Hop Type and Fermentation Rate

[jshell55]

I made two batches exactly a week ago.
Both used the amber DME, both used the same type of yeast.

One had a blend of Cascade and Williamette hops, and the other had Mittletau.

Both smell absolutely great. I can hardly wait to drink them.

The gravity of the Cascade/Williaemette batch is 1.100, should be pretty close to finished. The other was 1.030. Starting gravity for both was around 1.070.

I started both yeast batches in sugar and water before adding them to the batch. It is likely that the addition temperatures were quite different, the slowpoke batch being hotter. Can't rule out overcooking the yeast. I did not check the temperature with a thermometer.

So did the difference in hops slow down the fermentation in the second one, or was it because of the temperature difference?

Secondly, should I be patient and wait for my slowpoke batch to catch up, or re-yeast that guy to pump it up a bit?

Opinions?

 

[theredben]

Without a thermometer reading, you cannot say one way or another what caused the slowdown. It was probably not the hops, but we can't say for sure.

Any damage caused by a low survival of your yeast in the "slowpoke" batch is already done. Pitching more yeast now will not fix anything unless the batch sticks at 1.030 (which would be unusual). I would suggest waiting a few weeks and then see how the batches look.

 

[jshell55]

That is kinda what I am thinking. I am patient, it has only been a week. There was plenty of yeast action in both 24 hours after pitching, and there is still some top scum in both, but the slower one just looks weaker and less robust. I will continue to measure the spgr and let it stew for awhile.

 

[barrooze]

First off, I'm assuming you meant 1.010 for what we'll call Beer 1, not 1.100. Beer 2 will be the 1.030 beer.

Some circumstances that will cause the two beers to not ferment equally are fermentation temperature, yeast count, yeast health, and OGs.

Fermentation temperature:
If your temps are swinging up and down, yeast will drop out every time it swings down. If you aren't doing some sort of temp control to minimize these swings, you're beer may not ferment out. Since it appears you don't control your ferm temps at all, Beer 1 may be in a more stable environment while Beer 2 may be swinging or reaching (or far exceeding) the upper limits of where the yeast like to be.

Yeast Health:
Do not make starters with simple sugar. Period. Simple sugars like table sugar/cane sugar/beet sugar/sucrose/dextrose are very easy for yeast to consume. If you make a starter with just simple sugar, you run the risk of "training" the yeast to only eat those sugars, avoiding the complex sugars like maltose. This could easily cause your beer to stop fermenting prematurely.

Yeast Count:
You didn't mention the size of the starters you made. Nor did you mention whether you were using dry yeast or liquid. If you used dry, you shouldn't be making a starter at all. Just rehydrate it properly. For liquid yeast, like I mentioned above, don't use simple sugar starters, just use maltose (since you're already using DME in your batch, just use that for your starter; 100g per 1000mL water). Since your OGs were around 1.070, you definitely needed more yeast than what's in a standard vial/pouch/packet. Were your starters the same size? Did you use a pitching rate calculator to get the correct size starter? If you used different size starters for Beer 1 and Beer 2, whatever you did for Beer 1 sounds like it was working better! Always use a pitching rate calculator when making a starter.

OGs:
This goes hand in hand with yeast count. If you have a higher OG (above 1.050) you need to prep your yeast (even if it's just making sure you have the correct amount of dry yeast). If Beer 2 was larger than Beer 1, the amount of sugar combined with a lower yeast population could easily cause an early fermentation halt.

Bottom line, if it's still actively fermenting, I'd recommend you buy a pack of standard dry yeast, rehydrate it and pitch it. The additional yeast will help complete your fermentation. If you don't want to try that, just let it go; 1 week is often not long enough to complete fermentation. Also try to avoid temp swings. At this point, keep it warm. Don't go cool it down now. That will just drop out even more yeasties.

If you didn't get this from the post, the different fermentations are purely a result of your fermentation process and yeast pitching. I believe hop variety will do anything to your fermentation.

Good luck! Regardless of the FG, I hope they turn out great! There's nothing wrong with having a beer not do what you intend if you can figure out why it behaved the way it did.

 

[jshell55]

Thanks for your good words. Yeah, I am trying to be thoughtful about this, you're exactly right, if every batch went perfectly I'd never learn anything.

Both of the batches were the same size, 3 gallons, made one after the other, and the storage is in a nice, dark, 65-degree basement with no windows, only one door and minimal temperature swings, and they're sitting right next to each other. Should be perfect brewing conditions.

Thanks for the advice on the yeast. Both batches got 1 little packet of dry yeast, started in sugar water. From now on I will start them with something besides sugar. Perhaps a little DME will get them off to a good start. Actually, what I'll do is harvest the yeast cake off of #1 and use that. No need to use dry yeast.

The original intent was to keep everything the same on these two little batches, varying only the hops, because I want to learn about the different hop types. So, I did try to keep the conditions pretty close to the same.

I do have some temperature variability issues right now because I am not using a wort chiller. I'm boiling the DME and hops in a 2-gallon pot and letting it down with cold water when the boil is finished. That's my biggest source of temperature variability right now and I need to fix that before I do my next brewing. At some point I want to go all-grain brewing so I need to have the capability to do 6 gallon batches anyway, I have a little plumbing experience and can probably pretty easily fabricate a coil chiller. That is my project over the next couple of weeks, while I am waiting for these two batches to work a little.

Actually I checked both of these batches again last night and batch 2, as you say, was looking a lot better, so it might have just been paranoia on my part. I'll give it a couple more days and see what happens.

 

[barrooze]

Alright! I'm glad to hear that both batches are coming around. It does sound like the area in which the beers are fermenting is a nice spot. If you do find that there are temp swings (carboys will heat up due to yeast activity) you just try putting the carboys in a large container of water to increase the thermal mass, making temp swings even more minimal (i've got my carboy in the bathtub right now).

I posted my method of rehydrating yeast a while ago, check it out if you like. It's basically the method recommended by the brewing gurus (which is where I got it, of course!). Link's here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/fermentation-stopped-1-044-a-236078/index4.html#post2791312

As for your wort chiller, they're definitely nice and I'm a fan of mine. I just went to Home Depot and bought 25' of 1/4" copper tubing. I carefully bent it to a coil that would fit in my kettle, bent the ends up and out so they hang over the edge of the kettle, then connected some cheap tubing with some tubing clamps and added a garden hose connector. Very easy to make. The price of copper has skyrocketed since I made mine, however, but I've found this site where you can still get cheap tubing. I have no experience with them, but I intend to buy from them in the quasi-near future. Here's a link: http://www.appliancepartspros.com/A...pper-tube-1-2-x-50-item-number-ap3770923.aspx

Finally, I'm really happy to hear that Batch 2 is coming down. I've found that if it's not where you want it, just leave it be. Patience really helps! I've left beers in primary for 6 weeks and they came out great. Just let the beer tell you when it's done. cheers!

 

[barrooze]

wow, i'm long-winded...

 

[jshell55]

Update: transferred the batches to the secondary fermenter and they're both smelling and looking like good beer. I'll let 'em sit around awhile longer before bottling.

 

[jshell55]

Update: Just for the record, so that some future seeker of wisdom knows what happened:

I waited the two weeks and there was a nice thick layer of vinegar smelling bacteria on the top of both batches...

I ended up producing a total of two more vinegary batches before I finally figured out what was going on. Terrible.

In retrospect here is what happened: Because I was so diligent in checking my beer frequently I let too much fricking oxygen into my buckets, and since acetobacter is an aerobe (needs oxygen to live) I basically screwed both of them up by looking at them every day. Add to that the fact that I was fermenting 2.5 gallon batches in 5 gallon buckets, there was too much head space, more oxygen, more bacteria.

I finally caught on in mid-September what was happening, put some bleach water in my bug sprayer and sprayed the hell out of everything in my home brewery, and switched to glass carboys. After that, no problem, everything I've brewed has been perfect, I can satisfy whatever morbid curiosity I have to look at the stuff ferment by just checking, and the people around me have told me that my beer improved a lot.

I also quit being cheap on the Star San and also bleach everything to the point where I smell like I've been in the swimming pool every time I brew something.

I suppose those three FU'd batches were my tuition to brewing school.

 

[barrooze]

Were both of these sour beers? If you were letting bugs work while you had them in a bucket, the issue could have been too frequent of checking, but was more likely the fact that plastic buckets are very permeable to oxygen. Jamil has mentioned that if you're making a sour beer, don't use a bucket if you're going to keep it in there for months. The oxygen will pass through the plastic and cause vinegar flavors. He suggested using carboys or Better Bottles. You said that the vinegar flavors went away after switching to carboys. This could be a big contributor to the problem you were having.

 

[jshell55]

Nah, the intent was just to produce some flavorful amber IPA type using cascade.
The vinegar made the batches undrinkable.


You're right about the bucket in general, I am pretty sure that in addition to the permeation, there was some leakage around the lid, and also, there may have been some residue from previous batches on the sides, possibly small scratches that that kind of thing.

Add to that the fact that it was August. Hot. The monastery brewers that forbade production of beer after March and before September may very well have known what they were doing.

Now, I am using glass carboys, and only use the buckets for bottling day and also just to transfer the batch briefly between primary and secondary fermentation.