First Fermentation with a Tilt - Questions

[Langerz]

I got a tilt recently and this is my first full brew using it. I actually threw it in on my last beer but when it came in the mail fermentation was complete so it just sat at FG for a few days and wasn't very exciting. I'm an engineer (nerd) and was excited about getting data more often and being able to not open the fermenter to take readings. I'm a bit surprised by the data though.

Bit of background. This is a pretty simple blonde ale I brewed to experiment with a few process things (first time kegging and new to being able to control fermentation temps). Grain bill is mostly xtra pale ale and golden promise with a bit of wheat, flaked barley and honey malt. Liberty hops all in the boil. I had a bit of an issue on brew day and ended up going over my OG target and was at 1.057 measured by hydrometer (not sure the issue, but I think I measured preboil gravity without letting the wort cool and then adjusted with DME - I swear I let it cool but that's the only explanation I have). Yeast is Lalbrew Verdant. I ferment in a glass big mouth bubbler in my basement.

Note I do not have the tilt connected to anything real time yet so readings happen mostly morning and evening when I am near by and check in with my ipad.

It seems like there is an offset in the Tilt vs my hydrometer. That part I'm not too worried about since I'm more interested in the data trend/when it finishes then the absolute number. I can always take a hydrometer reading once the tilt shows fermentation has settled out. The beginning trend makes sense to me. Gravity drops and temperature rises. Fermentation was very active during this stage. Then as the fermentation slowed down the temperature dropped. Question 1 would be I'm not sure why SG increased a bit as the temperature dropped.

I mentioned I'm also using this batch to play around with some new temperature control equipment. I have a ferm wrap I turned on April 12th where the temp increases connected to an InkBird. I decided to try that out to hold a higher temperature for things to clean up. You can see at first I had a pretty wide band of the temperature hysteresis (hadn't changed the default) so temperature was cycling about 3 degrees. I've since narrowed that up some which you can see in the data. From the data though it appears that the SG is changing somewhat inversely with temp. I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of noise in the data, but the swings are close to 10 points. Anyone else seen this?

One other note I did have a point the night of April 11 that the fermentation was strong enough the lid popped up and puked krausen down the side of the FV (kraused plugged the blow off hose). Not sure why that would have an effect but wanted to mention it.

 

[AlexKay]

This does not look like normal behavior to me. SG can sometimes creep up a point or three when there's a lot of fermentation activity kicking the Tilt around and getting crud stuck on it. (Very) poor mixing of your extract could also change the SG as it dissolves and homogenizes.

Once fermentation is done SG should be rock steady (precise but not necessarily accurate, given the possibility of said stuck crud) and vary no more than a point. So the weirdest thing about your data trace to my eyes is the 5-or-more-point fluctuations on 4/13-4/14. The highly unstable temperature could be a culprit (certainly more stable temperatures would be better), but the SG of water doesn't vary by that much over ~5 degrees F, so I don't think that's it.

Any chance you're jiggling the fermenter? That will make the hydrometer ... well ... tilt.

 

[Langerz]

The fermenter is in the basement on a concrete floor and I usually don't even get within 10 feet of it. Mostly open the door to that room and wait for the BT to connect. The only exception would be the day of the krausen burp and cleaning that up but that would only be one data point.

Now that I have the temp settled I'll see what it does but temp was constant the last two reading and SG changed about 8 points. Like you said as well the temperature correction for a few degrees of temperature change isn't really significant.

 

[hotbeer]

Usually I'd expect the SG and the ABV line to cross at some point within a day or so of pitch and then steadily spread further apart until your FG is reached then remain constant and flat until you remove the beer from the FV.

Yours is odd. I did once have a fluctuation that showed my SG increasing when the yeast got active, but that soon resolved itself to a normal looking graph. I think the wort and the added sugars at the end of boil weren't mixed well and the churning as the kraeusen started mixed them more thoroughly resulting in the increase of OG to where it should have been.

Here is a graph from a RaptPill that I use. It's more what you should expect. The blue is SG the green is ABV. This was a lower ABV brew that I made once. I don't have a pic of the graph for the one that had a increase of OG after pitch.

Your temp dropping so much as the kraeusen kicked off might be part of the issue for what you see, but it doesn't explain everything, IMO. For ales and IPA's I try to keep the temp constant. And usually that is about 69°F.

 

[Langerz]

Usually I'd expect the SG and the ABV line to cross at some point within a day or so of pitch and then steadily spread further apart until your FG is reached then remain constant and flat until you remove the beer from the FV.

Yours is odd. I did once have a fluctuation that showed my SG increasing when the yeast got active, but that soon resolved itself to a normal looking graph. I think the wort and the added sugars at the end of boil weren't mixed well and the churning as the kraeusen started mixed them more thoroughly resulting in the increase of OG to where it should have been.

Here is a graph from a RaptPill that I use. It's more what you should expect. The blue is SG the green is ABV. This was a lower ABV brew that I made once. I don't have a pic of the graph for the one that had a increase of OG after pitch. View attachment 817676

Your temp dropping so much as the kraeusen kicked off might be part of the issue for what you see, but it doesn't explain everything, IMO. For ales and IPA's I try to keep the temp constant. And usually that is about 69°F.

That is definitely more like I expected. While I only had a few days at the end of the last fermentation available it was pretty rock solid consistent for SG for those few days.

From a temperature stand point I don't have a good explanation for the drop as the krausen kicked off. At that point I didn't have anything connected for temp control just a fermenter sitting in my basement at room temperature. It has been an unusually warm week this week here with high ambients in the 80s and I haven't had my AC on so did not expect the fermenter to drop that low. I didn't have the Fermwrap and inkbird hooked up yet at that time, but think on future runs will have it connected at ~68 from the beginning to help keep things from dropping that much.

 

[AlexKay]

Something is up. Even my wildest fermentations don't look like that. You may need to just put the darned thing in a fermenter filled with water to verify that it's working as intended. And if it isn't, reach out to Tilt -- part of what you're paying for with a premium product is support. (And if you do reach out, let us know how they respond.)

 

[hotbeer]

If no other comes up with a good idea of what was going on, you might just send a pic to Tilt's customer support if they have one and see if they have any ideas.

If you aren't going to be brewing another batch soon, you might just put the tilt in a pot of water and see if it gives you stable readings over a week or so. Or even mix up some sugar/water solution and add some yeast. Even just bread yeast.

That might let you know if there is or isn't something up with the unit itself.

 

[AZ Maverick]

That's a very strange looking chart you have there.
I have two tilt hydrometers.
I calibrated them to my hydrometer before using them and they both agree with my hydrometer to the point where I don't even use the hydrometer anymore (I do use my refractometer though).

Here is what one of my Maibock Lager logged tilt sessions looks like from start to finish, I did this in a temperature controlled fermentation chamber.

 

[Langerz]

Just to update here I did contact Tilt support. They said could be impacted by foam or wedged against the fermenter. Also asked if I added any calibration points to the app (I haven't) and to make sure I had enough head room (I had a lot, 5.25 gallons in a 6.5 gallon fermenter). I took the Tilt out when I transferred the beer to the keg and it did have a giant blob of krausen on the top of it which I imagine could affect things. I put in in a bowl of water just to see how it behaved the last couple of days and it's been a rock solid 1.003.

Hard to tell at this point. Planning to brew again hopefully tonight and will see how it behaves next time. Going to try to get an old phone set up that I can leave near it to get continuous readings this next time around.

 

[hotbeer]

Have you checked the FG of that brew with another hydrometer or refractometer? It'd be interesting to know if the SG it shows on the graph of about 1.004 by April 12, is what it actually was/is. It wouldn't be unreasonable for it to have reach FG that soon depending on how much and how healthy your yeast was that you pitched.

 

[Langerz]

Have you checked the FG of that brew with another hydrometer or refractometer? It'd be interesting to know if the SG it shows on the graph of about 1.004 by April 12, is what it actually was/is. It wouldn't be unreasonable for it to have reach FG that soon depending on how much and how healthy your yeast was that you pitched.

Final Gravity by hydrometer was 1.011 which is a bit lower than the lowest on the graph of 1.015. In water the tilt reads 1.003 so about the same offset. I saw similar on the last brew. I could cal that offset out I’m sure but honestly I’m not worried about an offset since I’ll always check OG and FG with my hydrometer. It’s the unstable behavior I don’t like since I got it to know when fermentation is done without introducing air

 

[AZ Maverick]

Final Gravity by hydrometer was 1.011 which is a bit lower than the lowest on the graph of 1.015. In water the tilt reads 1.003 so about the same offset. I saw similar on the last brew. I could cal that offset out I’m sure but honestly I’m not worried about an offset since I’ll always check OG and FG with my hydrometer. It’s the unstable behavior I don’t like since I got it to know when fermentation is done without introducing air

Don't worry about it jumping around during fermentation, that is simply going to happen due to the active fermentation.
If you look at my log, you will see that once the fermentation finishes the report stabilizes.
My Tilt's work well for me.
I don't know what you have the tilt report cycle time set to - I have mine set to a report once every 1 hour which is really about the shortest period that I have found useful (even every 4 hours wouldn't be bad), imo any reporting cycle less than an hour is gonna drive ya crazy...

 

[Langerz]

Don't worry about it jumping around during fermentation, that is simply going to happen due to the active fermentation.
If you look at my log, you will see that once the fermentation finishes the report stabilizes.
My Tilt's work well for me.
I don't know what you have the tilt report cycle time set to - I have mine set to a report once every 1 hour which is really about the shortest period that I have found useful (even every 4 hours wouldn't be bad), imo any reporting cycle less than an hour is gonna drive ya crazy...

I expected some during really active fermentation but thought it would be a little more stable after high krausen. Report time i think is the default of 15 min but really without a device next to the fermenter yet it’s whenever I walk down there

 

[hotbeer]

Have you checked the FG of that brew with another hydrometer or refractometer? It'd be interesting to know if the SG it shows on the graph of about 1.004 by April 12, is what it actually was/is. It wouldn't be unreasonable for it to have reach FG that soon depending on how much and how healthy your yeast was that you pitched.

Final Gravity by hydrometer was 1.011 which is a bit lower than the lowest on the graph of 1.015. In water the tilt reads 1.003 so about the same offset. I saw similar on the last brew. I could cal that offset out I’m sure but honestly I’m not worried about an offset since I’ll always check OG and FG with my hydrometer. It’s the unstable behavior I don’t like since I got it to know when fermentation is done without introducing air

Yeah, I got the temp and SG lines and values mixed up when I wrote that.

So with it showing 0.003 off in plain water then the 1.015 - 0.003 correction makes only a point to quibble over, which is close enough for anything I do.

It does boggle the mind what was going on with the SG readings in the latter part of your graph. If you weren't riding down a bumpy road with the FV in your car, then hopefully is was just kraeusen and crud on your Tilt that was coming off and changing it's angle.

So I certainly would give it another try before I'd condemn the Tilt unit itself.

 

[Langerz]

Well my second round with it looks much better. It’s sitting probably 20 feet away from last time but generally the same location. Sitting on right on concrete this time vs before in kind of a rubber workout surface. There was a big blob of krausen on it last time when I transferred which I wonder if that was the difference. Still didn’t have a chance to connect to something for continuous logging but trend looks as expected

 

[Saunassa]

I set an old Fire tablet in the room to act as a bridge to my network. I had mine set on the 15 minute report so I could see how fermentation works out. Now use 1 hour report so I don't see all the jiggling from fermentation.

 

[Saunassa]

Did you set the ink ird to heat with a 1 degree drop? That and a Tshirt over fermenter allows it to maintain temps easier.

 

[Langerz]

I set an old Fire tablet in the room to act as a bridge to my network. I had mine set on the 15 minute report so I could see how fermentation works out. Now use 1 hour report so I don't see all the jiggling from fermentation.

That’s my plan eventually. I have an old Fire laying around somewhere I was hoping to use. Glad to hear the Tilt App works on Fire

Did you set the ink ird to heat with a 1 degree drop? That and a Tshirt over fermenter allows it to maintain temps easier.

Yeah I’m set at 1 degree now but it wasn’t on the first post. The first picture was my first time trying temp control and had some things to work out. The second graph has it set to 1 degree.

The dip is I started with the temp set a little low. I let the temp climb naturally and was going to roughly keep it up there but wasn’t sure if there would be a bit of an offset between the tilt and inkbird probe so I started a little low and worked my way up.

I’m trying to soft crash now. Not sure how it is going to work because atm I have one chamber for temp control and Keezer. Keezer is set to 40. Fermwrap set to 50 around the FV and the FV wrapped in some insulating material. Seems to be going well so far but just recently got to 50 ish

 

[Tilt4Windows]

That’s my plan eventually. I have an old Fire laying around somewhere I was hoping to use. Glad to hear the Tilt App works on Fire

Yeah I’m set at 1 degree now but it wasn’t on the first post. The first picture was my first time trying temp control and had some things to work out. The second graph has it set to 1 degree.

The dip is I started with the temp set a little low. I let the temp climb naturally and was going to roughly keep it up there but wasn’t sure if there would be a bit of an offset between the tilt and inkbird probe so I started a little low and worked my way up.

I’m trying to soft crash now. Not sure how it is going to work because atm I have one chamber for temp control and Keezer. Keezer is set to 40. Fermwrap set to 50 around the FV and the FV wrapped in some insulating material. Seems to be going well so far but just recently got to 50 ish

Langerz if you have a Windows laptop that has Bluetooth (or have a Bluetooth dongle for a laptop/desktop) then you can now use that for your fermentation tracking. Here's a post about the new Tilt 4 Windows software. Tilt 4 Windows

 

[JP_BeerFan]

Hmmm... interesting. I was going to say, the thing to try and rule out would be temp changes altering the SG reading. It would be very rare but possible, that you got a Pill with a bad component in it that was changing with temp, and throwing off the calibration. You could do a heating/cooling test with plain water or something, and see if you get a SG shift.

But, that second ferment had a lot of temp shifts, without any corresponding SG shifts, so that looks ruled out. Probably all that krausen getting on and off the pill tweaking it's measurement. Do people give these things a dunk, now and then, to wash them clean, during fermentation?

 

[AZ Maverick]

Hmmm... interesting. I was going to say, the thing to try and rule out would be temp changes altering the SG reading. It would be very rare but possible, that you got a Pill with a bad component in it that was changing with temp, and throwing off the calibration. You could do a heating/cooling test with plain water or something, and see if you get a SG shift.

But, that second ferment had a lot of temp shifts, without any corresponding SG shifts, so that looks ruled out. Probably all that krausen getting on and off the pill tweaking it's measurement. Do people give these things a dunk, now and then, to wash them clean, during fermentation?

I don't.
I use mine all the time and I have never cleaned them during fermentation.
In fact, here is a chart from a Maibock lager I started on the 19th of this month.
Just make sure you are not logging at a rate period under an hour or even four hours, anything less than that will give you 'roller coaster' results.