Does anyone WHIRLPOOL when transferring to secondary???

[grndslm]

OK, so.... pg. 26 of Yeast:

"If there is a high-enough glucose concentration, even in the presence of oxygen, yeast produce ethanol (anaerobic fermentation)....... The problem with oxygen exposure during fermentation is not the loss of ethanol, but rather the activation of metabolic pathways that produce off-flavors. For example, beer fermentations exposed to oxygen have higher concentrations of acetaldehyde, due to oxidation of ethanol into acetaldehyde."

WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO, RENO?!?!?

 

[mewithstewpid]

good read. love the RANDOM capitalized WORDS

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Also, Reno.... You continued to dodge my questions about dumping in all the extract after flame out. Have you done it... yes or no?

Jeez, didn't realize casually glacing over a question in the midst of tons of rambling would invoke the Spanish Inquisition.

Here, I'll stop "dodging" (read: basically ignoring) your question. Yes... yes I've done that, in my earlier days before I realized how much a hot break helps clarity.

 

[mewithstewpid]

i also think you are missing the role of oxygen pre- and post- fermentation, but i could have missed something earlier in the thread.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

OK, so.... pg. 26 of Yeast:

"If there is a high-enough glucose concentration, even in the presence of oxygen, yeast produce ethanol (anaerobic fermentation)....... The problem with oxygen exposure during fermentation is not the loss of ethanol, but rather the activation of metabolic pathways that produce off-flavors. For example, beer fermentations exposed to oxygen have higher concentrations of acetaldehyde, due to oxidation of ethanol into acetaldehyde."

WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO, RENO?!?!?

That fact has already been stated. Maybe not specifically about acetaldehyde but off-flavors due to oxygen exposure post-reproduction were talked about.

 

[IXVolt]

OK, so.... pg. 26 of Yeast:

"If there is a high-enough glucose concentration, even in the presence of oxygen, yeast produce ethanol (anaerobic fermentation)....... The problem with oxygen exposure during fermentation is not the loss of ethanol, but rather the activation of metabolic pathways that produce off-flavors. For example, beer fermentations exposed to oxygen have higher concentrations of acetaldehyde, due to oxidation of ethanol into acetaldehyde."

WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO, RENO?!?!?

Actually.... if you look at the first response, yes post #2, he does talk about that.

because of the increased risk of off-flavors due to oxygenation

He just didn't use those exact words, but the premise was the same thing!!!

 

[Yooper]

No more snarky comments, please. And no OT posts. Thanks.

I have seen the 24-hr recommendation on this forum more often than I have seen any other recommendation about oxygen after pitching.

I have read that brewers will take lager carboys out and roll them on the ground to wake the yeast up.

I wouldn't recommend (and have never seen it recommended) to add oxygen after pitching except for the biggest baddest highest OG beers. If that is the case, up to 24 hours later an additional aerating may be beneficial. Otherwise, no.

If brewers shake up their carboys with their lagers in them, they exhibiting very poor technique and I would not emulate them.

And for the record, I have never once recommended boiling hop water only and then adding all of the extract after flame out. Never. If someone chose to do that, either they misunderstood what I said or they did something on their own.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Clarity comes from the yeast. The beer is very clear, it's only its initial color that was different and allowed us to see the distinct phases in fermentation.

Wrong. Beer that may have almost no visible yeast in suspension can still be hazy. Haze proteins come about when they are too small to drop out of suspension. Hot break and cold break causes these proteins to coagulate and drop out of suspension.

Sooo... technically, it is both aerobic and anaerobic, from my understanding...

Yeast are considered anaerobic because the majority of their life-cycle takes place in an anaerobic environment. But that really doesn't matter, it's just classification nit-picking.

I have seen the 24-hr recommendation on this forum more often than I have seen any other recommendation about oxygen after pitching.

Really? Are you sure you aren't just misreading things or not quite undertstanding? I've seen many many posts recommending that you should hit it with oxygen for 30 seconds to 1 minute initially and then 24 hours after you've pitched the yeast for 30 seconds to a minute... not for the entire 24 hours. But this is only for high gravity beers.

I have read that brewers will take lager carboys out and roll them on the ground to wake the yeast up.

That would seem a bit hard for breweries with huge lagering vessels to do. If they can keep it going without rolling then we at home can probably handle it on a much smaller scale.

I hear you, but I believe otherwise.

Again, it's not my opinion. It's just what countless hours of brewing and research have come up with.

Maybe I'll be able to successfully bottle condition in mason jars, against the will of "all who know better".

Good luck with the bottle bombs. Remember, glass shrapnel has a hard time showing up on x-rays.

Maybe the extract after boil is the way to tastier brews?

Only way to find out would be to enter it into a BJCP certified competition.

Maybe shaking bottles speeds up bottle conditioning?

It doesn't and can possibly cause oxidation

You just never can fully know something until you do it yourself.

Or you could read the multitude of peer-reviewed brew journals about the topic.

and maybe, just maybe my experience will lead to different results.

Sure. But you'll probably get oxidation flavors.

 

[grndslm]

I am not 100% sure where I read about the brewers who rolled the lager carboys on the ground, but I'll try to find it.

I'm definitely going to cease replying until I have finished this Yeast book, however. So...

YOU WIN!!



:cross:

 

[Homercidal]

For the OP, the reason stirring is successful before introducing yeast is for collecting the hot break material into the center of the Boil Kettle so you can avoid having too much of it in the fermenter.

You introduce O2 to the wort before you pitch yeast so the yeast have it to multiply. Once they've used up the O2 and started making ethanol, introducing more O2 will not be good because they yeast are no longer removing (much) of the O2 from the beer. Therefore it remains in the beer to cause oxidation flavors.

You can see how it would be wise to be as gentle when racking to secondary as reasonable is a good thing then.

Gentle stirring, or creating a whirlpool is recommended during the bottling process to completely mix the sugar with the entire volume of beer. Unfortunately there is no way to ensure this happens without some risk of introducing Oxygen without first purging the bottling bucket with CO2 (which some people do). The object is to mix gently, and only enough to get the job done. This is minimizing the risk.

I highly recommend that if you still want to continue down this path of experimentation, by all means. But then submit the final product to a BJCP competition where it can be judged in anonymity.

Finally, lots of people use late extract additions and do fine with it, but this involves some boiling, as the boiling creates the hot break that you generally want out of the fermenter. Having it in the fermenter won't visibly change the characteristics to a noticeable degree.

The change in color is not unusual in the least. It happens to most beers as the yeast multiply and then settle along with other particulate matter.

 

[truebe]

OP should name his creation Grndslm's Cardboard Ale and post it up on the recipe board.

 

[JoeBronco]

After conferring with Tasty about this thread. His EXACT words are

Post #28 sums it up for me

Here is "post 28"

I still don't get why the OP is advocating whirlpooling before transferring into secondary. It accomplishes absolutely nothing except potentially oxidizing the beer, and if anything it stirs up sediment that would otherwise have stayed in the primary.


Also, to the OP, you clearly do not understand why people whirlpool in brewing.

The purpose of the whirlpool post-boil is that it concentrates the sediment into the center of the vessel. The sediment doesn't automatically drop out when you whirlpool, though. You whirlpool, and then you WAIT, 20 minutes or so, until the sediment has formed a nice, neat cone in the center. Then you carefully rack the liquid from the kettle. The reason you want a cone in the center is because the dip tube in your boil kettle is on the edge of the kettle, so the cone in the center keeps sediment from going into the dip tube.

When you are transferring to secondary, there is absolutely no need to whirlpool because you typically use a racking cane or autosiphon, which pulls liquid from above the sediment, which is settled across the bottom in a nice compact cake (usually).

If you cant take advice from us, please take advice from a professional in the business. No one is saying not to push the limits of brewing but try to take into consideration the mistakes others have made before you. You are still new to brewing. Get a handle on the basics and get a few brews under your belt. No one want to see good beer go to waste and a newbie get deterred when his beer dose not turn out as planned.

Intelligence is learning from your own mistakes
Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others

 

[Piratwolf]

Wow.

 

[Spicemon1972]

Intelligence is learning from your own mistakes
Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others

+1
Truth. Well said, JoeBronco.

 

[spearko520]

--- ALL I AM DOING IS ASKING QUESTIONS BASED ON MY UNDERSTANDING OF A COUPLE BOOKS AND THIS FORUM.

can you rephrase the question?

 

[Yooper]

I am not 100% sure where I read about the brewers who rolled the lager carboys on the ground, but I'll try to find it.

I'm definitely going to cease replying until I have finished this Yeast book, however. So...

YOU WIN!!



:cross:

I know the OP said he's "out" so that's fine. but something was bugging me about the color change described. During brewing this afternoon, it hit me!

The wort color will be the finished beer color. It can't get darker or lighter - except for while there are hundreds of billions of yeast in suspension and then it will get back to its original color after much of the yeast falls out and the beer clears.

If the beer darkens, and it's not attributable to the yeast falling out of suspension, it is probably due to oxidation. One of the classic signs of oxidation is a darkening of the beer.

For example, I brewed today. Here is a photo of my hydrometer sample. I'm by the light because I want to check color and clarity.



It's not a great picture, because of the light streaming in the window, but I think it illustrates my point. The beer will be this color when it is finished. It has to be. It can not be darker, and it cannot be lighter once it clears.

The OP stated that the beer went from light yellow to dark rusty. If it turns rusty or dark colored, it almost is certainly oxidation.

(Look at all that cold break in the bottom of my test jar!)

 

[truebe]

This thread has taught me the value of capitalizing random words when arguing on the internet.

 

[Piratwolf]

@Yooper~ a thoughtful & useful reply, as ever. It seemed strange to me also, but I wouldn't have clarified the response as well.

As for the cold break, what if you swirled your test tube vigorously... (I kid! I kid!)

 

[robbiex0r]

Allow me to answer in the simplest way possible:

 

[emjay]

I guess what I really need is a 5-gallon stir plate.

I actually have a 5-gallon stirplate, which I've tried on whole batches (doesn't cause oxidation because of positive pressure). I got it as a test unit but I believe it's sold under the name "Black Maxx".

It speeds up the fermentation of beer a bit, but that's about it. I find it mostly useful for mead.

 

[grndslm]

After conferring with Tasty about this thread. His EXACT words are

Here is "post 28"
....

If you cant take advice from us, please take advice from a professional in the business. No one is saying not to push the limits of brewing but try to take into consideration the mistakes others have made before you. You are still new to brewing. Get a handle on the basics and get a few brews under your belt. No one want to see good beer go to waste and a newbie get deterred when his beer dose not turn out as planned.

Intelligence is learning from your own mistakes
Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others

Tell Smelly that I've got a good portion of the basics, but I MUST understand all the limits, or else I'll drive everyone else crazy in the process trying to understand those limits.

can you rephrase the question?

There's too many.

At this point, it would be... how is it possible for a Black Maxx 5-gal stir plate to stir beer, yet not oxidize it? It doesn't allow the CO2 to escape??

I know the OP said he's "out" so that's fine. but something was bugging me about the color change described. During brewing this afternoon, it hit me!

The wort color will be the finished beer color. It can't get darker or lighter - except for while there are hundreds of billions of yeast in suspension and then it will get back to its original color after much of the yeast falls out and the beer clears.

If the beer darkens, and it's not attributable to the yeast falling out of suspension, it is probably due to oxidation. One of the classic signs of oxidation is a darkening of the beer.
...

The OP stated that the beer went from light yellow to dark rusty. If it turns rusty or dark colored, it almost is certainly oxidation.

I really don't think it's oxidation, as we haven't stirred after racking to secondary.

I'm only 99.999% sure that it comes from the extract not caramelizing. I should have boiled it for at least a minute, but I had misunderstood your comment of adding it "near the end" of the boil, instead of "after". But its color is now very close to the "boiled hops" before I added the Light LME.

We'll be bottling it in the next 2 or 3 days, and then drinking it 4 weeks after that. Really can't wait to see how it turns out.

Have stopped brewing until we see the results of that batch.

I actually have a 5-gallon stirplate, which I've tried on whole batches (doesn't cause oxidation because of positive pressure). I got it as a test unit but I believe it's sold under the name "Black Maxx".

It speeds up the fermentation of beer a bit, but that's about it. I find it mostly useful for mead.

Wow. That's pretty cool. I was just joking when mentioning that, but it's definitely neat.

Are there more like that? Or is that a one of a kind?

 

[weirdboy]

At this point, it would be... how is it possible for a Black Maxx 5-gal stir plate to stir beer, yet not oxidize it? It doesn't allow the CO2 to escape??

It has an airlock, with positive CO2 pressure inside the bucket from fermentation. Excess CO2 can get out, but oxygen cannot get in.

A starter on a stirplate doesn't have an airlock (at least, it shouldn't if you're doing it right), just a foam stopper or aluminum foil, or something like that, which allows gas to pass freely both directions. As the liquid swirls around it is causing the gas in the container to move around as well, which causes some O2 to get sucked in and some CO2 to get blown out.

 

[emjay]

As soon as this thread fades into oblivion and I finish the book, Yeast... I will then be able to make my hypothesis.

In other words, you decided that whirlpooling must be good without any rational basis, and only *after* having decided this do you go looking for a way to justify this. This is also evidenced by your tendency on this thread AND the your idea about bottle-conditioning in mason jars (didn't even realize it was the same person until you mentioned it!) It's not only irrational... it's flat-out anti-scientific. And it's made it entirely clear that you're obsessed with the thought of being responsible for a massive shift in the brewing paradigm... something I tend to almost exclusively see in people in their low 20's or younger. People with a bit more maturity don't typically insist that they'll be able to completely overturn mountains of scientific knowledge from professional brewers, biochemistry, and other scientists, with a mere hunch that not only has no scientific basis, but is in fact is strongly opposed to all this science... it takes a hell of an ego to do this.

how is it possible for a Black Maxx 5-gal stir plate to stir beer, yet not oxidize it? It doesn't allow the CO2 to escape??

Because all the oxygen in the fermentor is either used up or pushed out during the reproductive phase, and more oxygen is unable to get through the airlock, because of positive pressure in the vessel (due to generated CO2). In ORDER for oxygen and CO2 to push through the airlock, the pressure needs to be higher on the "source" side... how MUCH higher depends entirely on the height of the water column in the airlock.

And the pressure is almost never going to be higher on the outside than on the inside, except for rare, *brief* circumstances due to MASSIVE temperature changes. Most temp changes usually don't cause air to be pulled in as it needs to overcome the head pressure, but if desired, it can be further strengthened by either using a deeper airlock, a deep blow-off tube, or hooking it up with tubing to another CO2-filled vessel with an airlock. The last one is unnecessarily extreme for most people, but if one doesn't have a CO2 tank, it can be filled by simply connecting it to the fermentor after about 24 hours, so that it will collect the gas generated by the fermentation. This gas can even be used for oxygen-free transfers.

But yeah... starters with a typical airfoil or foam cap don't need that pressure differential for air to enter. Airlocks do. It's as simple as that. And if you take off the lid or bung in order to whirlpool, oxygen will have no problem getting in.

Wow. That's pretty cool. I was just joking when mentioning that, but it's definitely neat.

Are there more like that? Or is that a one of a kind?

Yeah, I know you were only kidding.

But like I said, it's sold through some hombrew stores, so it's obviously not one of a kind. It's not that cheap though - I think it retails for somewhere around $180. I got mine free because I helped test the product before it went to market. It's a really nice unit though... I don't use my DIY stirplate (which can do 5-6 quart starters) anymore unless I need multiple stirs going on.

 

[eastoak]

9 pages and i have no idea what the original poster was getting at. i will unsubscribe just as soon as i hit "post quick reply".

 

[rockfish42]

This thread is so wrong it's not even right. The random capitalization reminds me of Dr. Bronner's soap labels.

 

[rockfish42]

Also, that hop utilization from a boil with no extract will be laughable.

 

[JoeBronco]

Tell Smelly that I've got a good portion of the basics, but I MUST understand all the limits, or else I'll drive everyone else crazy in the process trying to understand those limits.

Are you even old enough to brew? You seem to act like an 8 year old thats not getting his way. Smelly? Really? Do a bit of research on the man you just insulted... Mike McDole’. ya, the same guy that has brewed with Vinny from Russian River, Jamal, Palmer and is know in the Craft beer industry as "God of Craft beer". Same guy that is quoted on the very book your reading about yeast. I can assure you, you will never become a good brewer with this attitude.

You keep dodging our question. Are you from Canada? Live under a bridge?

 

[JoeBronco]

- Subscription removed -
Added "grndslm" to troll list

 

[Piratwolf]

We'll be bottling it in the next 2 or 3 days, and then drinking it 4 weeks after that. Really can't wait to see how it turns out.

Have stopped brewing until we see the results of that batch.

FWIW, I wouldn't quit brewing while you wait: it's my understanding that oxidation off-flavors can take time to develop. Meanwhile, you're losing valuable practice time. However, in the spirit of science (and not wasting money), I would brew according to the "rules" for a few months b/c we know the rules work and you can make excellent beer while waiting for the oxidation to develop (or not).

 

[emjay]

FWIW, I wouldn't quit brewing while you wait: it's my understanding that oxidation off-flavors can take time to develop. Meanwhile, you're losing valuable practice time. However, in the spirit of science (and not wasting money), I would brew according to the "rules" for a few months b/c we know the rules work and you can make excellent beer while waiting for the oxidation to develop (or not).

Hey man, don't tell him what to do. He NEEDS to wait - otherwise he could be throwing his money away brewing beer that *doesn't* taste like cardboard.

Why don't you tell him to wipe his ass with fifties while you're at it? If he did that, he'd never be able to get to the delicious center of TP ever again.

Edit: No, I'm not talking about tootsie pops. Who the hell eats those? Freaking disgusting.