Indiana Ale & the 'Eric Holder' ferment....

Just brewed a batch of all-grain Indiana Ale from BrewFerm. I cooled the wort and transferred to a primary and pitched the yeast (short synopsis of the event). I went to bed pretty late after cleaning up. I was a little concerned, and a little curious as to how the yeast would go off. I haven't done this brew before, therefore, my curiosity meter was on red.

To my surprise, I woke up this morning to a 'fast and furious' ferment. The yeast went off during the night and was at a full blown ferment by the morning.

Lingering questions: will this brew be obvious when fermentation is complete?
Also, the is referment-in-the-bottle style of brew, so when should I move to the secondary?

And, when should I add the dextrose for re-fermentation?

So far, so good--can't wait to try it in a couple of weeks.

Next up, is the Moose Drool clone. I was brewing with a new burner and kettle, so I wanted to finish this beer as a test-run prior to making the Moose Drool.

Cheers,
Dan

First off, when you say re-ferment, I take it you beer carving up in your bottles?

I don't see what going to a secondary would help with that, but even if you really do want to secondary your beer, you want to wait for fermentation to be finished first.

If your worried that you won't have enough yeast in suspension to carb you're bottles, don't worry about it, they're will be more than enough.

You want to add the dextrose when your ready to bottle. Generally you'll mix your dextrose with some boiled water to dissolve it. Put this in a bottling bucket, then rack your beer into that bucket, and it'll mix nicely... Then bottle them up .

I forgot to ask, but what temperature are you fermenting at? If you had a good starter and aerated well, your beer can take off fast... But sometimes it's because it's fermenting at too high of a temperature.

KepowOb said:

I forgot to ask, but what temperature are you fermenting at? If you had a good starter and aerated well, your beer can take off fast... But sometimes it's because it's fermenting at too high of a temperature.

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I'm currently fermenting at 18.5 - 18.9 Celsius (65 - 70 Fahrenheit). That accounts for temp changes during the night versus the daytime. I pitched the yeast without a started after cooling the wort to 28 Celsius (approx 80 Fahrenheit).

I re-read the instructions from BrewFerm. It says that the yeast will begin fermentation within 3 - 4 hours.

My questions lie in Steps 8 - 10 of this link

This particular beer re-ferments in the bottle after adding dextrose at 7g per liter of beer, then bottling.

Let me know your thoughts...

Cheers!

AlfA01 said:

I'm currently fermenting at 18.5 - 18.9 Celsius (65 - 70 Fahrenheit). That accounts for temp changes during the night versus the daytime. I pitched the yeast without a started after cooling the wort to 28 Celsius (approx 80 Fahrenheit).

I re-read the instructions from BrewFerm. It says that the yeast will begin fermentation within 3 - 4 hours.

My questions lie in Steps 8 - 10 of this link

This particular beer re-ferments in the bottle after adding dextrose at 7g per liter of beer, then bottling.

Let me know your thoughts...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Pitching the yeast at 80 degrees is why the fermentation took off so fast. That is really warm. I usually cool to 65 or a bit lower before I pitch.

I think re-fermentation is a poor choice of words in those instructions. In the primary the beer has already fermented. You then add the sugar (dextrose) at bottling. There will still be some yeast in suspension in the beer. It will ferment the dextrose to produce carbon dioxide which carbonates your beer.

The instructions say to leave the beer in the primary for about 10 days. It will help your beer become more clear and possibly taste better is you leave it for closer to three weeks. Even better is you can cool it to 34 decrees or so for the last 4 or 5 days (cold crashing). That cold period will cause more of the yeast to drop out of suspension leaving a clear beer.

rlmiller10 said:

Pitching the yeast at 80 degrees is why the fermentation took off so fast. That is really warm. I usually cool to 65 or a bit lower before I pitch.

I think re-fermentation is a poor choice of words in those instructions. In the primary the beer has already fermented. You then add the sugar (dextrose) at bottling. There will still be some yeast in suspension in the beer. It will ferment the dextrose to produce carbon dioxide which carbonates your beer.

The instructions say to leave the beer in the primary for about 10 days. It will help your beer become more clear and possibly taste better is you leave it for closer to three weeks. Even better is you can cool it to 34 decrees or so for the last 4 or 5 days (cold crashing). That cold period will cause more of the yeast to drop out of suspension leaving a clear beer.

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I'm traditionally a moonshine and wine type of guy. So, in these genres of producing homemade alcohols, we are usually discussing raising the alcohol content when adding sugar of any sort...I suppose that the method (European based company), is about following the methods that the Belgians have developed to increase alcohol content and carbonation after initial fermentation (re-fermentation). They actually say it re-ferments in the bottle.

In my narrow amount of beer brewing knowledge, I'm guessing that adding additional sugars to restart fermentation will raise alcohol level in the bottle and increase clarity--this is just a guess and I'm hoping that anyone here can help me with explanations and experience..

The temp was probably a little high when I pitched the yeast, yet when I re-read the instructions, they suggested the fermentation would kick off within 3 - 4 hours regardless if the temp was above the suggested. I'm still curious if this will have an impact on my transfer time to a secondary. The instructions suggest transfer to a secondary and I have a lot of settlement after only three days. In order to prevent oxidation and 'off tastes' I believe it is necessary to do the transfer to a secondary. The only question is regarding the additional sugars, timing and re-activation of the yeast in the bottle.

All inputs are welcome and advice is greatly appreciated

Cheers,
Dan

The 'refermentation' is basically what most of us call 'priming'.

The jist of it is: You let the main fermentation complete (I like to go at least 14 days) then the yeast have no sugar left to eat.

But you still need them to burp out some CO2 to carbonate the bottle. So you give them just a little bit of fementable sugars, and then bottle. The little bit of sugar will cause a small secondary fermentation. ABV won't change much at all, but there will be just enough fermentation to cause carbonation in the bottle.

How much dextrose are you supposed to add? If we are talking what Ejay refers to as priming then the dextrose is a small amount. Although it does ferment and add a minimal amount of alcohol the main purpose is to add carbonation. If you were to add enough dextrose at bottling time to measurably raise the ABV it would also produce enough carbon dioxide to explode your bottles. For priming purposes we are talking about 100 gram of sugar for a 5 gallon (19 liters).

I would not worry about transferring to secondary unless you are going to let it bulk age for more than 4 weeks or unless you are adding fruit or something. Most of the people on HBT do not use a secondary for the average beer. We let it sit in primary for about 3 weeks and then rack off to a bottling bucket which contains the priming sugar. The racking off leaves the sediment behind in the fermentation chamber (bucket, carboy, etc).

To prevent oxidation is one reason for NOT transferring to secondary. As long as the primary fermentation vessel has not been disturbed there will be a layer of CO2 in the top which will prevent oxidation. Transferring to secondary you are actually encouraging oxidation unless you have an inert gas purged environment.

Also by leaving the beer in primary for a couple of weeks after initial fermentation the yeast will "clean up" many of the off flavors that may have been produced. During fermentation some precursor compounds leak from the yeast cells. The yeast will go back after initial fermentation and will absorb these compounds and finish converting them to CO2 and alcohol. And having pitched the yeast at such a warm temp it is likely that you did get some off flavors.

It is true that if you were to leave the beer on the yeast lees (settlement at the bottom) for an extended period that it would start to break down and give off flavors. Although you will get different answers, from my reading it is more like 6 weeks before that is really a problem.

I've been reviewing the brew instruction sheets again that came with the kit when I purchased it. I was saying re-fermentation in my prior posts, which may have confused some folks. I'll add some notes below:

"Quantity of sugar for secondary fermentation in the bottle: 7 grams/liter"

I currently have 18.9 liters approximately. After siphoning and losing some beer with the sediment and lees, I should need to add approximately 125 +/- grams prior to bottling (according to the brew schedule and instructions).

"9. Ripening. It is recommended to let the beer ripen. The beer is transferred to another barrel for this purpose, and it is stored in a cool place.......due to the cooler temperature, a larger amount of carbonic acid is dissolved in the beer, but, more importantly, a number of undesirable flavouring substances are removed, such as for instance diacetyl, a buttery flavour."

"10. Bottling. Siphon the beer into a cleaned kettle, but make sure that the dregs at the bottom are not siphoned. Dissolve the indicated quantity of sugar per liter of beer needed for secondary fermentation in a small quantity of boiled and cooled water and add it to your beer."

The brew schedule does say that refermenting for kegs requires a lower amount of sugar.

I'm going to follow the advice of most of the responders on HBT and leave this beer in the primary until bottling.

One note regarding the secondary ferment is the ABV. This particular beer has an ABV of 7%, similar to Duvel and some other 'high octane' Belgian beers.

Cheers,
Dan

It looks like today around 7 PM the bubbling in the airlock stopped. I don't see any rising bubbles when I look through the sides of the carboy.

The brew schedule says to keep a close eye on the fermentation. It also suggests to measure the density after 10 days. My question: if I pitched too quickly before cooling, should I adjust my fermentation time (ie, 8 days instead of 10 days)?

Cheers,
Dan
AlfA01

AlfA01 said:

It looks like today around 7 PM the bubbling in the airlock stopped. I don't see any rising bubbles when I look through the sides of the carboy.

The brew schedule says to keep a close eye on the fermentation. It also suggests to measure the density after 10 days. My question: if I pitched too quickly before cooling, should I adjust my fermentation time (ie, 8 days instead of 10 days)?

Cheers,
Dan
AlfA01

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No. Done is done- it won't get more or less done once it's finished.

However, may people do leave the beer in the fermenter a bit longer than 8-10 days as there are some processes that happen once the active part of fermentation is finished. For example, once the fermentable sugars are gone, the yeast will continue scouring for things to digest, and will actually go back at that time and 'clean up' some of their own waste products, like diacetyl. Sometimes off-flavors produced from a warm fermentation will mellow a bit also during this time.

Once the beer starts to clear, or is clearing, it can be transferred to another vessel to age or it can be bottled at that time. It's not that yeast has a calendar and knows when this is- it's dependent on so many things like yeast strain (some are more flocculant than others and so will clear much faster), ingredients, temperature, the amount of calcium in the wort, etc. Generally, this is in about 10-21 days for most ales but not always.

Once the beer is done, and has been at final gravity for at least 3 days (so that "clean up" process is done, and it's clear or nearly so, then it's time for the next step no matter how many days later it is. Or, it can stay put also and clear a bit more if life gets busy.

The longer you leave the beer in the fermenter the better the yeast cleans up and the more of the yeast settles out so you get less sediment in your bottles. I ususally go 3 to 4 weeks before bottleing but the beer I left for 9 weeks was better flavored and had so little sediment in the bottles it was hard to see.

RM-MN said:

The longer you leave the beer in the fermenter the better the yeast cleans up and the more of the yeast settles out so you get less sediment in your bottles. I ususally go 3 to 4 weeks before bottleing but the beer I left for 9 weeks was better flavored and had so little sediment in the bottles it was hard to see.

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I guess it all comes down to patience....to leave the beer, or not to leave the beer - that is the question?

Cheers,

AlfA01 said:

I guess it all comes down to patience....to leave the beer, or not to leave the beer - that is the question?

Cheers,

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Not so much patience as preference. I dislike the flavor of a beer that spent a very long time on the trub, while others prefer it. It will be different.

Basic Brewing Radio podcast did this as experiment a couple of years ago. Some did a traditional short primary/secondary, some did a long primary with no secondary, and some did a 10 day primary with no secondary.

The samplers spotted differences in the beers. The interesting thing is that the preferences were about equally divided. Some preferred the traditional way, some preferred the long primary, and some preferred the 10 day primary only version.

My preference is usually 10-14 days, fermenter right to packaging, for ales. But I will use a secondary in cases where I'm dryhopping or adding something and want to save the yeast out of the primary to reuse.

Try it for yourself. See which you prefer, and where you fall on this issue. It's probably evenly divided among this group as well!

I hit that 'Submit' button a little too early.

I ran a little wine trick on this that some folks use before they siphon the wine off the lees. Maybe its used for beer making too, but I haven't encountered yet, so I thought I would at lest give it a mention here...no harm done. I took an non-lubricated, and unused condom, and placed it over my airlock. what do you know? There is still some yeast activity, as the condom created a little bit of back pressure (enough to inflate it) and visible bubbles were still rising occasionally in the beer. Again, patience pays off....difficult, but worth it.

Moral of the story: when in doubt, use a condom!

Cheers,
AlfA01

FYI A change in temperature, as will just a little bit of time, will cause the CO2 in solution to come out of solution as a gas. How much comes out depend on the temperature change, agitation, barometric pressure, back pressure, etc.

Homercidal said:

FYI A change in temperature, as will just a little bit of time, will cause the CO2 in solution to come out of solution as a gas. How much comes out depend on the temperature change, agitation, barometric pressure, back pressure, etc.

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Great info. Today was a pretty stable day and the beer is in quite a controlled environment at the moment. Agitation? I tapped to fermenter a couple of times to see if bubbles would rise, but very subtle, not aggressive.

Cheers,
AlfA01

What a nice beer this turned out to be. At first, it had a few off flavors and some after taste, but after 10+ days on the bottles it was a very enjoyable brew. :rockin:

If anyone is interested to try it, it comes from BrewFerm as a kit and really makes a nice beer. I did add abut 2 cups of toasted oats also, which really doesn't seem like much.

Worst thing is: it's all gone

Cheers,
AlfA01

This is a pic of the beer in Heineken mug. It was early on in the aging process. I know, its a disgrace to the homebrew putting in a Heineken mug, but it was all I had during the moving process.

Cheers,
AlfA01