The Power of Nottingham

I'm in the process of making a video tutorial on basic malt extract homebrewing, so I made a 2.5 gallon batch of a simple recipe yesterday... 3 pounds of light dry malt extract and 1 ounce of centennial hops divided up throughout the brew.

Here's what 2.5 gallons looked like in my 3 gallon Better Bottle at the beginning:



Right at 24 hours later:



I never expected that vigorous of a fermentation. I suppose pitching a whole pack of Notty to 2.5 gallons of 1.056 wort may have been a little much? With that much head space in my fermenter, I would have never even thought twice about needing a blow-off tube. I did not rehydrate the yeast or make any kind of starter. I just dumped the packet in the wort and put the air lock on the bottle...

What temp was it fermenting in?

It is a lot of yeast for the 2.5 gallon batch but as ChelisHubby asked what was the temperature of the wort? Warm temperatures will make the yeast a lot more active and not necessarily for the better. With Nottingham many feel warm fermentations give bad off flavors.

Notty is a work horse for sure. 3 weeks ago I dumped a rehydrated packet into a 2.75 gallon batch of 1.074 gravity Wee Heavy. I pitched and fermented at 59 with is on the cool side. By day 3 if had already flocced like a rock. Day 4 I got curious and took a reading, 1.019 and 74% attenuation. Terminal gravity. Hasn't budged since.

That being said, I like Notty in the 57 to 62 range. Much warmed and I really don't like the ester profile it puts off. What temp were you at?

chelishubby said:

what temp was it fermenting in?

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72°f.

I don't have a viable way to ferment below 'room temperature' at this point. I don't have a place in my Man Cave to put an extra refrigerator unless I get rid of something else... lol

fill the airlock with starsan next time. You will have a ridiculous looking foam snake bubbling out of the little holes in the top.

look up swamp cooler on this site. basically a bucket that you can put water in and then use frozen water bottles to keep the water temp where you want it. It is cheap and uses not much space. Your beer will be much better for controlling the temp and consider changing your yeast to safale 0-5 as it is more forgiving.

JMSetzler said:

I don't have a viable way to ferment below 'room temperature' at this point. I don't have a place in my Man Cave to put an extra refrigerator unless I get rid of something else... lol

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If you don't like the results I might suggest switching to another yeast. For a neutral ale yeast Chico (US-05, WLP001, Wyeast 1065) does okay in the low to mid 70s. A lot of people find Notty pretty offensive at that temps. Of course the Belgians and Hefe's will do just fine in there as well.

http://byo.com/stories/item/1084-make-me-sweat-cool-tips-for-hot-weather-brewing

White and Lodgson have some recommendations for strains that do okay warm in sidebar 3 of that article.

hannibalmdq said:

If you don't like the results I might suggest switching to another yeast. For a neutral ale yeast Chico (US-05, WLP001, Wyeast 1065) does okay in the low to mid 70s. A lot of people find Notty pretty offensive at that temps.

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Agreed. I think you might want to check your volume measurements. That looks like the 2 gal mark on my 3 gal better bottle, 2.5 gal is about halfway up the hump.

JMSetzler said:

I don't have a viable way to ferment below 'room temperature' at this point. I don't have a place in my Man Cave to put an extra refrigerator unless I get rid of something else... lol

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If you are serious enough about brewing to make tutorials, then you need to be serious enough to address fermentation temperature control. There are numerous options that do not involve refrigerators and freezers that can be adapted to any sized space. Proper temperature control is too important to be ignored.

Ramitt said:

If you are serious enough about brewing to make tutorials, then you need to be serious enough to address fermentation temperature control. There are numerous options that do not involve refrigerators and freezers that can be adapted to any sized space. Proper temperature control is too important to be ignored.

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These tutorials are for basic beginners homebrewing. I agree about temperature control and I'm looking into some options myself. My basement stays between 68 and 72 degrees year round and has been a perfect space for my fermentation using ale yeasts. I'd like to get into lagers sometime soon and I'm looking for my options to do that. I think I could put a chest freezer and a temp controller in my garage if I put my mind to it. I need to go look at some freezers and take some measurements of my fermenters and see how much I'd have to spend to make it work. I don't brew multiple batches at the same time so a single fermenter is all I really need to chill at any given time.

Nottingham is a workhorse, all right. I almost blew up a fermenter with it twice, and that was at about 68 F. And you didn't over-pitch according to their instructions. Stuff scares me. I like Safale US-05 for American style ales and S-04 for English ales. They chew right through the wort without all the fireworks. I'd never use Notty without a blow-off.

Swamp coolers work great. With just a rope tote bucket and a T-shirt over the fermenter I can drop the temp 5 degrees easy. Add a fan and it's a few more. Put some frozen bottles of water in the cooler and you can get really low. I just had to pull the ice out of mine because I'd dropped my fermenter to 59 degrees with an ambient in the mid 70's.

JMSetzler said:

These tutorials are for basic beginners homebrewing.

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And thank you for making them, the more the better. The OCD brigade likes to spaz out on fermentation temps, but I haven't found it to be nearly as big of a problem as it's made out to be. If you like the beer you're making, then keep on making it and teach others how to do it.

Now back on topic:

Yes, Notty is a beast. It will be an excellent segue into "why we have these things called blow-off tubes" for your video. I have a graff fermenting right now with it that looks like it's alive.

JMSetzler said:

72°f.

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That's way too hot for Notty. I heard its best not to let Notty get over mid 60s. I ferment it @ 60F.

I saw your other thread on getting a chest freezer for temp control so i see your already on it.

j1n said:

That's way too hot for Notty. I heard its best not to let Notty get over mid 60s. I ferment it @ 60F.

I saw your other thread on getting a chest freezer for temp control so i see your already on it.

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Yup. I want that level of temp control for fermenting lagers. I haven't been able to get anywhere near close to doing lagers yet.

I have been brewing since 1993. I have made 124 batches of beer. Every one of them has been an ale or an ale version of a lager.

The good news is that I have never had a 'bad' batch due to problems. I have made some recipes that I didn't particularly care for but that was my fault and not due to errors or improper fermentation.

angrybits said:

And thank you for making them, the more the better. The OCD brigade likes to spaz out on fermentation temps, but I haven't found it to be nearly as big of a problem as it's made out to be.

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Mainly it's because people have started favoring yeast that is highly intolerant of environmental conditions; designer yeast strains that have very specific characteristics. You can compare this with men's suits: buy an A-cut Hugo Boss or Armani and you can't gain an extra kilo. Buy a C-cut jacket that fits your shoulders and arms and you can increase your size from medium to overweight and it will still fit.

There's a reason why Germans traditionally make bock during February and Märzen during March, why the French made saison during the summer, etc. It's because they didn't always have temperature control and needed to deal with the temperatures that they had.

Best tip for beginners is to not focus on using designer yeasts and just nail down the basics of brewing. Too many people want to jump right in with no knowledge and try to make a beer with hints of banana, cloves and little green fairies flying around with magic wands.

podz said:

Best tip for beginners is to not focus on using designer yeasts and just nail down the basics of brewing. Too many people want to jump right in with no knowledge and try to make a beer with hints of banana, cloves and little green fairies flying around with magic wands.

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This. As a beginner, pick a yeast that works well for you and use it until it you can make it work great. At most, pick 1 lager, 1 ale, 1 belgian. Don't try the seasonal releases, don't use scottish yeast for a scotch ale and then irish for a stout the next weekend, etc. The difference between most of the strains is subtle enough that any differences will be obscured by less than perfect brewing and sanitation.

...and you can make decent beer at the high end of the fermentation temp range (and 72 is the high end for nottingham) but chill it to the low end or even a couple degrees colder before you pitch.

I used Notty for the first time last week on an IPA. I pitched at 58F and once fermentation started it quickly rose to 61 and then 64. That was even with regular changes on the ice packs. Its definitely a much hotter ferment than I get with S-04 or US-05. I chilled it back to 61/62 and I'm hoping to avoid too many off flavours now. At least its an IPA and the hops might mask some of the fermentation problems.