Questions about "easiest beer i ever made"

In case you're not sure what I'm referring to, this is the thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easiest-beer-i-have-ever-made-recipe-208450/

So, you may have noticed I've posted a few times in there, and I wanted to ask my questions in my own thread so I wouldn't muck that one up.

1)Will distilled water be alright, or do I need to get some drinking/RO water? I can't find RO, so at this point it's either distilled or drinking.

2) Should the t-58 work well, or should I grab some US-05?

3) how about bitter orange peel in it? Tasty?



This is the comment I posted that made me want to ask these:

"Well I went with distilled, so unless that's out of the question, it's what I'm going with. However, I use distilled in my spray bottles with Star San, so it wouldn't be a waste if I need to get another type.

Also, I grabbed some Safbrew t-58 on the recommendation of the LHBS guys, but I forgot to make sure the temps would be alright with that yeast. Hopefully it's fine without chilling the wort.

I also opted for bitter orange peel, which will hopefully be a nice touch.

Planning on brewing Saturday. Looking forward to this one!"

I went with the s-05
I did not use any orange or corriander (not a big fan of either)
I used mostly tap and froze some RO water to bring down the wort temps, intital taste uncarbed and warm was very good, it's in the keg carbing as of yesterday but so far the results are promising.
Overall very easy to brew , I cant wait until I can get a good cold pour!!!

I'm really mostly wondering if I need different water, or if the distilled will work. Should I be alright?

dcummings1998 said:

I'm really mostly wondering if I need different water, or if the distilled will work. Should I be alright?

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Don't use distilled water to brew. Bottled drinking water or spring water is perfect.

brewit2it said:

Don't use distilled water to brew. Bottled drinking water or spring water is perfect.

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Perfect, thanks for the reply!

That seems counter intuitive. I mean, "distilled" sounds like it's really pure, whereas "drinking" sounds like...well, drinking water.

The distilled is good to mix up with star San, so no loss anyway.

brewit2it said:

Don't use distilled water to brew. Bottled drinking water or spring water is perfect.

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+1 I've used RO and made good beer, but I think spring water is the way to go. I've heard distilled can give you some funny flavors.

I've never seen fermentation like this. Granted, this is only my second beer ever, so I don't have a ton of experience.

Is this alright? It's bubbling at a crazy pace and the airlock is full of wort. The bubble on top is from all the foam that's building atop the airlock.

Dude you need a blow off tube. Right now.

The reason that drinking water is better is that there are minerals and such in it that will make the beer better... distilled water can be used if you want to build up your water with salts and such but that is a whole other can of worms

ChandlerBang said:

Dude you need a blow off tube. Right now.

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I threw something together. I had some tubing that I use with my siphon, which happened to fit through the bung hole.

I sanitized the tubing, and ran it from the bung to a jug with an inch or so of Star San in the bottom.

Do I need to cap the jug to keep it free of debris, or should this work?

Looks good. I would probably use more than an inch of star san though. In case the tube moves a bit or something stupid like that.

ChandlerBang said:

Looks good. I would probably use more than an inch of star san though. In case the tube moves a bit or something stupid like that.

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Good call. I added some more and made sure the tubing was below the surface. A few more drops of sanitizer is cheap insurance!

ChandlerBang said:

Dude you need a blow off tube. Right now.

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Hilarious.

In a strange turn of events, it was really sunny and hot yesterday (in the 80s, which hasn't happened all year here in Vancouver, WA), so the room it's in is still really warm. I've been trying to cool it down by putting ice packs around the fermenter and using a fan in the room, but it's still around 80 degrees according to the fermenter's thermometer. Not really sure what to do now. I'm tempted to take it down to the basement but I'd like to avoid moving the bottle around if possible.

dcummings1998 said:

In a strange turn of events, it was really sunny and hot yesterday (in the 80s, which hasn't happened all year here in Vancouver, WA), so the room it's in is still really warm. I've been trying to cool it down by putting ice packs around the fermenter and using a fan in the room, but it's still around 80 degrees according to the fermenter's thermometer. Not really sure what to do now. I'm tempted to take it down to the basement but I'd like to avoid moving the bottle around if possible.

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What's the temp down in the basement? Thats probably where you want to be fermenting in the first place since it's cool and dark.

brewit2it said:

What's the temp down in the basement? Thats probably where you want to be fermenting in the first place since it's cool and dark.

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Temp is about 64 in the basement. Which, now that I've said that, makes me wonder why I didn't put the fermenter down there in the first place.

I put it in a shallow ice bath to cool it down an hour ago. When I get home I'll move it downstairs.

I'm a little concerned that the fermentation may have happened too hot and too fast, and there may be some off-flavors in the end. Hopefully because it's within the first 16 hours I'll be ok.

dcummings1998 said:

I threw something together. I had some tubing that I use with my siphon, which happened to fit through the bung hole.

I sanitized the tubing, and ran it from the bung to a jug with an inch or so of Star San in the bottom.

Do I need to cap the jug to keep it free of debris, or should this work?

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Heh heh heh...you said "bung hole". Heh he

douglasbarbin said:

Heh heh heh...you said "bung hole". Heh he

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Shut up Beavis!

I'm concerned that things got out of hand with the temperature. The house is still nearly 80 degrees, and the fermenter wasn't much cooler. I lugged the whole setup downstairs, which is where it sits now. The temp is just under 70, so things are stabilizing. However, the krausen is essentially gone, other than some remnants in the top of the carboy (above the level of the liquid). Also, there is no activity from the blowoff now, which wouldn't concern me except it was going crazy a few hours ago.

To summarize, at like noon today there was insane blowoff activity and a thick layer of krausen, and now there is neither.

Hopefully things are fine. I'll continue to monitor.

Hopefully this picture helps explain what I'm concerned about. You can see there's nothing on top of the liquid, just some remnants of the krausen up above.

Reason to be concerned, or totally normal for a fast, hot fermentation?

Not to be a pest, but I'm hoping someone with experience will see this.

Based on the photo, would you say the fermentation is right for this style of beer, or did I screw the pooch?

Thanks!

You won't know if you screwed the pooch until you actually taste the FINISHED product. If it were my beer, I would leave it in the basement for a month or so then bottle.

EDIT: i just looked up the specs on T-58. That is what you used? It says 75* is max temp for it. So you are probably going to have some unwanted flavors in there.
If you expect the worst then the result will surprise you.

ChandlerBang said:

You won't know if you screwed the pooch until you actually taste the FINISHED product. If it were my beer, I would leave it in the basement for a month or so then bottle.

EDIT: i just looked up the specs on T-58. That is what you used? It says 75* is max temp for it. So you are probably going to have some unwanted flavors in there.
If you expect the worst then the result will surprise you.

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Cool, thanks for the reply.

I used t-58, and I also found the spec sheet and saw the temp ranges. So I believe that I was right to think that I had pitched too high, and let it start to ferment too high.

So here's the (new) plan: give it a month in the primary in the basement, bottle, and hopefully enjoy.

I am in the midst of deciding if I want to take it out of the bucket with water, or leave it. Also, need to figure out if I'll keep the blowoff or switch to the 3-piece airlock.

Once the active fermentation is over, which it probably is given the ferm temp, you can switch to a regular airlock.
Leaving in the bucket with water will only help to protect it from temp swings, I can't see any reason not to.
Just because it was a little out of range, that doesn't mean the beer is trashed. It just means there may be some oddities that you would have rather avoided. Next time I would do everything about this beer the exact same except get the ferm temp down. Make damn sure you pitch at 65* or so and the ambient room temp is not higher than that. That way you should get a good coparison of what a high ferm temp does to this style/yeast.

It is all about learning to make better beer.

I agree with CB. Active fermentation is probaly close to being done so go ahead and switch back to your 3 piece. Also leave it in the bucket of water to help control temp swings. I wouldn't give up on this beer until I had tasted the final product, but next time definitely make sure you have your temps down to mid-60. Try it again and see what differences you have from this one and then you will know in the future why some are so picky about their ferm temps. I will say that I have seen a vast improvement in my beers after I started contorlloing my temp better. Good luck and enjoy.

CABeerMaker said:

I agree with CB. Active fermentation is probaly close to being done so go ahead and switch back to your 3 piece. Also leave it in the bucket of water to help control temp swings. I wouldn't give up on this beer until I had tasted the final product, but next time definitely make sure you have your temps down to mid-60. Try it again and see what differences you have from this one and then you will know in the future why some are so picky about their ferm temps. I will say that I have seen a vast improvement in my beers after I started contorlloing my temp better. Good luck and enjoy.

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I agree about the temps. The thing about that recipe that struck me as odd was the fact that you didn't use a chiller to cool the wort. I could tell it was still too warm to pitch the yeast, but I went for it anyway and now I'm dealing with this.

I built myself a chiller on Sunday, so this won't ever be an issue again. Plus now I know to ferment in the basement, where it's dark and cool.

I want to redeem myself, so I'm doing a Sierra Nevada clone this weekend