Harvesting and pitching fresh wort onto yeast cake.

[ian59]

Never reused yeast before due to risk of contamination so this was my first attempt which I am very pleased with just made sure hygiene was paramount.
The beer is my own recipe A B Ale , yeast Kviek Hornindial ( love this yeast).
I'm happy with the clarity and taste and it finished out at ABV 4.5% so highly sessionable.

 

[ian59]

I forgot to mention no temperature control was used during fermentation. In the conservatory temperature ranged from about 16C/ 61F at night to 33C/ 91F during daytime .
No off flavours / bad odours noted.
Kettle finings added at last 10 minutes of boil plus finings added to end of fermentation.

 

[ian59]

I forgot to mention no temperature control was used during fermentation. In the conservatory temperature ranged from about 16C/ 61F at night to 33C/ 91F during daytime .
No off flavours / bad odours noted.
Kettle finings added at last 10 minutes of boil plus finings added to end of fermentation.

Sample shown is straight from fermenter before bottling

 

[Kickass]

Great way to get more miles from your yeast.

 

[fluketamer]

that looks great.

Sample shown is straight from fermenter before bottling

i was wondering why it was flat. lol

few months ago i got lazy and descide to just pitch onto yeast cake in the fermenter. now i always repitch into uncleaned fermenter. i try to keep it to 2 batches i am sure it could go more but i dont want to be cheap with yeast as dry yeast is cheap enough to be more than reasonable for 2 batches of beer.

the second one always ferments quicker with less lag. obviously i go light to dark as it wont work the other way around. lol

i dont know why kreusen ring tastes so bitter ( dont we all taste kreusen ring?) yet it doesnt affect the second batch of beer even if subemerged in the beer.

i especially like to pitch a dark lager onto a light yeast cake since i dont want to waste lager yeast on a dark beer.

you can argue thats theres a risk of contaminatioin but IMO theres prolly more risk in dissasembling cleaning and resanitizing an already proven fermentation environment. the only thing in the fermenter after racking is yeast beer, co2 . which are all antibacterial. perhaps some unintended o2 is in there. thats prolly the only problem. the contents could potentially oxidize if not given new wort soon. i like to keep it to less than a week in the fridge without reusing.

i stopped harvesting but when i did it worked just as good as whole cake .

the additional pain of cleaning and sterilizing mason jars and not keeping them more than 5 weeks max was not worth it to me.

and i did completely mess up 5 gallons of ipa by repitching a 5 week old cup of oxidized slurry once. thats why i stopped.

it is much easier to rack off the beer . cap the fermenter and brew another batch within a week.

 

[Bassman2003]

I have learned the key to keeping yeast is never letting the used yeast be in contact with oxygen. Yes, I know, another 'low oxygen thing' but it is true. The old 'store the yeast in a mason jar technique' just plain is the wrong way to do it - because of the constant oxygen exposure.

So, fermenting on a yeast cake inside a fermenter is a solid idea due to its potential of being a CO2 environment (if a closed transfer was used). But, if one was to do this I would examine your hot side practices and not let any trub in to the fermenter. Trub might be deemed "yeast food" for convenience but it also has a lot of staling components and other things that were meant to be left behind instead of being transferred to your 2nd batch.

If you had a successful ferment and clear wort was put into the fermenter, then why would there be contamination? Yes the krausen ring is the nasties that the yeast push out but outside of that, I can't see anything else that would be bad. (BTW, the less trub you put in the fermenter, the smaller that ring is).

One could argue that our homebrew environments are pretty poor for microbiology and keeping the yeast in a closed area and just supplying fresh wort would be better than anything else we do. The huge number of cells would win the outcompete game much easier than a smaller fresh pitch. All things being equal with sanitation.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Nice!

I got into the repitching a long time ago as I make 10 gallon batches, don't want to make starters, and dry yeast is expensive. Usually go 2-3 batches on the same yeast.

I don't like pitching above fermentation temp. I personally have long believed that one of the key contributors to nasty homebrew is pitching too hot, creating fusels, etc. And this is ESPECIALLY true when you have a huge amount of yeast (in the cake) that's just ready to attack a nice big fresh bit o' wort.

So I typically keg the previous batch while brewing the next batch, harvest the trub into a sanitized plastic jar (not that dissimilar to what you pictured), and toss that into the fridge. Clean/sanitize the fermenter, the new batch goes into the fermenter, and it goes into the fermentation fridge until cold enough to pitch.

I just kegged my Rye Pale Ale yesterday and brewed an Independence Day IPA. Going into the fermenter it only got down to 90F via recirculating and then pushing through my CFC, but when I woke up early this morning it was 60 degrees and ready to pitch. I typically start an ale yeast like US-05 down in the 62 degree range to start, and let it rise slowly during the fermentation.

I prefer this to pitching directly on the cake. Only thing is that when I do it with lagers (my next batch after the IPA) I'll probably need two jars of trub as the pitch rate should be higher.

 

[Bassman2003]

Be careful with the use of the word "trub". In your post you are referring to the yeast cake as "trub". They are different things. Trub is hot and cold break from your boil kettle.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Be careful with the use of the word "trub". In your post you are referring to the yeast cake as "trub". They are different things. Trub is hot and cold break from your boil kettle.

Fair point. I don't filter between the kettle and the fermenter, so some of the hot and cold break, some of the pellet hop material, etc, all end up in the bottom of the fermenter--and all ends up in the plastic jar along with the yeast.

 

[Brockness Monster]

A little OT but how are the yeast characteristics of Hornindal?

 

[Bassman2003]

Fair point. I don't filter between the kettle and the fermenter, so some of the hot and cold break, some of the pellet hop material, etc, all end up in the bottom of the fermenter--and all ends up in the plastic jar along with the yeast.

Cool. I have really liked the changes that come with clear wort into the fermenter. Every beer I make seems less "muddy". Plus any type of yeast harvesting is pretty much pure yeast. But it is system dependent if clear wort is easily obtainable. I used to use a plate chiller which would spit out green colored wort. Tough to get around. I switched back to an immersion chiller now and it is fairly easy with a 24-40 min. rest after chilling.

 

[ian59]

A little OT but how are the yeast characteristics of Hornindal?

It's my go to yeast now without the citrus edge that Kviek no.1 has. I've shut down two of my fermenting fridges as this can handle a wide temperature range without adverse effects. I now use it for all my pale beers except for bitters and every one has turned out well , no issues at all.

 

[Miraculix]

Cool. I have really liked the changes that come with clear wort into the fermenter. Every beer I make seems less "muddy". Plus any type of yeast harvesting is pretty much pure yeast. But it is system dependent if clear wort is easily obtainable. I used to use a plate chiller which would spit out green colored wort. Tough to get around. I switched back to an immersion chiller now and it is fairly easy with a 24-40 min. rest after chilling.

I'm going to test this with my next batch. I've done the oxygen removal thing with excess SMB in my last batch, now I'm going to do the same but without the biggest portion of the trub. Let's see if this changes anything. The oxygen removal thing did show some significant results as far as I can tell now.

 

[worlddivides]

few months ago i got lazy and descide to just pitch onto yeast cake in the fermenter. now i always repitch into uncleaned fermenter. i try to keep it to 2 batches i am sure it could go more but i dont want to be cheap with yeast as dry yeast is cheap enough to be more than reasonable for 2 batches of beer.

For years and years now, I've thought about doing this, but I've just never been able to time it right. I've never really wanted to bother saving the slurry for a future batch, but I've often thought that just pitching onto the yeast cake in the fermenter would be a really efficient and effective way to do it. My idea is that I'd, for example, brew an American Pale Ale, then a week or two after starting fermentation, I start brewing an American IPA or amber ale or whatever, then while chilling it, I do a closed transfer of the American pale ale from the fermenter to a keg. Once it's all gone, I'll probably have about 1-2 liters of beer left in the fermentor. I normally throw that out, but I could transfer it to PET bottles, glass beer bottles, or just carefully siphon just most of the beer off, then pitch the new cooled wort onto the yeast cake, seal it back up, top the airlock back up, and I imagine fermentation should start faster than it did the first time.

Haven't done it yet, but the idea always strikes me as a good idea if I could just time it right. I suppose I could also do it 1-2 days apart, but that could potentially risk oxidization.

 

[fluketamer]

if you are doing a closed loop wheres the oxygen coming from ?

 

[Bassman2003]

The key to all of this is creating an oxygen free ecosystem on your cold side. Sounds daunting but it really is not that difficult. Once the beer goes into the fermenter, everything onwards is a closed transfer. That means never opening a vessel until it is time to clean it or add fresh wort. Luckily Kegland has made a lot of affordable tools for this new ecosystem.

Adopting fermentation gas purging and natural carbonation (spunding) along with pressure fermentation if wanted make the whole process even easier. Imagine fermenting at the same CO2 volume that you use for carbonation. Then when the ferment is complete you just lower the temperature and transfer the beer into the purged keg and you are done. For the yeast, it is sealed and happy in the fermentation vessel. Swirl and transfer (when you are ready as they will keep for 2-4 months) to a purged 1/2-liter bottle brink or just add a new batch of wort on top.

I know it seems like one more thing from the 'oxygen police' but it really is the best way. The homebrewing community has fought oxygen exposure the entire way but is coming around to the reality that it is the way of professional brewing.

The only downside I see to the throwing new wort on top approach is using the same strain over and over! I tend to enjoy a different strain for every style type of brewing.

 

[Bassman2003]

I'm going to test this with my next batch. I've done the oxygen removal thing with excess SMB in my last batch, now I'm going to do the same but without the biggest portion of the trub. Let's see if this changes anything. The oxygen removal thing did show some significant results as far as I can tell now.

The YOS strike water along with some SMB is most of the game right there. Do these two steps and things improve. Glad you are seeing the benefits right away as you fought pretty hard against the concept back in the day

The trub removal is just sound brewing practice. We boil to remove things, so why carry them into the fermenter?

 

[worlddivides]

if you are doing a closed loop wheres the oxygen coming from ?

When I do a closed transfer, I transfer the beer from the fermenter via a beer line connected to the fermenter's spigot on one end and to the keg's quick disconnect on the other end. As the beer leaves the fermenter, it needs something to take its place (and likewise, the air in the keg needs to leave when the beer enters), so I connect the gas quick disconnect and a gas line to the keg on one end and then stick it through the airlock hole on the other. Although the air being transferred from the keg to the fermenter should be oxygen-free (entirely if I've filled it with StarSan solution and then pumped that out with CO2, or just mostly if I'm keg hopping / using gelatin and then need to CO2 purge it, which still leaves some amount of oxygen, though not a lot), there has to be some oxygen entering when I pull the airlock off. It's miniscule during the closed transfer, but I could imagine it having more of an effect if I just leave the yeast cake like that for several days.

 

[Miraculix]

The YOS strike water along with some SMB is most of the game right there. Do these two steps and things improve. Glad you are seeing the benefits right away as you fought pretty hard against the concept back in the day

The trub removal is just sound brewing practice. We boil to remove things, so why carry them into the fermenter?

Yes. In hindsight, I mainly fought against the way the main actors were identifying with the concepts and highlighting themselves as superior to the inferior rest of us. That was a real pain. Glad that this is over. The main characters seem to have left to somewhere else where they can be exclusive again and if there are some of them left here, I've forgotten about it and that's also totally fine with me.

Btw. This seems to be a common theme. During my research to determine the SMB amount I can start with, I found this popping up over and over again in other forums. I don't know why, but the early days of lowering the oxygen in the home brewers world seemed to have gone hand in hand with a certain level of arrogance. This arrogance was hard to bear for a lot of folks who were usually quite reasonable and open to improvement. I've really read this statement a lot from people all over the internet, so it wasn't only me.

Anyway, back to topic, I have practical reasons for the trub. My kettle is small. And I do full volume biab. If I leave behind some trub in the kettle, this will stay there with a significant portion of my wort.

My batch is 17 litres. If I leave the trub with the last two litres, that's quite a bit of my brew.

I could try getting it into my Erlenmeyer flask and then decant again an hour later or so. But that's infection risk again....

 

[Bassman2003]

I am glad the defensiveness has been lowered by all as the concepts are very sound. Lowering oxygen exposure is just part of the transformation to pro-like beer production.

If you can do a settling time of 20-40 minutes after you chill, the trub is actually pretty compact at the bottom of the boil kettle. So you will not lose much wort if you can get it out of there cleanly. One negative of the low oxygen pursuit is that it often involves hardware changes in order to accomplish the goals. But enough time has passed that the easiest, best ways are well known.

 

[Miraculix]

I am glad the defensiveness has been lowered by all as the concepts are very sound. Lowering oxygen exposure is just part of the transformation to pro-like beer production.

If you can do a settling time of 20-40 minutes after you chill, the trub is actually pretty compact at the bottom of the boil kettle. So you will not lose much wort if you can get it out of there cleanly. One negative of the low oxygen pursuit is that it often involves hardware changes in order to accomplish the goals. But enough time has passed that the easiest, best ways are well known.

I might even take this an inch further and tilt the kettle slightly, so that the trub can collect on one side only. I might have to do this twice, as emptying the kettle in one go is... Heavy.

And putting it down rouses the trub a bit. Continuous decanting flow is key for the undisturbed layer according to my findings.

I won't make any hardware changes, but I've had good success with yos, 200 ppm smb pre-mash and cling film as a simple mash cap. Avoiding stirring when not necessary and that's basically it. The flocculation during the boil was crazy, the foam colour was different, the foam was bigger and the mash and boil smelled A LOT less. The beer tastes cleaner and less "green" although it's one week old. Downside, I smell sulfur. I probably overdosed SMB, but I was deliberately risking that.

 

[JohnDBrewer]

cling film

Is this just basic cling/saran wrap? I tried this once and it imparted plastic notes. Although I was trying to keep the o2 out when making a kettle sour years ago, so maybe the ph reacted with it. I just recently tried some foil as a mash cap, but haven't tested that fest beer, yet. It's lagering away. The samples from kegging and such didn't have any off flavors from the foil, that I could tell.

 

[JohnDBrewer]

Second question. I repitch alot and have never tried to keep the yeast oxygen free. I either repitch right on top of the yeast cake or just scoop out some yeast to save, if it is going to be more that a day or 2. I'll decant the beer off the top in either case the best I can right before pitching.

 

[Miraculix]

Is this just basic cling/saran wrap? I tried this once and it imparted plastic notes. Although I was trying to keep the o2 out when making a kettle sour years ago, so maybe the ph reacted with it. I just recently tried some foil as a mash cap, but haven't tested that fest beer, yet. It's lagering away. The samples from kegging and such didn't have any off flavors from the foil, that I could tell.

Yes, that's what I used. Cannot taste anything weird.

 

[Halfakneecap]

If using fresh yeast after fermentation, a pint is absolutely plenty, unless you're doing a high alcohol beer next

 

[JohnDBrewer]

Yes, that's what I used. Cannot taste anything weird

May be I'll give it another try. I still use a keggle to mash in and really haven't found a decent solution for a mash cap.

 

[Bassman2003]

I might even take this an inch further and tilt the kettle slightly, so that the trub can collect on one side only. I might have to do this twice, as emptying the kettle in one go is... Heavy.

And putting it down rouses the trub a bit. Continuous decanting flow is key for the undisturbed layer according to my findings.

I won't make any hardware changes, but I've had good success with yos, 200 ppm smb pre-mash and cling film as a simple mash cap. Avoiding stirring when not necessary and that's basically it. The flocculation during the boil was crazy, the foam colour was different, the foam was bigger and the mash and boil smelled A LOT less. The beer tastes cleaner and less "green" although it's one week old. Downside, I smell sulfur. I probably overdosed SMB, but I was deliberately risking that.

I am going to experiment with this approach as well. Tilt the kettle by putting a piece of wood underneath the front at the end of chilling so everything settles towards the back. Then start the transfer with it tilted. I plan on making a "Trub Dam" type thing that would rest on the bottom of the kettle around the outlet. I would put the trub dam in place before the transfer begins. Once the wort level goes down I will lower the kettle down to level and hope the trub dam keeps most of the stuff away. It may or may not work.

Regarding sulfites, it is system dependent as well as your beer flavor desires.

1) Yes, the goal is to not be able to smell your mash while it is going on. If you can smell wonderful malty aromas, they are escaping from your beer!

2) How "tight" your system is designed for low oxygen brewing will have a large impact on how much is the minimum amount of sulfites you need to use to have a true low ox brew. Some folks can purge their sealed mash tun with nitrogen. This lowers their need, but they still use 25ppm of sulfites. The sulfites really do play an important part.

200ppm is very high, but I am glad you did it because there is a learning curve and now you have seen some impact. Over the next 5-10 brews you can lower that number and dial in from end beer flavor. This is where it is up to you the brewer and is purely subjective, not scientific. As a reference, I have worked on my system enough to be in the 35ppm range and might go back up to 40ppm. But still, quite far away from 200ppm.

Remember that sulfites turn into sulfates once you expose them to oxygen. So your end beer will reflect higher sulfate levels.

Also, the group has learned over the years that to some extent, oxygen = flavor. If you use a very high sulfite level, the beers while technically impressive, can become one dimensional. It is just that the crossover point of where you might want to be still involves quite a bit of oxygen mitigation compared to HIDO brewing, just not too much.

 

[Bassman2003]

Second question. I repitch alot and have never tried to keep the yeast oxygen free. I either repitch right on top of the yeast cake or just scoop out some yeast to save, if it is going to be more that a day or 2. I'll decant the beer off the top in either case the best I can right before pitching.

I am not sure of the question but they yeast perks up when exposed to ANY oxygen. If you are using the yeast right away then if they stay active this is not a problem. You want to keep them away from oxygen if you plan to try to store them for any length of time.

When they are active they eat up everything around them. When everything around them is eaten up, they turn to their own reserves. This is where the problem is. If they expend their reserves and you do not use them they just sit there and wither away. By keeping them away from oxygen, they wind up basically going to sleep and keeping their reserves. Therefore stay healthy.

 

[Bassman2003]

May be I'll give it another try. I still use a keggle to mash in and really haven't found a decent solution for a mash cap.

Look at webrestaurantstore for large pot lids. Some already have a lip or you can crimp up the sides yourself.

 

[Miraculix]

I am going to experiment with this approach as well. Tilt the kettle by putting a piece of wood underneath the front at the end of chilling so everything settles towards the back. Then start the transfer with it tilted. I plan on making a "Trub Dam" type thing that would rest on the bottom of the kettle around the outlet. I would put the trub dam in place before the transfer begins. Once the wort level goes down I will lower the kettle down to level and hope the trub dam keeps most of the stuff away. It may or may not work.

Regarding sulfites, it is system dependent as well as your beer flavor desires.

1) Yes, the goal is to not be able to smell your mash while it is going on. If you can smell wonderful malty aromas, they are escaping from your beer!

2) How "tight" your system is designed for low oxygen brewing will have a large impact on how much is the minimum amount of sulfites you need to use to have a true low ox brew. Some folks can purge their sealed mash tun with nitrogen. This lowers their need, but they still use 25ppm of sulfites. The sulfites really do play an important part.

200ppm is very high, but I am glad you did it because there is a learning curve and now you have seen some impact. Over the next 5-10 brews you can lower that number and dial in from end beer flavor. This is where it is up to you the brewer and is purely subjective, not scientific. As a reference, I have worked on my system enough to be in the 35ppm range and might go back up to 40ppm. But still, quite far away from 200ppm.

Remember that sulfites turn into sulfates once you expose them to oxygen. So your end beer will reflect higher sulfate levels.

Also, the group has learned over the years that to some extent, oxygen = flavor. If you use a very high sulfite level, the beers while technically impressive, can become one dimensional. It is just that the crossover point of where you might want to be still involves quite a bit of oxygen mitigation compared to HIDO brewing, just not too much.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep that in mind.

The beer is still cloudy atm and does not taste right but this is probably because of the yeast in suspension. Do sulfites turn into sulfate in a 1 to 1 ratio, once oxidised? That would be quite something, as I do not like elevated sulfate levels at all .

I have experimented with it and nooooope, I do not like it past say 150 ppm or so. I have tried 300 ppm + and that was nothing for my palate.

I treat my water usually to levels between 100 and 120 sulfate, so plus the 200 sulfite derived sulfates, that would be too much for me.

Good news, do not need Gypsum anymore. NaCl ftw!

Edit: Yes, 2SO₃²⁻ + O₂ → 2SO₄²⁻ so it is happening in a 1 to 1 ratio.... I expect the majority of the sulfites to be used up, so theres at least 150 ppm extra sulfates in this brew. Plus the about 120 that I started with. That explains the harshness that I perceived. It is not only the yeast. Not a big problem, still nothing I would deliberately introduce into my beers.

 

[Bassman2003]

Yes, 200ppm is a lot of sulfites but you have firsthand knowledge which is priceless in my opinion. That much sulfite would require quite a bit of oxygenation before the yeast pitch to expend them all to avoid sulfur in the beer. So the community works on their process & hardware to lower the sulfite amount under 50ppm. The big three are YOS, mash cap and sulfites along with underletting and being careful with pumps etc...

 

[Miraculix]

Yes, 200ppm is a lot of sulfites but you have firsthand knowledge which is priceless in my opinion. That much sulfite would require quite a bit of oxygenation before the yeast pitch to expend them all to avoid sulfur in the beer. So the community works on their process & hardware to lower the sulfite amount under 50ppm. The big three are YOS, mash cap and sulfites along with underletting and being careful with pumps etc...

I don't want to change my simple biab setup because of woman and space reasons and this setup brings in a lot of oxygen by default. I wanted to tweak as much of the process possible, without actually really changing the process, if you know what I mean. I started with yos, a simple mash cap and I limited the stirring to a minimum. Underletting is not possible in my setup, so I lowered the pre loaded bag slowly, instead of throwing in the malt from the top onto the water with the bag in it.

I also did single infusion, full volume, not to introduce further oxygen with the hot water infusions.

No stirring during the chill till the water is about 40c or so.

As you can see, there are several steps that introduce oxygen, that's why I started at the upper end which is 200ppm. I can tell that there was some SMB left, so next time I try the same process, but with 170 ppm.

 

[Bassman2003]

I think you are doing things well. We have a person in the group that still brews on the stovetop. Hand scoops the grain into the mash pot and also transfers the mash wort to the boil kettle by hand. He only uses 35ppm. So If I were in your position, I would use 50ppm of sulfites and try to be careful. Check the condition of your pre-boil hot break foam as to how white/consistent and free of tieg it is. That is really the best indicator of how the mash went from a low oxygen perspective.

Lowering the bag is not a big issue, it is raising the bag out where all of the oxygen comes into play. The next best hardware change is having a separate boil kettle to drain away into rather than a single pot. But, you have to use what you have and brew the way you brew knowing you might not get all the way there but judge if you see enough improvements. It is not easy to minimize most of the O2 intake without the help of the right setup.

What about raising the temp of the mash almost up to boiling before raising the grain out? Sort of like a very hot mashout? As temperature increases, less oxygen is retained in the liquid. That might mitigate some of the damage. If you have a pulley system maybe raise the mash up to 185F and start your slow raise a bit at time to let a lot of the draining happen below the water line (most important part). So by the time you have the bag out, a) there is little to drain & splash and b) you are close to boiling so the wort will not hold on to much oxygen anyway. Keep your pH at normal mash amounts (5.4-5.6) and you should not have any tannin issues.

Just a thought. Either way, slow, slow, slow with the bag is your best bet.

I stir the mash once after all of the strike water is in the mash tun. I run a recirc the entire mash with a slowed down pump using a PWM voltage controller. This allows me to control the speed of the wort flow by slowing the pump impeller instead of having it spin at full speed and beat up the wort. During chilling I have a motorized stirrer going at 35RPM the entire time. So you can do things to the wort, it just needs to be slow and gentle.

 

[Miraculix]

I think you are doing things well. We have a person in the group that still brews on the stovetop. Hand scoops the grain into the mash pot and also transfers the mash wort to the boil kettle by hand. He only uses 35ppm. So If I were in your position, I would use 50ppm of sulfites and try to be careful. Check the condition of your pre-boil hot break foam as to how white/consistent and free of tieg it is. That is really the best indicator of how the mash went from a low oxygen perspective.

Lowering the bag is not a big issue, it is raising the bag out where all of the oxygen comes into play. The next best hardware change is having a separate boil kettle to drain away into rather than a single pot. But, you have to use what you have and brew the way you brew knowing you might not get all the way there but judge if you see enough improvements. It is not easy to minimize most of the O2 intake without the help of the right setup.

What about raising the temp of the mash almost up to boiling before raising the grain out? Sort of like a very hot mashout? As temperature increases, less oxygen is retained in the liquid. That might mitigate some of the damage. If you have a pulley system maybe raise the mash up to 185F and start your slow raise a bit at time to let a lot of the draining happen below the water line (most important part). So by the time you have the bag out, a) there is little to drain & splash and b) you are close to boiling so the wort will not hold on to much oxygen anyway. Keep your pH at normal mash amounts (5.4-5.6) and you should not have any tannin issues.

Just a thought. Either way, slow, slow, slow with the bag is your best bet.

I stir the mash once after all of the strike water is in the mash tun. I run a recirc the entire mash with a slowed down pump using a PWM voltage controller. This allows me to control the speed of the wort flow by slowing the pump impeller instead of having it spin at full speed and beat up the wort. During chilling I have a motorized stirrer going at 35RPM the entire time. So you can do things to the wort, it just needs to be slow and gentle.

Good tips, thanks.

My boil kettle is my mash tun and I'm using the stove top too. I'm lifting the bag by hand and squeeeeeeeze it. That is ertainly splashy. Maybe I will use 80 ppm smb next time, if the other guy is getting away with 50 ppm, I might give it an extra bump for the squeeze.

I have no pumps, no pulley system, just a kettle and a bag.

 

[Bassman2003]

He is using 35ppm and transferring things from pot to pot. So less disturbance. Lifting on your own and squeezing is tough but you gotta do what you gotta do. Some sort of pulley etc... would help a lot to slow the process down.

 

[corkybstewart]

that looks great.

i was wondering why it was flat. lol

few months ago i got lazy and descide to just pitch onto yeast cake in the fermenter. now i always repitch into uncleaned fermenter. i try to keep it to 2 batches i am sure it could go more but i dont want to be cheap with yeast as dry yeast is cheap enough to be more than reasonable for 2 batches of beer.

I started brewing in 1992 with Papazian's book and nothing else for references. It was well before the thousands of internet experts were available to prevent me from doing stupid stuff. Because of my oilfield job I had no day off schedule and had to brew whenever I found myself at home, so often I would keg one batch while chilling the next batch and rack directly into my SS conical. Routinely I would do a pale ale of some sort, then a stout, finally an Imperial stout. Or a belgian blonde, a tripel, and then a monstrous 12% quadruple. For me 3 batches was the sweet spot to maintain a great variety in my 2 kegerators while avoiding contamination or other problems. Once I found a thin ring of mold in the krausen after the 3rd beer but it didn't affect the beer.

 

[Miraculix]

He is using 35ppm and transferring things from pot to pot. So less disturbance. Lifting on your own and squeezing is tough but you gotta do what you gotta do. Some sort of pulley etc... would help a lot to slow the process down.

The good thing is, my batches are limited to 17 liters in the kettle and I mainly brew lower abv beers like British bitters around 4% abv. This means that I start with about 3kg of grain so even with the absorbed water, the bag is not that heavy and can be handled manually easily.

I think 80 ppm smb could be a good next trial for the next brew. Still probably erring on the high side which is fine with me.

 

[Miraculix]

I think you are doing things well. We have a person in the group that still brews on the stovetop. Hand scoops the grain into the mash pot and also transfers the mash wort to the boil kettle by hand. He only uses 35ppm. So If I were in your position, I would use 50ppm of sulfites and try to be careful. Check the condition of your pre-boil hot break foam as to how white/consistent and free of tieg it is. That is really the best indicator of how the mash went from a low oxygen perspective.

Lowering the bag is not a big issue, it is raising the bag out where all of the oxygen comes into play. The next best hardware change is having a separate boil kettle to drain away into rather than a single pot. But, you have to use what you have and brew the way you brew knowing you might not get all the way there but judge if you see enough improvements. It is not easy to minimize most of the O2 intake without the help of the right setup.

What about raising the temp of the mash almost up to boiling before raising the grain out? Sort of like a very hot mashout? As temperature increases, less oxygen is retained in the liquid. That might mitigate some of the damage. If you have a pulley system maybe raise the mash up to 185F and start your slow raise a bit at time to let a lot of the draining happen below the water line (most important part). So by the time you have the bag out, a) there is little to drain & splash and b) you are close to boiling so the wort will not hold on to much oxygen anyway. Keep your pH at normal mash amounts (5.4-5.6) and you should not have any tannin issues.

Just a thought. Either way, slow, slow, slow with the bag is your best bet.

I stir the mash once after all of the strike water is in the mash tun. I run a recirc the entire mash with a slowed down pump using a PWM voltage controller. This allows me to control the speed of the wort flow by slowing the pump impeller instead of having it spin at full speed and beat up the wort. During chilling I have a motorized stirrer going at 35RPM the entire time. So you can do things to the wort, it just needs to be slow and gentle.

Had another one yesterday of that batch, now two weeks in the bottle. Still not 100% clear, but getting there. Unfortunately, there is the slight hint of fart comming from the glas. This would fit a lager but not a bitter. Well, it is what it is . 80 ppm next time.