An empty fermenter; few questions

I just finished brewing a rather hoppy IPA (yes, both aroma AND bitterness) and transferred it to my secondary fermenter.

First, there was a nice thick (1/2 - 3/4 inch) layer of thick and goopy gunk at the bottom of my pail. I scooped some up and was able to fill an sanitized empty water bottle with it and stuck it into the fridge. Anything I can do with it? It was California ale yeast and basted on my initial tastes of the beer, really liked what it did. The stuff I rescused, can it be used to make a starter? Or should it just go straight to the compost pile?

Also, my pail now has a very distinct hop aroma to it which is good to smell, but I plan to brew a less hoppy wheat beer. I am worried about some of the smell being imparted to the next beer. Any thoughts on that? I really scrubbed it down with oderless soap but to no avail.

Also, I need to dry hop this IPA in a few days. I have some hop bags and need to put in 2 ozs of pellet hops. I planned on making 4 individual bags (1/2 oz each) and dropping them in. I always noticed the hops floated (About 1/2 on top), should I put any weight in? If so... what? Can I just dump the pellet hops straight into the fermenter? Id imagine the hops would disolve and I would get a lot of hop particles in the beer or would they settle out?

Yes you can use the stuff out of your primary! It makes a wonderful facial cream Not really...but you can reharvest the yeast for later use. Though I have never done it some of the more experianced brewes could chime in with the instructions, or I am sure there is a thread somewhere in the baord that will have it.

DON'T SCRUB YOUR PAIL!! At least not with anything that is remotely abrasive, this will leave little scratches which bacterian love to live in. Once you got them in there it is the end of your pail. I am a recent oxyclean convert and this stuff rocks. 2 scoops in the pail fill it with water and let it sit for a few hours, drain rinse well and sanitize thats it!!:rockin:

As for the hops you can put them in a hop bag and let them do their work...if you want to weigh them down some stainless steel utensils work. But I have always just added them directly to the beer. They will settle out if you let it sit, and then just be careful transfering to your bottleing bucket. Once I move my beer into the kitchen for bottleing I will wrap my carboy with a dark towel and let it sit for an hour or so to let anything settle that may have been stired up during the transport. Rack to my bucket and bottle. TA DA

Uh ohz! I used one of those sponges that one side is a sponge, the other is one of those green things that are scratchy. Its not super abrasive, especially when wet. Should I recycle this pail? It doesnt seem like it was abrasive enough to scratch the inside surface but I do realize micro scratches can house micro organisms like bacteria!

i fint all my pails smell after i rack out of them. even after i clean them they still smell.

now when i clean bottles i put hot water oxyclean and the bottles in the pail. i tend to forget about them for weeks at a time. when i dump these pails they never smell any more.

so maybe an overnight soak in oxyclean would get rid of it for you

There is a great Yeast Washing thread on the Wiki page, and it is also stickied, so it isn't hard to find, and I did it for the second time recently with WLP001 Cali Ale Yeast. It is very simple and will give you at least enough yeast for 4 more batches from your first washing. I guess you can use up to 4-5 generations, meaning it can be washed about that many times before off-flavors, and other problems can occur. If you choose to wash, just make sure you have enough canning jars, or containers to store your yeast in. My first yeast washing, I used spaghetti jars that I soaked in clorox clean-up for a couple days (especially the lids) to get that spaghetti sauce smell out of them, then I soaked in oxyclean and rinsed well before boiling them to do the wash. I am just now getting ready to use the yeast from my first wash which has been in the fridge for a couple of months.

I have used the blue scotchbrite scrubbie sponges (they say non-scratch) on my pails with oxyclean and have had no issues thus far. I do an oxyclean soak, and I fill my buckets up completely with the proper amount of Star-San and allow them to soak while I brew, or prepare everything for bottling. No infections yet. YMMV.

I pondered the same question about the scent the beer leaves behind in the pails afterwards also, I guess it could impart something in your beer, but I doubt it would be enough to change your flavor or aroma of another beer.

Having said that, I'm certain if you had stored pickles in your buckets you would definitely impart some pickle flavor. I have seen a thread here a long while back about flavors from buckets that retained the odor of the previous batch and from I can remember, the concensus was it wasn't anything to be concerned about.

There is also a thread somewhere here about using Reynold's Turkey bags, the kind you'd use to raost turkeys in the oven. They fit in the buckets and make it a snap to clean up, just throw the bag away after you've racked your beer out of it, however, it would probably be difficult to wash yeast using the turkey bags. If it interests you do a search for Reynold's Turkey bags and it should pop up.

BREW ON!

Thanks, found the wiki on washing yeast. Seems like exactly what I did although I am not sure if I will actually use it. Maybe once I am more comfortable with the process. A few bucks for a vile of yeast is not much at all.

Thanks all for the advice!

snipper_cr said:

Also, my pail now has a very distinct hop aroma to it which is good to smell, but I plan to brew a less hoppy wheat beer. I am worried about some of the smell being imparted to the next beer. Any thoughts on that? I really scrubbed it down with oderless soap but to no avail.

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Don't worry, my fermentors smell of hops. I've made wine in the same fermentor and I've never noticed a wine with a smell or taste of hops. So if I can't taste the effect in wine, I doubt you'll be able to notice in beer.