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The way I understand it, longer mashes don't give you more sugar per se, but more fermentable sugar as the complex sugars are continuing to break down. Over-attenuation is a good problem to have, but as Mozart said, if you want more body, the first thing I would do is focus on the mash. I did 20...

I'm sure it would, in mammalian culture it's common to freeze cells in a concentrated amount of serum which high protein content supposedly protects against shear forces caused by freezing. Would this be the same for yeast? I don't know, never did it in the lab, but yeast are heartier than...

I would add glycerol to 10-15% in the slurry either way, it's cheap and allows much more viability.

I usually do 5 vials for 700ml of starter, let it finish on the stirplate for a few days, cold crash and decant as much as possible. 10ml slurry per 50ml conical tube plus 10ml 20% glycerine (or glycerol, not glycol). Put them in a glass of alcohol in the deep freeze to control freezing for 24...

Irish ale is a pain to floc. I've had an irish red with 1084 cold crashing for 4 days, still pretty cloudy. Brings up a question, has anyone tried to gelatin a starter?

If you want a good amount of fresh yeast to freeze, only use a portion of the package in the starter. That way they can actually reproduce. I do this frequently with smack packs, even ones that are over a year old. Just make a starter big enough as needed to fill the tubes you are planning to...

Acarter sent me some strains from OK to NC, so I'll let you know how they come out, good week of shipping time. I haven't had a batch that didn't work out, they're tougher than we give them credit for. Albeit I start these cultures from a few colonies on an agar plate to reduce any bugs that...

Just put the tubes in a bath of rubbing alcohol in the freezer for the first 24hours. Very close to mammalian culture protocol, if I understand what you're asking.

Yep

I would warm it back up some and rouse it. Independent of the strain, a 10 degree drop in 8 hours might be enough to drop them down during fermentation if they thought it was going to keep dropping. But yeah, a workhorse strain should take that hit and keep on kicking, maybe Nott ain't it.

Got it, yeah the air temp swing is fine, I thought he was measuring beer temp.

The fermentation schedule looks good. My only suggestion is to tighten up the fridge settings. 3 degree swing is pretty large, I try to keep it at 1-1.5 degrees. Some yeast will take a quick 3 degree change and drop down. Also, I don't really see the need to drop it back down to 62 after the...

This is an easy and cheap way to send yeast if you decide to go that route. http://suigenerisbrewing.blogspot.ca/2013/04/mailing-yeast.html#A1

acarter, I'd take some Conan, see what all the fuss is about. Anything you need?

I thought I would revive this old thread now that I'm getting back into culturing and experimenting with new strains, see if anyone was again up for trading some yeast. If you haven't mailed paper-dried yeast before, it's really easy and surprisingly effective to get strains that maybe you can't...

Yeah, 3 buckets, why not be safe. Both for blowoff and temp as said above. Look at some youtube videos of big beers blowing off, and I think you'll go with 3 buckets. Besides, primary ferm doesn't really care how much headspace you've got (to a point).

In the future if you want to ease the process by hopping in the keg, make a hop sack out of high mesh stainless (I use about 120 mesh). Make a cylinder using rivets, and pinch the ends like a push pop, then tie it to dental floss and hang it in the keg with the floss through the lid so you can...

Saison yeast has such an overwhelming flavor that, yeah, whatever you use it on will have an overpowering saison character. Maybe make a totally different kind of saison than the last? As for the 1 qt starter, decant the beer on top and use the whole thing.

I've always used gelatin on 2565 after it was cold in the keg, finishes out clear in a couple days. Crunches the timeline a bit. That should solve the staubhefe AJ was referring to (powdery yeast).

Dumb suggestion, but my glass carboys have a hump in the bottom, could that be it?