HELP... aeration question...

OK, so I should have known better, but I left to go to a get together tonight, after having had a wonderful brew session with no problems at all. I made a dunkleweizen, and everything just clicked into place. I put a cap on the carboy, and running down the main stem was a piece of copper tubing, through that runs an airline going from a filtered aquarium pump to a carbonation stone. I usually let that run for an hour or so, but figured "hey, i will only be gone a few hours, no big deal". I did think to put a 5/16th tube coming off the other side of the carboy cap and running into my iodophore bucket.

When I left, there was an awesome amount of cold break in the bottom of the carboy, since I use a counterflow chiller. I used a tea ball for the hops, so there was no real hop mess in the carboy from the transfer, and everything looked good. There was some nice clean foam on top of the carboy from the pump. I got home to wort all over the floor. Some nasty sticky brown goo had formed, risen to the top, clogged up the "blow off" tubing, and forced the copper tube to become the pressure relief. I figure I lost about half a gallon.

The question is, what was that nasty brown goo? It is stick as all get out, and highly water resistant, leading me to think that it might be an oil emulsification, that being the case, it would pretty much have to be the hop oils. Did I destroy my beer by stripping out all of the hop oils?

Has anyone else ever exprienced this?

I don't know about the oily mess but do want to comment about the air pump...

The few times that I used an aquarium pump I could only leave them on a few minutes at a time. More than a few minutes and the beer woulf foam over the top of the carboy.

Chris_Dog said:

I don't know about the oily mess but do want to comment about the air pump...

The few times that I used an aquarium pump I could only leave them on a few minutes at a time. More than a few minutes and the beer woulf foam over the top of the carboy.

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In this particular case, it had been going for about 35 minutes when I left home, and I should have just turned it off at that point, capped the carboy, and called it good. There was considerable foam in the carboy, but the bubbles were aggregating, then popping, so it never was completely filling the headspace.

But, either way, I definitely learned lesson on this one.

I use an appliance timer to give the wort 15 minutes of air every two hours for the first 6-8 hours. That hasn't cause an overflow yet. The goo might have been cold break that got mixed with the air or yeast.

dried wort is sticky as hell, and takes hot water to remove + elbow grease. remember, wort is water & sugars.

david_42 said:

I use an appliance timer to give the wort 15 minutes of air every two hours for the first 6-8 hours. That hasn't cause an overflow yet. The goo might have been cold break that got mixed with the air or yeast.

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I was just thinking about that late last night, that I could use a cheap 5 dollar wall timer to take care of that, but the simple fact is, under normal circumstances, I am around when I am aerating. The really stupid thing is, I had to run home about an hour or so after I left, and I should have turned off the pump then.

As to the goo, I am hoping that is all it was was the cold break, but I am just going to have to wait and see. I was so stoked about this batch too, it is my fifth ever, and it was the first one where I felt like everything went right with the brewing process.

rabidgerbil said:

I felt like everything went right with the brewing process.

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Everything....... except for aeration and pitching. JK. I've got 10 batches under the belt and none have been flawless. better luck next time, right? Cheers

Since you already have the stone you should get an O2 setup. You can buy the tanks for cheap at a local hardwear store and aeration only takes seconds with a tank.

dj_van_gilder said:

Since you already have the stone you should get an O2 setup. You can buy the tanks for cheap at a local hardwear store and aeration only takes seconds with a tank.

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Yeah, one day I would like to, but the fish pump was five bucks... an oxygen regulator for disposable tanks is about five times that price, and since I have already spent quite a bit on equipment, I wanted to keep this part as cheap as possible for now. Later, I will go ahead and move to pure oxygen.

malkore said:

dried wort is sticky as hell, and takes hot water to remove + elbow grease. remember, wort is water & sugars.

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I have had to clean up a few boil overs, and know what dried wort is like, but this stuff is so thick and sticky that it completely plugged a 5/16th tube... and it has an oily feeling to it if you rub it between your fingers.

ok, so the dunkelweizen is done, crash cooled, has aged for a couple of weeks, and I kegged it up the other day. I am having my first glass now. BJCP says that a light tartness is acceptable, but not required. This seems very tart, almost lemony. Not in a bad way, it tastes good, but that does not seem "light" to me.

Here is the recipe
The Brew Hut Dunkelweizen
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
6# Briess Wheat LME
8oz Briess Munich Malt 20L
8oz Briess Caramel Vienna Malt
8oz Briess Crystal Malt 80L
8oz Briess Carapils Malt
1oz Hallertau
Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan) yeast

I had to substitute Vanguard for the Hallertau, due to availability at my LHBS.

I came up shy of the projected OG, should have been 1046, I got 1040.
I nailed the FG dead on, at 1012.

I fermented at 68 degrees.

Any thoughts on the tartness?