BeerPirate
Active Member
Hey everyone,
I've got a not-so-quick question regarding an Amarillo Pale Ale/IPA I have in a secondary. I brewed it with:
9lbs of extra light LME
I steeped
1lb of 15L Crystal
1/2lb of CaraVienne
4oz. of 2 row
9.5Alpha Amarillo hop pellets
60 min 1.5oz
30 1oz
15 1oz
5 .5oz
2 1oz
I chilled to pitching temps in about 15 minutes using a counterflow chiller and then airated using a high capacity aquarium pump through a filter and a 2 micron stainless diffusion stone for 20 minutes. I pitched a properly rehydrated pack of Safale US-05 and then airated again for 20 minutes. My fermentation was fantastic, krausen was coming out of the airlock of my 6.5 gallon carboy in about 24 hours and then subsided in about 5 days. I waited until 10 days passed and then racked the beer into a secondary with 2 more oz. of the Amarillo pellets. It tasted great at the time of transfer and everything seemed to be fine.
Now, my problem is that the beer is not clearing at all. It has been in the secondary for 2 weeks as of today. The bubbler isn't doing much at all but I can see constant movement of hop particulate. The bulk of the hops have settled to the bottom but there is a persistant cap of hops that remains on the top. If I swirl the carboy gently they fall and I have nothing but beer on the surface but very soon they're back on the top. Also, the beer appears to be very cloudy and hasn't cleared much at all. I hesitate to think that the beer isn't done fermenting because I detected no residual sweetness when I sampled at racking and my fermentation was very active. I don't have hydrometer readings to back this up though.
One of my major concerns in this matter is that I don't want to leave the beer on the hops much longer. This beer was an experiment to test the different characteristics of Amarillo as I haven't used it much before. I'm afraid if I leave the beer on the hops I may start to get some "green" character from them that I would like to avoid.
My second concern is I have an event on June 7th that I need to have the beer ready by. I am going to keg the beer and I would like to leave it on CO2 for almost two weeks to ensure proper carbonation. I am concerned that if I keg it now (to get it off the hops) I will end up with too much sediment in my keg (not enough to clog a poppet, but enough to spoil the appearance, my meeting is with other brewers afterall so appearance is important).
So far I have came up with a couple different possible solutions. Please let me know what you think of them.
1. Rack to a tertiary to get the beer off of the hops. This could be a problem as it would only be able to sit in the tertiary for about a week before I need to keg it. Another downside would be a slight loss of yield.
2. Keg it now and deal with the sediment.
3. Put the secondary in the serving fridge for a day to possible crash cool the sediment out before I keg it. I'm leaning towards this because I won't loose any yield.
4. Go to a tertiary AND crash cool after a week.
Sorry for the long drawn out post, I know no matter what I do here it's going to taste great, I just wanted to see what some of the other brewers would suggest.
One more thing, has anyone else noticed a flocculation issue with US-05? I did a red before this batch and it took quite a while before it cleared as well.
Thanks,
BeerPirate
I've got a not-so-quick question regarding an Amarillo Pale Ale/IPA I have in a secondary. I brewed it with:
9lbs of extra light LME
I steeped
1lb of 15L Crystal
1/2lb of CaraVienne
4oz. of 2 row
9.5Alpha Amarillo hop pellets
60 min 1.5oz
30 1oz
15 1oz
5 .5oz
2 1oz
I chilled to pitching temps in about 15 minutes using a counterflow chiller and then airated using a high capacity aquarium pump through a filter and a 2 micron stainless diffusion stone for 20 minutes. I pitched a properly rehydrated pack of Safale US-05 and then airated again for 20 minutes. My fermentation was fantastic, krausen was coming out of the airlock of my 6.5 gallon carboy in about 24 hours and then subsided in about 5 days. I waited until 10 days passed and then racked the beer into a secondary with 2 more oz. of the Amarillo pellets. It tasted great at the time of transfer and everything seemed to be fine.
Now, my problem is that the beer is not clearing at all. It has been in the secondary for 2 weeks as of today. The bubbler isn't doing much at all but I can see constant movement of hop particulate. The bulk of the hops have settled to the bottom but there is a persistant cap of hops that remains on the top. If I swirl the carboy gently they fall and I have nothing but beer on the surface but very soon they're back on the top. Also, the beer appears to be very cloudy and hasn't cleared much at all. I hesitate to think that the beer isn't done fermenting because I detected no residual sweetness when I sampled at racking and my fermentation was very active. I don't have hydrometer readings to back this up though.
One of my major concerns in this matter is that I don't want to leave the beer on the hops much longer. This beer was an experiment to test the different characteristics of Amarillo as I haven't used it much before. I'm afraid if I leave the beer on the hops I may start to get some "green" character from them that I would like to avoid.
My second concern is I have an event on June 7th that I need to have the beer ready by. I am going to keg the beer and I would like to leave it on CO2 for almost two weeks to ensure proper carbonation. I am concerned that if I keg it now (to get it off the hops) I will end up with too much sediment in my keg (not enough to clog a poppet, but enough to spoil the appearance, my meeting is with other brewers afterall so appearance is important).
So far I have came up with a couple different possible solutions. Please let me know what you think of them.
1. Rack to a tertiary to get the beer off of the hops. This could be a problem as it would only be able to sit in the tertiary for about a week before I need to keg it. Another downside would be a slight loss of yield.
2. Keg it now and deal with the sediment.
3. Put the secondary in the serving fridge for a day to possible crash cool the sediment out before I keg it. I'm leaning towards this because I won't loose any yield.
4. Go to a tertiary AND crash cool after a week.
Sorry for the long drawn out post, I know no matter what I do here it's going to taste great, I just wanted to see what some of the other brewers would suggest.
One more thing, has anyone else noticed a flocculation issue with US-05? I did a red before this batch and it took quite a while before it cleared as well.
Thanks,
BeerPirate