Rough day at work.

What else to do but brew a nice ale and enjoy some time in the kitchen using the stove for its original purpose. Plus my mother-in-law gave me my birthday gift early, so why not try it out, the only question, to filter the leaf hops or to not filter.

I just recently heard of a process - strain them out when you are transferring from your boil pot to your fermentor.

It is supposed to get some extra hops goodness out of them.

I just leave mine, but its a PITA to separate at transfer to bottling bucket.

Dynachrome said:

I just recently heard of a process - strain them out when you are transferring from your boil pot to your fermentor.

It is supposed to get some extra hops goodness out of them.

I just leave mine, but its a PITA to separate at transfer to bottling bucket.

Click to expand...

I was thinking to just use the spoon to get the big chunks, while leaving the smaller ones.

...the small one are the ones that get stuck in the bottom end of the bottling wand, just sayin.

I'm going to try it next time. I got some local grown hops at our club Christmas party that are on deck for my next brew.

That is going to be the fun part. The bottling bucket is the primary fermenter, and I have a lager in secondary that won't be ready until after this beer is ready to bottle.

Pick up another virgin HDPE bucket at Home Depot or Menard's or such and sterilize it.

I have four - they are like $2.75 each.

Don't strain it into the bottling bucket though.

Extra air after fermentation isn't a good thing. Beer ends up with a cardboard taste.

I was thinking about getting a second bucket anyway.

Dynachrome said:

I just recently heard of a process - strain them out when you are transferring from your boil pot to your fermentor.

Click to expand...

I thought that is what people did normally?? Why wouldn't you strain into the fermenter? It (very slightly) aerates and gets rid of the crap.

I ended up straining the whole thing last night, mainly due to a lack of energy and I needed to get to bed to sleep. Plus I figured a little extra O2 would help the yeast get started. When I went to check on it this morning, the air lock was bubbling away. 4 weeks out from bottling day!

EDIT: SG came out to 1.048, right on the money for what I wanted.

dcocch said:

I thought that is what people did normally?? Why wouldn't you strain into the fermenter? It (very slightly) aerates and gets rid of the crap.

Click to expand...

I just had that situation with one of my last batches. I will avoid straining at bottling time from now on. I can't tell so much, but a guy judging a contest told me he could.

I just strained it as I was pouring the wort into the primary, after it had cooled and before I took the SG and pitched the yeast.

The air lock is cruising right now. Yesterday it was about 1 bubble every 2 seconds, now at 1 every 5. The hardest part is waiting the 4 weeks for it to condition then go into bottles for carbonation. Since this is my third batch, I don't have much stock at the moment.

Yeah, that's the way to do it.

It naturally adds oxygen to the beer and gives the yeast fuel to work with. I've had good results with that.

Like I think I stated, don't get too much excess oxygen into the beer at the time of bottling.

Dynachrome said:

Yeah, that's the way to do it.

It naturally adds oxygen to the beer and gives the yeast fuel to work with. I've had good results with that.

Like I think I stated, don't get too much excess oxygen into the beer at the time of bottling.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I had a friend let his first beer sit open in primary, after fermentation but before he transferred to secondary, and it tasted like cardboard after bottling and conditioning.

A few buckets will purchased for bottling and fermenting.

Thanks for the help Dynachrome!

Yeah, with the buckets, you don't want to let it set for any longer than necessary to finish fermentation. The CO2 cap will dissipate and the beer will get oxidized.

That is the cardboard flavor.

Anchor used to have a nice video on their website that condensed 18 hours of open top fermentation. It condensed ti down to about 30 seconds.

Apparently the marketing guys have taken over the website and turned it to crap to try and inspire people to drink beer with images of gold miners and other marketing mumbo-jumbo. I can't find the simple beautiful unencumbered straight-forward version ant more.



Go to about 40 seconds and start watching. You can brew beer lots of ways as long as you know your own syatem:

Anchor Steam - The Marketing bastages version

Interesting.

I hold specify that I do have a lid on it with a three piece air lock. I plan on letting it sit for about 3-4 weeks total time before bottling. I know it won't be as clear as a beer going to secondary, but hey, it's still beer.

ohpspe said:

Interesting.

I hold specify that I do have a lid on it with a three piece air lock. I plan on letting it sit for about 3-4 weeks total time before bottling. I know it won't be as clear as a beer going to secondary, but hey, it's still beer.

Click to expand...

Stupid iPad. It should say I should not I hold.

Really man, if you are doing buckets bottling a little faster is better. My humble opinion.

I put this one into my secondary carboy on 2/11 and am getting close to bottling it. It has a nice color to it, plenty of trub on the bottom of secondary and had good krausen when I racked it from primary.

Probably brewing my Irish Red Ale next, maybe next week.