Experiments

I am doing a series of experiments with my home brewing this year and after lurking on these forums for a while I decided to start contributing in a positive way. I'll do a write up with some video about my first go round this weekend (Double American IPA) but I wanted to talk to you guys about this weekends brew plans. Winter Storm Nemo is an anagram for immense torn Wort after all.

I have today to come up with my grain bill since the start is going to be shut down tomorrow (CT). So I think I'll keep it simple, The idea is a SMaSH saison (biab) . Two three gallon batches, one in a carboy and one top less. I am not doing a wild ferment though, just open. I've been reading a Ton of people saying open ferment adds more esters to the beer, but I'm not sure how true this is. More importantly I don't understand what would be making this difference.

What is the variable in open fermentation that is different? When I ferment in a carboy is there really a pressure increase due to the air lock? Anybody have input?

I would say winter is about the worst time to do an open fermentation. I myself have never done one but understand that it occurs over a long period of time due to wild yeast that are just floating around in the air. This is why some people choose to put their fermenters under fruit trees or in their gardens. I would wait until things are blooming to do an open fermentation, personally.

Yeah, I agree if I was doing a wild ferment I would agree with you. I am pitching Brewers yeast though, so it should not be an issue. I think winter might be the best time for open fermentation since there isn't much alive in the air.

I agree with the previous two posts, but OP said he wasn't going to do a wild ferment. So maybe (i have no experience with this) the esters won't be a problem because the right amount of yeast will be pitched.

Maybe (speculation) more esters are in open wild/spontaneous fermented beer do to the amount of wild yeast participating in the ferment. It would seem to me that wild/spontaneous fermentation would be basically under pitched until the yeast build up the colony. Which is why it would take so much longer to ferment out. Could this be a plausible reason for the increase in esters?

Of course if you are pitching yeast this may not occur, but again this is a subject i have only read about in passing. With the dogs at my house open fermentation is not a great idea. They would either drink it or get their hair in it.

Best of luck

Except that with an open fermentation, the point is to pick up what is in the air and more yeast exists in the air when things are blooming and pollinating.

Agreed, but that doesn't seem to be the OP's experimental design.

Since he doesn't have the proper replicates, it's really only a pilot study, or an attempt at a proof of concept.

VTrookie said:

Except that with an open fermentation, the point is to pick up what is in the air and more yeast exists in the air when things are blooming and pollinating.

Click to expand...

Interesting that you mention this, I have done quite a bit of reading about this topic and it seems to contradict what you are saying. The CO2 blanket and krausen that form on top of the fermenting beer keep all of the dust/bacteria/wild yeast from getting into the final product.