Conical Fermenter - Advise needed

[ontum]

I am fermenting my first batch in my new 14 gallon SS brew tech conical fermenter. I have been trying to research best practices for when to dump trub, when to best dump yeast, when to cold crash, and when to add dry hops. Can anyone with experience help spell it out for me what is good practice?

I have about 11 gallons of 1.077 and am using London ESB yeast from Wyeast in a fermentation chamber at 70º F. Fermentation was active 12 hour later and has remained active for several days now. I have been impatient and have taken about a cup or two each day off the dump valve without many solids coming out.

1. When should do a first dump and how much?

2. When should dump yeast, either to toss or keep for reusing?

3. When should a dry hop?

4. When should I cold crash? Before dry hop? More after dry hop? etc.


Thank you for the help and advise.

 

[Dcpcooks]

I usually don't touch it before 5-7 days. Then I pull a sample to measure FG and see where I'm at in fermentation.

I dump yeast after I'm at final gravity for 2-3 days, then I dry hop and then cold crash after I've finished my dry hop (3-6 days).
Depending on the dry hop size you may want to dump the hops before racking to keg or bottles. You can tell if that's needed if your getting a lot of hop matter in your racking arm. I prefer to leave a little hop matter in the cone so I can pull off a bit more beer.

 

[couchsending]

I

I have about 11 gallons of 1.077 and am using London ESB yeast from Wyeast in a fermentation chamber at 70º F. Fermentation was active 12 hour later and has remained active for several days now. I have been impatient and have taken about a cup or two each day off the dump valve without many solids coming out.

1. When should do a first dump and how much?



I've stopped dumping trub personally. I never got much and with the size of the elbow as compared to the conical unless you did a really crappy job transferring over the trub just ends up way down in the elbow and not in the cone itself. I might do it for a Pilsner but personally I don't think you need to do it for most beers. SS uses it as a sales tool but I don't really think it's necessary on a 14g scale.



2. When should dump yeast, either to toss or keep for reusing?

. All depends. If you do want to reuse it most would pull before dry hopping but again depends on when you dry hop. I wouldn't reuse yeast from a 1.077 beer anyways. That yeast might be a little stressed and might not be ideal for repitching. I pretty much don't harvest yeast anymore either. Just make a bigger starter and grab some extra from that to save for your next batch.



3. When should a dry hop?



Again it all depends. You could dry hop anytime throughout the fermentation from day 1 until the your at FG. You could do a soft crash to 60 for a few days, pull yeast, then DH, or DH in kegs. There is no one way to do it. You could do multiple additions, etc. each time you do it try something new and see what happens. Only way to learn. I think I've probably done 20 different methods. Got two dry hopping right now. One I added 3oz at High Krausen, after D-rest, soft crashed to 60 for two days, pulled yeast/trub, bagged another 6oz and threw them in. Let rise to 65 for two days then starting to crash to pull more yeast and then transfer to keg for conditioning.

Other one I added one large addition, unbagged, with .001 left for some o2 scrubbing and maybe a little biotransformation if you believe in that sort of thing. I'll let it sit at 68 for D-rest for a few days, then slowly cool, pull hops and yeast and transfer to keg for conditioning.




4. When should I cold crash? Before dry hop? More after dry hop? etc.

see above. I have started putting the pressure transfer cap on when FG is reached and put a little head pressure on to keep O2 out especially when crashing. I just leave a spare CO2 tank hooked up to it.




Thank you for the help and advise.

Not sure if you've used ESB a ton and like 70* but it's a little high for that yeast from my experience. I've had the best luck pitching around 64, fermenting at 66 and letting it freerise to no more than 70 to finish off. It can produce some diacetyl if you're not careful so a longer D-rest might be a good thing. I've also had it throw serious diacetyl when dry hopping after D-rest. Added o2 in hops was most likely the culprit. I couldn't detect any before DH but it exploded after. If you use the liquid version I get best results with a little overpitch and a lot of O2. ESB drops like a rock though which is nice (can be hard to harvest sometimes for that reason )

With this particular beer I might recommend adding hops with a few points to go and let them sit until after D-rest and you're sure there is no diacetyl, then crash and transfer. You will lose a bit of aroma from CO2 scrubbing but the yeast will eat up any added o2 from hops and if you do the transfer correctly your hop flavor/aroma will be better for longer. If you want to make up for lost aroma you could bag some hops and throw them in the serving keg, up to you. Don't let anyone tell you it'll produce grassy results, it has never for me.

 

[ontum]

"Ales produced with this strain tend to be fruity, increasingly so with higher fermentation temperatures of 70-74°F (21-23° C)" -Wyeast Website

I am going for a nice fruity taste in the IPA hopefully. Should I keep it below 70º F next time?

Also, I have read that a lot of people using conical like to use pellets because they tend to settle to the bottom. I already have hole hop leaf because I was planning on bagging the hops. However, I am concerned that the hops/bag will get stuck in the pickup tube when transferring to the keg.

Should I go get some pellet hops and throw them in without a bag or proceed with leaf hops in the bag?

Thanks.

 

[couchsending]

"Ales produced with this strain tend to be fruity, increasingly so with higher fermentation temperatures of 70-74°F (21-23° C)" -Wyeast Website

I am going for a nice fruity taste in the IPA hopefully. Should I keep it below 70º F next time?

Also, I have read that a lot of people using conical like to use pellets because they tend to settle to the bottom. I already have hole hop leaf because I was planning on bagging the hops. However, I am concerned that the hops/bag will get stuck in the pickup tube when transferring to the keg.

Should I go get some pellet hops and throw them in without a bag or proceed with leaf hops in the bag?

Thanks.

yes you get fruit but you might get some other odd, slightly off flavors... maybe not. Try it at 70 and then try the exact same beer at 64 or 66 and see what you get.. write everything down, times, measurements, tastes...... everything.

consensus is pellets are pretty much superior all the way around, although not by a huge margin. They soak up less beer and tend to produce a little more aroma among other things. Try it with leaf, then try it with pellets next time so you can decide which you like. You can suspend the hop bag with dental floss out the lid. If you bag the leaf you're going to need weights to get it submerged, otherwise it'll float on top. Use some sort of stainless piece or find some glass marbles to weight it down.

 

[ontum]

Not sure if you've used ESB a ton and like 70* but it's a little high for that yeast from my experience. I've had the best luck pitching around 64, fermenting at 66 and letting it freerise to no more than 70 to finish off. It can produce some diacetyl if you're not careful so a longer D-rest might be a good thing. I've also had it throw serious diacetyl when dry hopping after D-rest. Added o2 in hops was most likely the culprit. I couldn't detect any before DH but it exploded after. If you use the liquid version I get best results with a little overpitch and a lot of O2. ESB drops like a rock though which is nice (can be hard to harvest sometimes for that reason )

With this particular beer I might recommend adding hops with a few points to go and let them sit until after D-rest and you're sure there is no diacetyl, then crash and transfer. You will lose a bit of aroma from CO2 scrubbing but the yeast will eat up any added o2 from hops and if you do the transfer correctly your hop flavor/aroma will be better for longer. If you want to make up for lost aroma you could bag some hops and throw them in the serving keg, up to you. Don't let anyone tell you it'll produce grassy results, it has never for me.

Thank you for the help. I dry hopped 4 oz at day 8 of fermentation. Final gravity was already reached at that point. (Next time I will dry hop with a few points to go.) The yeast finished out in about 7 days, i think.

With a diacetyl rest this yeast should be brought up to around 70f, but I fermented the entire time at this temp for a week past final gravity. Is this okay for the diacetyl rest? I don't taste any buttery tastes and it tastes nice and fruity at this point.

I am not used to checking gravity and deciding when to adjust temps. In glass carboys, I pretty much set the temp and left it for 3-4 weeks because I didn't want to expose anything to the beer.
With my new conical, I am really enjoying taking samples and dumping stuff out the bottom. As well as keeping a closer eye on where my gravity is. I am really looking forward to taking more control of the fermentation process and change temps as needed. (as much as you can with live little yeast running around)

Questions
1. Is leaving this yeast at 70f for two weeks sufficient for diacetyle rest?

2. With final gravity reached for a week, can I cold crash? And should I go down to 33f?


Thanks,
Craig

 

[mikeschmidt69]

2) I cold crash my conical at 0.5C (33F) for most brews. You should either use an "S" airlock or a CO2 capture setup to allow for suck-back when the beer/CO2 inside the conical shrinks due to colder temperature.