much sugar in a litre to hit 1040?

[Jon474]

Morning

I just prepared the usual 100g in 1000ml of boiled water. The theory says this should give a sugar solution with a gravity of 1.038-ish.

107g in 1000ml should give you 1.040

More than happy for someone with more knowledge to correct those numbers.

This is what I used for the WLP013 re-starter pitched into yesterday's brew (it had been in the fridge for two months - Mrs S not happy) and also for the two Tribute yeast starters I am nurturing, and they have been going strong for five days now.

WLP013 doing its thing this morning. Nice head forming on my Christmas Ale.

Jon

[trucker5774]

I have read (post from an ex member, I think) that sugar for a starter is not the way to go. Something to do with the simple sugar does not get the yeast to do what it does with malt.................not to say it doesn't work though!

[Jon474]

Trucker...I will have a look into that. Possibly something to do with the need for the yeast to first of all break down the "whole" sugar into its constituent sugars? I suppose if the yeast stock isn't strong enough it could weaken or even exhaust itself on this initial stage. To minimise this stress I am stepping up from a 1.020 solution (and I also use olive oil in my starters to give it an initiak kick start).

For the starter I am about to make I am going to use 100g of golden syrup in 1000ml of water - partially inverted sugars so it might give the yeast a break. Just something else to try out.

As I have said elsewhere, it is fascinating stuff...to me, anyway.

Jon

[Michal]

Don't go by my advice because I don't read much (severely suffer from what I suppose it's called short attention span nowadays, and the correct term would be lazines... well I simply prefer action)
but it looks like it's to do with yeast concentrating on the simple sugars first and possibly loosing its ability to convert the more complex once?... That's from How to Brew

"A key condition to this recommendation is that the composition of the starter wort and the main wort must be very similar if the starter is pitched at or near peak activity. Why? Because the yeast in the starter wort have produced a specific set of enzymes for that wort's sugar profile. If those yeast are then pitched to a different wort, with a different relative percentage of sugars, the yeast will be impaired and the fermentation may be affected. Kind of like trying to change boats in mid-stream. This is especially true for starter worts made from extract that includes refined sugars. Yeast that has been eating sucrose, glucose/dextrose, or fructose will quit making the enzyme that allows it to eat maltose - the main sugar of brewer's wort"

Anyway I am sure it will make a great beer and the target will be met!

[Jon474]

Michal

Yes, that makes sense to me. If you made a starter using cane sugar and pitched it into a malty wort as the starter reached high krausen then I can see that the yeast may struggle to switch.

What I intend to test is whether growing yeast in cane sugar or golden syrup and then letting the yeast go dormant, washing it and then restarting it in wort (either from directly from the brew into which it is to be pitched, or from DME) has any effect on lag time or on flavour production. I suppose a further test could be

Grow in cane sugar - dormancy, wash
Grow in DME wort - measure lag time and growth (I need a microscope! No that's a good thing)

Alternatively...just buy some more DME...which is why I started to use cane sugar in the first place. I had run out of DME.

Anyway, AG11 put into a secondary last night. SG down to 1.012. WLP013 restarted in cane sugar seemed to work well. Slightly strange head to start with...possibly because of the reasons put forward by Trucker and Michal?...but it got going. We'll see.

Take care
Jon