What temperature is right again?

[kombat]

It's more about the dissolved solids and osmotic pressure when it comes to rehydrating, as the yeast are dried with plenty of nutrients to become active and ready to ferment. It's most important that your source of water is sanitized, if you trust bottled water to be sanitary, then by all means use it.

I think this concern is overblown. I just use plain old tap water. I'm on city water, so the water is already sanitized (chloramines). I don't bother boiling or whatever, I just mix hot and cold tap water until it's at 85° F, then pour out the excess to get down to 115 mL (for 1 pack), then proceed with rehydration. Never had an infected batch yet (knock on wood) in over 100 batches.

 

[kombat]

I'm thinking that since I use spring water to dilute my boiled HME(wort) back to 2 gallons+2 cups,

Are you boiling your HME? I don't believe you're supposed to do so. It's already pasteurized when it was canned. I suppose if you don't trust your water, you could boil that to sanitize it, and then mix it with your HME, but if you're boiling the HME, you're changing the hop profile of the resulting beer.

that it might be just fine if I just warm a little up in a sanitized cup as described for the rehydrate. So about 1/2 cup warmed to 90-95F and then put the yeast into it, wait until it cools to within 10 degrees of the wort temperature.

First of all, we're talking about your rehydrating in the water, not the wort, right? Just to be clear. You should not rehydrate yeast in wort. Just plain water.

Second of all, don't use "about 1/2 cup." Use 10 times the yeast's weight (in grams) in milliliters. So if the packet is 6 grams of yeast, rehydrate them in 60 mL of water heated to whatever the manufacturer says. If you're using a standard 11.5 gram packet of US-05, rehydrate it in 115 mL of plain water heated to 85° F. It will cool to the target temperature during the rehydration process (which takes about an hour, if I recall correctly).

I'm thinking that $150 for a chest freezer isn't that expensive for room to do multiple carboys at once.

Sure, but I would only ferment one beer at a time in there. Ideally, you want the temperature controller to be running off the temperature of the beer, so you'll want the probe down inside the beer itself using a thermowell stopper (ideally), or at the very least strapped/taped to the outside of the carboy and insulated. But that will be modulating the freezer based on the temperature of that beer. Any other beer fermenting in the same freezer will just be along for the ride, and could be at a very different (and not optimal) temperature.

I can also put a lifter on the top of the carboy to lift them from the neck when/if I go to 6 gallon glass.

Nooooo no no no no, never NEVER lift a full glass carboy by the neck. That's a disaster waiting to happen. Those little red handles are not designed to carry full carboys. Heck, I don't even trust them on empty carboys, but that's much safer. Using them with a full carboy is running a huge risk of snapping the neck off of the carboy.

I use BrewHauler straps and milk crates.

 

[BigRob]

I don't think its overblown, its a minor inconvenience that takes very little time (1/2 cup water will chill down in a minute or two). Compared to all the time to brew and ferment a batch, it doesn't seem worth it not to.

 

[kombat]

I don't think its overblown, its a minor inconvenience that takes very little time (1/2 cup water will chill down in a minute or two).

Huh?? How does 1/2 cup of boiling water cool down to 85° F in "a minute or two?" Ever make yourself a cup of tea? Do you have to drink it within 2 minutes, lest it get too cold? It will stay warm for quite a while. Certainly too warm for yeast.

It's an unnecessary step. If you're on city water, then your tap water is already sanitary. Boiling and cooling it is a waste of time and doesn't do anything. It's pointless. Like I said, I've been doing this for literally dozens and dozens of batches, and never had a problem.

Compared to all the time to brew and ferment a batch, it doesn't seem worth it not to.

Why not take your grain mill outside and mill your grains far away from your fermenting area? Why not completely sanitize your mash tun every brew day? Why not replace your wort chiller every 20 brews? None of those really take much time individually, but it all adds up, it costs money, and ultimately, it's all pointless.

 

[BigRob]

While I somewhat trust I won't get ill from tap water, I don't believe it's sanitary enough to use untreated for brewing, I know there's nasty biofilms that build up inside the aerators of faucets on a regular basis. Giving that fungi or bacteria a rich media to reproduce in doesn't seem like a wise risk.

I can guarantee you though, that a 250ml mason jar half filled with boiled water, sealed and set in a lukewarm water bath will chill to rehydration temps very quickly. Although given you want to pitch rehydrated yeast within 30 minutes, you could also let it cool at room temp while the wort boils.

I do in fact mill my grains away from the fermenting area, it's easy to do, and doesn't take any extra time either. I don't need random lacto laden dust floating around the fermentation area.

There is no need to replace a chiller every 20 batches, as the heat sanitizes it. Your mash tun wouldn't need sanitizing either, as it's pre-boil equipment, and everything will die in the boil.

None of these things add to my brew time, they don't cost much (a couple pennies to boil a cup of water in a kettle) and they stack the odds in the yeasts favour, so I fail to see how taking reasonable steps to reduce the risk of infection is pointless.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah. Look out for the little things & the big stuff will take care of itself, basically. I looked at our tap water under my old microscope before the boys destroyed it. It had little black chunks of crud & a lot of amoebas in it.

 

[Nyle]

Do not use "lifter" handles on full carboys, they are only designed for empty one. You will crack the neck and lose all your wort, maybe injure yourself severely or die.

Thanks. I should have said plastic not glass. I'm using plastic now and have heard enough problems with glass. I don't even know why I typed that.

The next large fermenter I get will likely be stainless. For now I'm using 4 gallon plastic water bottles.

I've had no problem lugging them around full of water by the neck.

 

[Nyle]

At least get it down to within the yeast's prefered fermentation range.

Hi Uniondr,

Was this to me or another reply? The swamp cooler has done that the end result according to my 2 floating thermometers is that the water in the swamp cooler is down to 66F. It's a fairly large mass of water so I'm assuming the wort is close to that. Fermentation slowed noticeable in a short time and is happily moving along at a slower pace now.

I've watched it as our outside temperature has gone between 55-78F and it hasn't varied when I've checked. Obviously, not checking every minute.

 

[kombat]

I fail to see how taking reasonable steps to reduce the risk of infection is pointless.

Well I've done over 100 batches my way with zero ill-effects, so I don't know what else to tell you. You're wasting your time, but of course it's your time to waste, should you choose to continue doing so. But know that you're not buying yourself anything extra at all. Try doing a batch without boiling your rehydration water and watch what happens (spoiler: nothing).

I looked at our tap water under my old microscope before the boys destroyed it. It had little black chunks of crud & a lot of amoebas in it.

Well water or municipal water? I absolutely agree with boiling/sanitizing well water, but city water has already been treated. There is nothing living in it that can hurt your beer.

 

[unionrdr]

Hi Uniondr,

Was this to me or another reply? The swamp cooler has done that the end result according to my 2 floating thermometers is that the water in the swamp cooler is down to 66F. It's a fairly large mass of water so I'm assuming the wort is close to that. Fermentation slowed noticeable in a short time and is happily moving along at a slower pace now.

I've watched it as our outside temperature has gone between 55-78F and it hasn't varied when I've checked. Obviously, not checking every minute.

I went back & re-read a bit. I think it was? I'm a little lost this morning myself...

 

[Nyle]

Are you boiling your HME? I don't believe you're supposed to do so. It's already pasteurized when it was canned. I suppose if you don't trust your water, you could boil that to sanitize it, and then mix it with your HME, but if you're boiling the HME, you're changing the hop profile of the resulting beer.



First of all, we're talking about your rehydrating in the water, not the wort, right? Just to be clear. You should not rehydrate yeast in wort. Just plain water.

Second of all, don't use "about 1/2 cup." Use 10 times the yeast's weight (in grams) in milliliters. So if the packet is 6 grams of yeast, rehydrate them in 60 mL of water heated to whatever the manufacturer says. If you're using a standard 11.5 gram packet of US-05, rehydrate it in 115 mL of plain water heated to 85° F. It will cool to the target temperature during the rehydration process (which takes about an hour, if I recall correctly).

Sure, but I would only ferment one beer at a time in there. Ideally, you want the temperature controller to be running off the temperature of the beer, so you'll want the probe down inside the beer itself using a thermowell stopper (ideally), or at the very least strapped/taped to the outside of the carboy and insulated. But that will be modulating the freezer based on the temperature of that beer. Any other beer fermenting in the same freezer will just be along for the ride, and could be at a very different (and not optimal) temperature.

Nooooo no no no no, never NEVER lift a full glass carboy by the neck. That's a disaster waiting to happen. Those little red handles are not designed to carry full carboys. Heck, I don't even trust them on empty carboys, but that's much safer. Using them with a full carboy is running a huge risk of snapping the neck off of the carboy.

I use BrewHauler straps and milk crates.

Thanks kombat,

No just boiling the 4 cups of water and then placing the HME into it. What I was talking about was a comment by another member that they didn't boil their water prior to re-hydrating the yeast. I was commenting that my brews were using spring water that wasn't boiled prior to having my hot HME placed into it. So it was likely ok to use a little spring water in a sanitized cup to rehydrate.

The more I hear about re-hydrating the more complicated it sounds. *Tongue in cheek, with a smile* I mean now if I use too much water the little yeasties will drown. So now I need a graduated cylinder to get exactly 10x the yeast weight in ml of water, boil it, wait for it to cool down 93-95F(some say 105F), then wait for it to cool to within 10F of the wort, then pitch. I think I'll just dry pitch unless I do a high gravity brew.

No I won't re-hydrate them in wort as it defeats the purpose as explained by the other guys here. Though one did recommend after they re-hydrated feeding them with some of the wort.

With the freezer I'm really only looking at doing a lager and one 6 gallon is probably good. Then again if I do brews with yeast that likes the same temperatures it seems like a temperature controlled chamber should be good enough for home brewing. Otherwise, I'd probably need to go to some form of jacketed conical. Maybe, the 7 gallon SS Brew bucket stainless with FTSS I've been watching. Though 6 gallons of lager at once in a small chest freezer should be plenty for my budding habit. Then again, Maybe a Grainfather for all grain brews and, and, and...... WOAH :fro: I think I need to slow down and just be happy with my swamp coolers with heater to keep them from going below the yeasts bottom temperature. Seems pretty easy to spend a lot of money on this hobby when simple seems to taste really, really good.

As for the glass carboy, I totally mispoke/typed, Advice well given and already understood. I won't be using glass carboys. Too many horror stories. I'll either use plastic water bottles that I have access to or graduate to stainless but that's a long way off. I lug full 4/5 gallon water bottles around by the neck all the time never had one break. Sorry to scare so many people, I'd treat glass with kids gloves.

 

[BigRob]

City water is treated at the plant, there's no guarantees how it comes out of your own plumbing. This is why you hear of boil-water advisories sometimes, and further city water usually won't make you, a human, sick, there's no guarantees it's free of anything that can hurt your beer.

 

[Nyle]

I agree about fermenting in the basement, maybe on the floor, as it's 2 degrees cooler than the ambient 71F down there. But it's the internal fermenter temps we concern ourselves most with. That directly affects the beer. And since Cooper's owns Mr Beer now, the kits could be using Cooper's ale yeast, which gets sluggish at 63F. It works ok @ 64F, but seems to prefer 65F. It also works as well as US-05 if rehydrated first, from my experiments.

Hey uniondr and others,

So after my beer is done fermenting and ready to be bottled, how warm is too warm to let it carbonate? My house can get as high as 80 during the day but the basement air is still 66 right now. Is 71-80F during the afternoon too much for it to carbonate? If I do it cooler will I not get enough carbonation?

I can use a calculator for the style of beer(co2 level), etc. Also one of the batches is a Weis beer and I suspect that 4.5(co2) is way to high for normal brow beer bottles. Would 3.3 be ok?

Thanks again guys.

 

[unionrdr]

I've had good carbonation at 70-80F. The cooler you go below 70F, the longer it'll take. And I'm leary about going above 2.8 Vco2 in glass bottles. But 2.8 seemed to be plenty for wheat beers.

 

[unionrdr]

He's past primary. He's bottling them, where only minimum yeast temp is of concern. Higher temps in the bottle's closed environment just makes it carb a bit faster. Temps really only count (mostly) during initial fermentation. That's where most of the fermentation takes place. Bottle carbonating & conditioning is another matter. When the beer's primed & bottled, too low a temp stalls out the yeast or makes it take a lot longer to carbonate the bottles.

 

[Nyle]

Excellent again. Thank you.

I'll be carbonating upstairs for quick results. Is about 15 days right for carbonation? Then I assume bottle condition in the basement?

I have my first thermostat done for my swamp cooler and my second just needs it's power wire installed. That will keep my temperature from dropping bellow 65 for my ales.

Lagers will be later in a freezer. Mighty kind of everyone to help me get off to a good start.

Thanks,
Nyle

Will most stalled carbonations pick back up if warmed up?

 

[unionrdr]

They should, yeah.

 

[unionrdr]

In primary, yes. Bottling, no. Too cool to keep the yeast working on producing carbonation in the sealed bottles.

 

[unionrdr]

Is this a spambot, or is it just me?^^

 

[Nyle]

Is this a spambot, or is it just me?^^

What post were you meaning?

My Northwest Ale came out great as did the basic IPA. Just bottled the American Golden Light that was mostly fermented with the new setup. Tastes great flat. I can't wait until it's aged.

I'm really excited and start.a 5 gallon batch this weekend.

Thanks.

 

[unionrdr]

The post right above the one where I mentioned it. It was later deleted. It kept repeating answers to the same question I kept trying to clarify. Spambots do stuff like that.

 

[Nyle]

Thank you so much everyone for getting my started. I've done a good number of 2.5G HME batches now and just finished my first 5 gallon grain+HME+hops batch. It came out great. I think a few more weeks of bottle conditioning and I'm going to be hard pressed to stay sober. LOL!

The swamp coolers are working great. I set them up with temperature controllers and aquarium heaters so that I can set a bottom temperature and I put the probe really close to/touching the fermenter. I usually do one fermenter per cooler but the two batches pictured where very similiar recipies. They came out good. The heat will be more important in the winter. Though it helped keep my first batch of wine up to where the recipe called for.

I'll keep refining as I go along. A small chest freezer is in my future for lagering and a large one for keezer. I'm really want to keg some 5 gallon batches. I need some more funds first though.'

I've been rehydrating my yeast for bigger batches and it does make a difference in the ferment start, activity level and length. Dry pitching still does work well with the simple Mr. Beer 2.5G kits though. While I now see that rehydrating is simple, it does add 20-24 minutes of time to the process.

Cheers.