Beer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Revvy]

Just ignore Remmy, he's our resident tool, I mean troll. he really doesn't care about the answer, or even about his fellow brewers on here. His only real reason for posting on this thread was because I did, and he likes to stalk me (really creepy if you ask me,) and he keeps thinking he's going to catch me in his eyes "wrong" about something (he doesn't get that I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, just usually NOT something I've answered for new brewers 10,000 times before, and would have been called on probably nicely, by others more experienced than me, LOOOONG before he decide to snark.) I think it makes him feel all "tingly" down there I'm sure.

He can't even disagree civilly, he always has to be snarky. I don't think it's in his genes to be nice. He doesn't realize he'd have more friends that way. Especially on here.

His favorite argument no matter what is to cite what the commercial brewers do. He still can't grasp that there are many differences in brewing 5 gallons as opposed to 5bbl in a commercial brewery where bookoo bucks are on the line...WHere breweries are temp controlled beter than the space shuttle, and where MORE than enough yeast is pitched. Hell even Jamil and John Palmer acknowledge that you can't always apply one set of brewing "rules" to homebrewing that you might to commercial sized endeavors.

Best bet is just not to feed the troll anymore...

He doesn't really care, so neither should we.

 

[Bach7210]

Best bet is just not to feed the troll anymore...

He doesn't really care, so neither should we.

But, it did help to kill 20 minutes of a slow work day, Revvy. And for that gentlemen, I thank you.

 

[Justibone]

But, it did help to kill 20 minutes of a slow work day, Revvy. And for that gentlemen, I thank you.

You're welcome!

Troll he may be, but when I run the experiment I'll open a new thread. And if I'm wrong, I'll cop to it!

 

[DKershner]

You're welcome!

Troll he may be, but when I run the experiment I'll open a new thread. And if I'm wrong, I'll cop to it!

Just wanted to say that I feel it is important to question our methods and finding evidence to support them is great. Kudos to you for conducting your experiment.

If someone actually just went around questioning things and asking for data to support, it could very well be useful as we could disprove things (like needing a secondary, etc). Following Revvy around and questioning everything he says and then keep questioning even when evidence is presented and experiments are going to be conducted, is the opposite of useful.

Am I mistaken to call the experiment to be conducted a 'fast ferment test'? I had never heard the term satellite fermenter until today. Kaiser loves em, and by the name, it seems to support Justibone's conclusions.
http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fast_Ferment_Test

 

[remilard]

Just wanted to say that I feel it is important to question our methods and finding evidence to support them is great. Kudos to you for conducting your experiment.

If someone actually just went around questioning things and asking for data to support, it could very well be useful as we could disprove things (like needing a secondary, etc). Following Revvy around and questioning everything he says and then keep questioning even when evidence is presented and experiments are going to be conducted, is the opposite of useful.

Am I mistaken to call the experiment to be conducted a 'fast ferment test'? I had never heard the term satellite fermenter until today. Kaiser loves em, and by the name, it seems to support Justibone's conclusions.
http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fast_Ferment_Test

A fast ferment test is different in that the sample is inoculated at a much higher rate than normal. That will ferment faster and that is the whole point of doing it, to establish a residual extract floor in advance. Actually if Justibone and Revvy are correct there is no point for Kaiser or other FFT users to over inoculate the wort as the test would be necessarily fast due to its small size. So somebody other than me is an idiot because either you need to over inoculate or you don't to get a faster ferment. I hope that it turns out that Kai is the idiot as then I would be in good company.

 

[Justibone]

Am I mistaken to call the experiment to be conducted a 'fast ferment test'? I had never heard the term satellite fermenter until today. Kaiser loves em, and by the name, it seems to support Justibone's conclusions.
http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fast_Ferment_Test

I think "fast ferment" is closer to the second half of continuous flow, because all the yeast needed (or nearly all) are already in solution. Essentially, you start at the linear phase of the sigmoid growth curve.

I'm going to call my test "volumetric effect on the rate of ethanol production in beer". That will probably be the thread name.

It would be awesome to do some "turbo trials", though... make 3.5% ABV beer as absolutely fast as possible. (It would taste like crap, I bet.) I'm sure someone has, but if you don't experiment with this hobby then you're not having enough fun!

 

[rayg]

A decent explanation - http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations2.html

So, since the "sat" is a "smaller island", the yeast will be forced into competition sooner. Therefore, the smaller "sat" brew should be complete before the larger, main brew.

That web page has nothing on it that is relevant to issue of whether
or not small fermentations ferment faster than large ones.

The issue is the rate of a chemical reaction, which is concentration
dependent, not container dependent. There is no "competition" in
the sense of animals fighting each other. The experiments and the
math for this were worked out at the end of the 19th century.

What you are claiming essentially is that putting a wall around a
volume of wort/yeast causes the rate of the reaction to increase,
which is absurd. A five gallon container of wort can be thought
of as many smaller 1 cup volumes, whether there is a wall around
those volumes or not. Obviously, the individual cups in the
carboy don't ferment faster. Just as obviously, it doesn't take
a year for a Budweiser-sized batch to ferment.

Ray

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

I hate to jump onto a burning ship... but I have the unpleasant need to.

I agree with remilard. The arguments that a satellite will ferment differently do not apply 1:1. I have done a few satellite ferments, didn't do much for me, but they were very close to the original batch.

I have also done "fast ferment tests" which is what it sounds like our fair Reverend and the stag are talking about. I could be wrong.

In a FFT, you load the small sample with a huge amount of yeast and allow it to finish very quickly (2-3 days) to test the attenuation. This is obviously not a gauge of the actual fermentation but is instead just a tool to test the attenuation limit of the wort you brewed.

The pressure differences between a test tube and our fermenters is negligible. 100 BBL fermenter, not so much. That size fermenter will significantly affect the flavor of the beer. Additionally, many believe the shape factor of a fermenter affects the flavor of beers (me being one of them).

However, the flavor of a beer due to shape is often attributed to esters and other compounds forming in the corners etc... Anyway, pressure doesn't matter.

I understand the "small island" theory. However, the size of the island is relative. If you inoculate your wort, allow proper distribution of the yeast, then draw off your satellite fermentation volume, the relative size of the "islands" is the same, which is the important factor.

To analogize, a pack of voracious velocorapters would need a larger island that two voracious velocorapters. It comes down to square feet (or mL) to organism. Once proper mixing has occurred, the end volume should have little effect on the speed of the ferment.

This is what I have seen, and I agree with remilard that it makes no sense when you translate it to larger MICRO brewery sized batches.

No one here generally talks about macro-style brewing. That is a very different animal. When we say "big boys" or similar it mean microbreweries.

I can run this experiment for fun on the next brew I do.

In the end it all goes back to proper pitching rates, oxygen, nutrients, and ferment temps. The last two batches I had fully attenuated in 3 days... I doubt my satellite would even make it that fast.

Bottle conditioning is a different animal that an open ferment (that is to say without pressure). I do not think that is a fair comparison.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Hmmmm.... I see I was slow.

As a further note, my recent IPA dropped from 1.070 → 1.007 in three days. This is about the same as many commercial breweries.

Sorry OP, I bet you didn't see this coming.

 

[Justibone]

That web page has nothing on it that is relevant to issue of whether
or not small fermentations ferment faster than large ones.

The issue is the rate of a chemical reaction, which is concentration
dependent, not container dependent. There is no "competition" in
the sense of animals fighting each other. The experiments and the
math for this were worked out at the end of the 19th century.

What you are claiming essentially is that putting a wall around a
volume of wort/yeast causes the rate of the reaction to increase,
which is absurd. A five gallon container of wort can be thought
of as many smaller 1 cup volumes, whether there is a wall around
those volumes or not. Obviously, the individual cups in the
carboy don't ferment faster. Just as obviously, it doesn't take
a year for a Budweiser-sized batch to ferment.

Ray

Ray: yeast are alive.

 

[rayg]

Ray: yeast are alive.

Yeast are not eating other yeast or smashing their antlers
into other yeasts. The conversion of sugars to alcohol
by yeast is equivalent to eating, not competition. If 50
donuts are arranged on a table, you can eat them pretty
quickly. If you put one donut on 50 tables a mile apart,
it will take longer to eat them.

Ray

 

[mightynintendo]

Populations in culture (which beer is, it's a yeast culture) grow on a sigmoid curve. They double at a fairly constant rate, continuously doubling period by period. Then, for lack of nutrient or mineral or whatever reason, they hit the linear phase of their sigmoid growth curve. That is to say, they are no longer exponential.

...

Needless to say, the three dimensional volume of a test tube or graduated cylinder is a very different environment than a bucket. The yeast in the test tube will hit the linear phase faster (see the "small islands" explanation in the link below), and thus they will have fiercer competition for fermentables.

...

So, since the "sat" is a "smaller island", the yeast will be forced into competition sooner. Therefore, the smaller "sat" brew should be complete before the larger, main brew.

Justibone, I must say I disagree with your logic here. Assuming the wort and yeast were mixed equally in both the bucket and the tube, the yeast in the tube would hit the linear phase at the same time as the yeast in the bucket. I disagree that the environments are all that different. If you used, say, an hourglass-shaped tube then perhaps, but a cylindrical tube is about the same as a cylindrical bucket.

The most significant contribution that I can postulate is HEAT. The heat generated by the yeast in the bucket will not dissipate to the ambient as quickly as the heat generated in the tube, and so the bucket will have a hotter core than the heat in the cylinder. This is my hypothesis as to why one ferments more/less quickly than the other.

 

[remilard]

Justibone, I must say I disagree with your logic here. Assuming the wort and yeast were mixed equally in both the bucket and the tube, the yeast in the tube would hit the linear phase at the same time as the yeast in the bucket. I disagree that the environments are all that different. If you used, say, an hourglass-shaped tube then perhaps, but a cylindrical tube is about the same as a cylindrical bucket.

The most significant contribution that I can postulate is HEAT. The heat generated by the yeast in the bucket will not dissipate to the ambient as quickly as the heat generated in the tube, and so the bucket will have a hotter core than the heat in the cylinder. This is my hypothesis as to why one ferments more/less quickly than the other.

I thought of the heat issue, but that would suggest that the larger volume would actually ferment faster and if I suggested that I'd be an even bigger idit than I am.

I think I am going to conduct this experiment, except with donuts.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

I just did the doughnuts version. No results, just full of doughnuts now.

 

[Justibone]

I have also done "fast ferment tests" which is what it sounds like our fair Reverend and the stag are talking about. I could be wrong.

Nope, not what I was talking about! S'okay, though.

The pressure differences between a test tube and our fermenters is negligible. 100 BBL fermenter, not so much. That size fermenter will significantly affect the flavor of the beer.

I understand the main retardation due to pressure is in yeast reproduction, with a lesser (but still noticeable) effect on their metabolism. Also, the pressure discussed is almost always GAS pressure, and not GRAVITY. In fermenters with airlocks, gas pressure should be a relatively minor effect... but then again, I didn't bring it up.

I understand the "small island" theory. However, the size of the island is relative. If you inoculate your wort, allow proper distribution of the yeast, then draw off your satellite fermentation volume, the relative size of the "islands" is the same, which is the important factor.

Not necessarily. Once again, one has to contemplate the nature of triple dimensionality and exponential cascade effects.

Let's take a trip to Velociraptor Island One and Velociraptor Island Two (VI1 and VI2, respectively). VI1 is 9.42 square km, and exactly 30 velociraptors were trapped there by rising waters. VI2 is 3.14 square km, and exactly 10 velociraptors were trapped there. Assume identical ratios of food species and other necessary resources (shelter, mating areas, etc.) were also distributed.

Scenario 1: Exceptional Individuals and Genetics

Let's say one velociraptor in five is a super-raptor. He's the alpha. He's the omega. He is, in a word, the shiz-nit. All the chick raptors dig his action, and he can mate with any other raptor he wants (hermaphrodite raptors?? eww). Luckily VI2 got two of these guys. If mating is random (as it is in yeast, more or less) there is ~11% chance the supers will breed each other, thereby not helping the population as a whole because you have as many supers as you started with... just two. If you start with 30 total raptors, and you have six supers, the chances of those six mating only with each other, and not passing on the super genes, is much more remote. Isolated populations are less capable of evolving to overcome environmental challenges... such as running out of food or oxygen.

Scenario 2: "Fixed Costs"

Each island has a coast line. The tide advances and retreats 5m, thereby reducing the area of the overall island by that area all around the circumference of the island. On VI2, this results in a loss of about .07 km^2, which, divided against a total area of 3.14 km^2 is about 2% of the area of the island. On VI1, the tide moves the same distance, and the area lost is much larger, but on relative terms it is much less (they lose .11 km^2, which is ~1%).

There are other scenarios, but they would all be pure speculation. My point is that just because something is in proportion that does not mean that the effect is the same. Any exponential effect will have a disproportional effect, most especially when the exponent is greater than 2 (such as diffusion of biochemical signals!).

People want to think this stuff is simple, but if it were then it wouldn't have taken thousands of scientists CENTURIES to figure it out.

This is what I have seen, and I agree with remilard that it makes no sense when you translate it to larger MICRO brewery sized batches.

If you didn't test it with a hydrometer, then I'm not satisfied. Sorry to be a stickler, but there ya go!

I can run this experiment for fun on the next brew I do.

Me too. I'm going to take gravity readings for 8 days, 12 hours apart, from the main brew and the satellite. I'll graph it all out and everything... I'm getting a nerdgasm just planning it, hah!

Bottle conditioning is a different animal that an open ferment (that is to say without pressure). I do not think that is a fair comparison.

I'll give ya that, but it's still an interesting question and worth experimenting.

 

[mightynintendo]

Does anyone have any recorded data regarding the core temperature of a 6 gallon bucket vs. the edge temperature during all phases of yeast activity?

 

[Justibone]

Yeast are not eating other yeast or smashing their antlers
into other yeasts. The conversion of sugars to alcohol
by yeast is equivalent to eating, not competition. If 50
donuts are arranged on a table, you can eat them pretty
quickly. If you put one donut on 50 tables a mile apart,
it will take longer to eat them.

Ray

Forgive me, Ray, but your point is... not valid. Sorry to be so rude, but if you can't see this then I'd prefer not spending the time to explain it.

You are welcome to see things any way you like.

Cheers!

 

[Justibone]

I just did the doughnuts version. No results, just full of doughnuts now.

LOL!!

-character limit-

 

[mightynintendo]

Ok, so I emailed a brewery about core temps and satellites. Here's my email and the response I received FWIW:

Hi, I just had a quick question regarding fermentation and heat. When
fermenting in those large vessels, is the heat generated by the yeast
significant enough to contribute to autolysis or even just enough to
impede the metabolic process? Do you take steps to control the core
fermentation temperature? If the heat generated is significant, do you
have to move the beer off the yeast rather quickly to avoid autolysis? I
am asking this to see if a "satellite" fermentation is an accurate
reference to what is going on in the primary fermentation vessel. I
imagine that a larger vessel will have a hotter core than the sattelite
due to less heat dissipation and was thinking this might lend to
faster/slower fermentation times and may change the flavor of the final
product. Am I right in thinking this?

Hi Adam,
The yeast do generate significant amounts of heat, thus the need for cooling
jackets built into fermentation vessels. I suppose it might be possible to
have the yeast autolyse themselves without cooling, but as the temp rises
the yeast metabolism increases and they would work thru the sugar reserves
and begin dormancy, thus allowing the temp to drop. It is a short window of
rapid temp rise, say 2 or 3 days max, for most fermentations. All of this
influences the final flavor profile and the use of cooling allows for a more
controlled fermentation as well as a more consistent final product. Some
Belgian breweries many not use cooling in the same way because they want the
beer profile from uncontrolled fermentation in their final product.

As to satellite fermentations most all fermentation vessels allow for a
circulation and flow of the evolving CO2, and yeast, which tends to mix and
distribute the temps somewhat. Conical tanks are very good at this, allowing
the yeast to circulate from bottom to top and back thru the cycle again.
Vessel design has always tried to account for these movements of yeast along
with the evolution of CO2. Open fermentors like ours allow this process to
happen as well. As you speculate without these processes one could get
incomplete fermentations and hot spots.

Hope this answers your questions.

Larry

He says strait out that without replicating the shape of the larger, conical fermentation vessel, the satellite fermentation could have hot spots and areas of incomplete fermentation. Not so much because exponential growth is reached sooner/later, but because it contributes to mixing and heat dissipation.

 

[KevinW]

What were we talking about again, oh yeah:

i dont go by what the sat says i am just admiring what my beer looks like. Its more of being able to watch my beer clear up and see what it looks like. I and gonna start taking reading here soon cause i am getting close to my week mark so that one is going to get dumped and i am gonna take reading. But there is no clear way to do it. Do you use the wine theif and take some out put it in the tube and see what the reading is then dump it back in the bucket?

Looks pretty good to me! I usually use a (sanitised) racking cane then of course just drink the sample. I don't put anything back into the mix when it is post-boil!
BTW, whether you use a satellite or not, keep on brewing!:rockin: