I keep missing the mark

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

God Emporer BillyBrew

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2005
Messages
1,508
Reaction score
17
Location
Melnibone
This is starting to get a bit frustrating. My last four brews have not fermented out to the point I expected them to.

My temp has been good, maybe even too high.

I aerate by shaking the heck out of the three gallons of water I add before I vigourously pour them in. I then stir my wort in a manner that definitely gets air into it for about 3-4 minutes. I use a bucket and have always been worried about putting the lid on and shaking because I don't want to get my airlock water in my brew.

The brews I'm speaking of are 1. Samuel Smith Nut Brown clone from beers captured, 2. Fat Tire from BYO, 3. Dude's SNPA clone and the one that's fermenting now, 4. Dude's Boulevard Wheat clone. The wheat hasn't stopped yet, so I might be wrong. Still, it had been in for one week last night and was only 2.5 percent so far. The SNPA tasted fine, but the Nut Brown and Fat Tire tasted weak.

Go ahead and tell me to throw away my hydrometer if you want to, but that's not advice I can follow. Besides, they're not tasting right.

Do you think I'm not getting it aerated enough? Any solutions? I'll buy a stone if I need to, but I'd prefer not to have to spend money.
 
i think you might need to add a bit more information about one or more of these brews if you're going to get good advice.

the thing that i'm reading about lately is that homebrewers in general aren't pitching nearly enough yeast. how much have you put into one of your stalled brews?
 
I'm a starter guy. I pitch between a quarter and half gallon of starter. I have my info at home, I'll have to wait to give more info.
 
a half gallon of starter should be doing the trick!

what kind of water are you using? i've made the mistake of brewing with unfiltered tap water. the chlorine killed off my yeast.

judging by the number of posts you have, i doubt you're making any rookie mistakes, so i may be of no help to you. but i do love trying to solve a mystery!
 
Well, I definitely appreciate you trying and will provide any info you think will help. I buy spring water from the store.

I don't that I'm real experienced. I've done about 10 brews since I started last spring. But I've logged a lot time on this board!
 
Proper aeration of your wort is critical to obtaining a complete fermentation. It sound like you have everything else going in the right direction IE.. yeast starters etc, but the shaking method of aeration is very lacking. I would suggest investing in an O2 system and I'll bet you will see a marked improvement in your fermentations.

John
 
Chimone said:
did you get the chance to read this article that BrewPastor posted?

http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/MB_Raines_Guide_to_Yeast_Culturing.php
Not yet, but I will read it this evening.

johnsma22 said:
Proper aeration of your wort is critical to obtaining a complete fermentation. It sound like you have everything else going in the right direction IE.. yeast starters etc, but the shaking method of aeration is very lacking. I would suggest investing in an O2 system and I'll bet you will see a marked improvement in your fermentations.

John

Do you mean a stone and an aquarium pump or is there something that's more recommended?
 
God Emporer BillyBrew said:
Do you mean a stone and an aquarium pump or is there something that's more recommended?

A difusion stone and aquarium pump is more effective than shaking your wort to introduce air into it. But if you want to take it to the extreme, then use the difusion stone hooked to a small oxygen tank.

The aquarium pump is just taking ambient air which is oxygen, notrogen, etc, etc.....which is still great, but pure oxygen is by far the best
 
God Emporer BillyBrew said:
Do you mean a stone and an aquarium pump or is there something that's more recommended?

As stated, an aquarium pump is OK, but would require 20+ minutes to achieve a proper saturation of O2 in the wort, measured in parts/million. It is better than shaking, but not anywhere as efficient as using pure O2. Injection of oxygen through a 2 micron diffusing stone can actually supersaturate the wort with 10-12 ppm of dissolved oxygen being reached in 5 gallons of wort by a single 60 second blast of oxygen!

I purchased the O2 set up offered from Williams Brewing. The reason I chose this set up over the others that are available, is due to the fact that the diffusion stone is attached to the end of a 22" stainless steel wand. I find it easier to handle, and put where I want it in the fermenter, as opposed to a diffusion stone with a barb attached to the end of a length of food grade tubing. The system does not come with an O2 tank. You can find the small tanks of O2 at any hardware store for about $8-10.

When using this set up, in order to conserve O2, you only need to open the valve so that you just start to see some bubbling on the surface of the wort. Any more than that and you are just wasting O2 into the atmosphere. Also, remove the regulator from the tank after every use, as they are known to leak. I have 15 batches and 3 starters from one tank so far.

John
 
johnsma22 said:
As stated, an aquarium pump is OK, but would require 20+ minutes to achieve a proper saturation of O2 in the wort, measured in parts/million.

I just want to add that this is pretty easy to do--I'm sure the O2 tank is the best aeration method, but I got my aquarium pump setup cheap and it seems to work well for me. I start it up as soon as I start siphoning the wort into the fermenter, which takes several minutes anyway...so I don't find waiting 20-30 minutes to be that big a deal.
 
very true.

an aquarium pump is going to be less than 10 bucks at wally world, and the tubing and difusion stone will be another 2-3 bucks. I would even throw in an inline micron filter for good measure which are dirt cheap as well.
 
cweston said:
I just want to add that this is pretty easy to do--I'm sure the O2 tank is the best aeration method, but I got my aquarium pump setup cheap and it seems to work well for me. I start it up as soon as I start siphoning the wort into the fermenter, which takes several minutes anyway...so I don't find waiting 20-30 minutes to be that big a deal.

Agreed. I have found that there are many valid methods to just about everything we do in brewing. That is what makes this hobby so interesting. I don't think I have ever come in contact with more resourceful people than I have since getting involved with home brewing.

If you have found a method of doing something that works for you, I think it would be crazy to change just for the sake of trying something new.

I have never tried the aquarium pump deal, only O2, and have just gotten used to aeration only taking me 60-90 seconds. I do think that if using a pump, it would be a requirement, not an option, to use an in line micro filter.

John
 
Also, if you don't want to buy anything, there is an easy option for those that ferment in buckets, which it sounds like you do. Clean and sanitize your bottling bucket and your fermentation bucket (make sure the valve on the bottling bucket is closed). Siphon cooled wort into the bucket. Pour your cooled wort from bucket to bucket 8-10 times or about 10 min. or until the foam won't fit in your bucket anymore. I've been doing this and have my last 2 brews ferment to 1.010 and 1.008 (american wheat and kolsch). Also, all the beers I have done this way hit the mark based on the yeasts attenuation.

Also, it sounds like you are doing partial boils
God Emporer BillyBrew said:
I aerate by shaking the heck out of the three gallons of water I add before I vigourously pour them in. I then stir my wort in a manner that definitely gets air into it for about 3-4 minutes. I use a bucket and have always been worried about putting the lid on and shaking because I don't want to get my airlock water in my brew.
If this is the case and you are using unboiled tap (or bottled) water, it should have enough oxygen in it already to ferment fully.
 
G. Cretin said:
Could you buy the diffusion stone and filter at a pet store?

I'd like to know where to get a micron filter also. I have an old aquarium pump that I wouldn't be afraid to use if I had a filter for it.
 
clayof2day said:
Also, if you don't want to buy anything, there is an easy option for those that ferment in buckets, which it sounds like you do. Clean and sanitize your bottling bucket and your fermentation bucket (make sure the valve on the bottling bucket is closed). Siphon cooled wort into the bucket. Pour your cooled wort from bucket to bucket 8-10 times or about 10 min. or until the foam won't fit in your bucket anymore. I've been doing this and have my last 2 brews ferment to 1.010 and 1.008 (american wheat and kolsch). Also, all the beers I have done this way hit the mark based on the yeasts attenuation.

Also, it sounds like you are doing partial boils

If this is the case and you are using unboiled tap (or bottled) water, it should have enough oxygen in it already to ferment fully.

Yep, that's what I'm doing. Plus I shake the heck out of it before I vigorously pour it in. It's weird because I'm on my 10th batch or so, but this problem only came up in the last few batches. I didn't change anything four brews ago that I can blame it on.
 
myersn024 said:
I'd like to know where to get a micron filter also. I have an old aquarium pump that I wouldn't be afraid to use if I had a filter for it.

More Beer sells Sanitary Filters. Check them out.

John

3923.jpg
 
Could the ADMIN please explain why my posts are being displayed before the posts that I am responding to! See above.


EDIT: See, it did it again. Something is not right here.
John
 
God Emporer BillyBrew said:
Yep, that's what I'm doing. Plus I shake the heck out of it before I vigorously pour it in. It's weird because I'm on my 10th batch or so, but this problem only came up in the last few batches. I didn't change anything four brews ago that I can blame it on.

could it be that your equipment has built up some sort of residue, either cleanser, bleach, or soap that is retarding yeast activity? perhaps you should consider changing your cleaning methods, or perhaps changing the bucket all together.
 
Back
Top