Open Fermentation

[Queequeg]

I am looking at trying open fermentation for some German and English styles. I am not talking wild fermentations, I will still be pitch yeast and keeping things clean.

My initial research leads me to consider a 28L gastronorm like this

https://www.nisbets.co.uk/vogue-stainless-steel-full-size-gastronorm-pan-200mm/k918

This has the fermenter geometry similar to a Yorkshire square or Bavaria fermenter.

The question is how to keep the nasties out and avoid oxidation.

I was think tin foil would be the easiest solution or possibly 10 micron nylon mesh. Then transfer to secondary at the end of fermentation to act as a bright tank.

Thoughts? I am interested if any one has tried anything similar and what results they got.

 

[mjrodney]

My first exposure to home brewing was a friend who made something like beer in a large dark brown and tan ceramic crock (late 60's era).

He used burlap to cover the thing, as I remember.

I also remember that I only drank it once.

 

[user 246304]

Working on the same thing, Queequeg. I need it in 15 gallons. I'll let you know as I find things.

We don't have a hundred years of built up yeast throughout the environment. I do know from cheesemaking, which is really just another kind of fermentation, how important that is. I had a "cave," and wheels left out to the environment (which I controlled). It's open.

Absent that, it seems to me, a fermentation area that can be meticulously cleaned and sanitized is crucial. That's what I'm working on, along with thoughts about rousing by spraying over the krausen to both rouse and oxygenate high O2-demand strains, which the Yorkshire strains seem to be.

 

[McKnuckle]

I tried this once with just about exactly the same product as a fermenter (it worked very well). If you pitch adequately, the yeast will begin quickly and you can cease worrying about infection til the cap falls. At that point you should be racking to a closed conditioning vessel.

I was able to place it in a cool room, about 65F, because I did not trust my fermentation fridge. Maybe I should have? There was nothing too special about the room, other than it having a high ceiling which gave me a false sense that nothing would float down into my beer.

I did find a cover, a rectangular one made of thin hard plastic like the kind used to enclose a tray of deli sandwiches. This fit nicely over the top of my fermenter and I removed it as soon as a layer of yeast formed, say 12-18 hours or overnight from pitching.

Unfortunately the beer was lousy for totally unrelated reasons, so I have to try this again when the weather cools down.

 

[Queequeg]

Well I ferment in a chest freezer so it quite easy to sanitize thoroughly and then keep shut until I need to rack. I would still like something to keep particles from my clothing and the room falling in when I rack.

I am thinking on making a lid from stainless steel mesh, with a covering on fine nylon filter material. a combination of

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Mesh-Companys-Stainless-Steel-Woven-Wire-Range-Huge-Range-Top-Prices-/151682102640?var=451590109192&hash=item2350f53570:m:m798tn-rKuL3FonNEHt09Ww
&
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NYLON-MESH-FOR-ZOOPLANKTON-SIEVE-5-10-25-50-75-125-250-400-600-800-1000-MICRON-/321176570153?var=&hash=item4ac79d8929:m:mPNejzNF7sMKYGblKk1hfFw

This should allow maximum gassing off, whilst stopping things falling in.

If I was aiming to oxygenate mid fermentation then I would use an airstone with a filter.

 

[user 246304]

I tried this once with just about exactly the same product as a fermenter (it worked very well). If you pitch adequately, the yeast will begin quickly and you can cease worrying about infection til the cap falls. At that point you should be racking to a closed conditioning vessel.

I was able to place it in a cool room, about 65F, because I did not trust my fermentation fridge. Maybe I should have? There was nothing too special about the room, other than it having a high ceiling which gave me a false sense that nothing would float down into my beer.

I did find a cover, a rectangular one made of thin hard plastic like the kind used to enclose a tray of deli sandwiches. This fit nicely over the top of my fermenter and I removed it as soon as a layer of yeast formed, say 12-18 hours or overnight from pitching.

Unfortunately the beer was lousy for totally unrelated reasons, so I have to try this again when the weather cools down.

McKnuckle, this is what's intriguing. At least according to Chris White, the British can go as low as .5/ml/Plato. And given that these are high O2-demand, high flocculating yeast, it just seems like everything is stacked against a clean fermentation. And then they go and spray the heck out of the krausen. It blows my mind that they don't end up with the foulest, nastiest brew possible. And it's not lidded, etc., ever - until their protocol for how much above terminal to transfer to conditioning.

This is why I'm left with concluding, a clean-room environment is one big variable to lay down. Sure, we could pitch at a higher rate, goose it with a higher dissolved O2, use a faster strain - but then, how much of these beers are we really capturing?

Sorry, this is to what you're looking for, OP. McKnuckle, I think, has an excellent open fermentation protocol. My mind is on a specific open fermentation process. Sorry for pulling it that way.

 

[Queequeg]

I doubt brewery clean rooms are actually that clean. I work in pharmaceutical manufacture and our clean rooms are nothing like the pictures I see of bavaria brewery fermenting rooms. Plus I double they use HEPA filtered HVAC because of the expense.

As for British breweries I went to hook Norton a few years back and it wasn't until relatively recently that they stopped using a coolship in the top of the brewery with open slatted windows to cool the wort.

I think traditional English brews are much more wild then their modern equivalents. Certainly cask conditioning was basically brett conditioning.

 

[user 246304]

Right, Queequeg, which is why I said what I did in my first post. I'm probably wrong, but when you have a century, let's say, of building up a "house" culture that pervades everything, you don't have the same considerations that we brewers, starting from scratch with laboratory culture, do. So, yes, Hook Norton (I was there when they still had the coolship) has those practices, as do so many others. Including Titanic in Stoke-On-Trent. I won't bore people because I said it elsewhere. But when you come from a regional brewery that has a closed system and 18 HAACP points along the production line - and then visit with a brewer as he's walking across the floor of a former mechanic's garage (and still looked like it, really) with 2 open buckets of yeast, tossing that yeast in to an open fermentor and, I don't want to impugn Ian if my memory is wrong, mixing it in by literal hand, well let's say, blown away.

He said something to the effect, these yeast have been around forever, nothing can outdo them. And I think that's valid. We don't have the same situation.

Anyway, whatever you do, good luck.

 

[Queequeg]

Hi Gladjobrinus,

Thanks for the in put, I finally understand what you driving at.

An all pervading monoculture is sort of what you are suggesting.

I find is difficult to buy into, I certainly agree that the yeast will be ubiquitous in the brewery environment because it would have been spread buy processing but the opportunity for transient microrganisns is great.

Some of which are both highly prevalent and hardly. Bacillus species spring to mind.

 

[user 246304]

Queequeg,

Agree with you. I think what I'm saying is it's all a matter of odds.

Do traditional cask breweries need to mind their p's and q's as well? See attached, lol.

View attachment Cask Conditioning Brewery - MBS21.pdf

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I believe that into the 1970's the famous 'Traquair House' in Scotland was still fermenting in open vats.