Elmer's first boil

[petey_c]

olusteebus, Usually stouts have a lower amount of carbonation than other types of brews. If you had a keg system you could also "carbonate" with some nitrogen (I believe it's a mix of CO2 and Nitrogen) ala Guinness.
I'm a member of the 3 and 3 club. Three weeks primary, three weeks bottle. Except heavy brews. I don't think it will really matter if it's sugar then beer or vice versa.

 

[BernardSmith]

olusteebus, Usually stouts have a lower amount of carbonation than other types of brews. If you had a keg system you could also "carbonate" with some nitrogen (I believe it's a mix of CO2 and Nitrogen) ala Guinness.
I'm a member of the 3 and 3 club. Three weeks primary, three weeks bottle. Except heavy brews. I don't think it will really matter if it's sugar then beer or vice versa.

I am 2 and 2 but I will give 3 and 3 a go.

 

[olusteebus]

I was a member of the 3 to ferment, 3 to bottle and 6 to drink. It turned out pretty good, not as good as I expected. I think I will try a porter next.

 

[Elmer]

I have myself schedule to bottle the weekend of the 17th trough 19.
Which puts me at the 2.5 weeks
Otherwise I have to wait until 3.5 because I started the batch no week.

Just trying to weigh the pros and cons of going 2.5 or 3.5.
I though beer was not much of a aging liquid.
Guess for my first batch giving it go will let me know, and I probably won't be wrong either way.

 

[BernardSmith]

This is just my uninformed opinion but it strikes me that most beers don't benefit by aging if by aging you mean months in the carboy. But if by aging, you simply mean that beers may improve and clear better if we wait a week or two longer before we bottle and wait a week or too longer than we might tend to do before we crack open a bottle then I think that such aging does improve the beer. The yeast has more time to remove and transform its own waste products and that does seem to add something to the flavors... The downside is (I think) that since most brewers today do not rack to a secondary and their primary has feet of headroom then the longer you allow the beer to age in the fermenter the greater the risk there is for oxidation. However, I think - never tested this - I think that during the first three weeks or so there is enough CO2 in the fermenter to blanket the beer and inhibit oxidation. Big beers that do require real aging - so-called barleywines, for example, do need to be racked to secondaries and those secondaries need to be filled to the tippy top just like wines...

 

[petey_c]

BernardSmith, You're correct most beers don't benefit from aging too long. Wheat beers are one example. IPA's should also be consumed fresh. Porters and stouts do benefit from aging three months or more. I always bottle condition rather than bulk condition. Plus it frees (frees? for some reason that doesn't look right.) up a fermenter so I can start another batch. It also eliminates the O2 issue. Speaking of, I'll have to check my to do list when I get home (at work now) and see when I have to bottle... Cheers, Pete

 

[jswordy]

The other beers that benefit from aging, my professional brewmaster friend says, are the barrel-aged beers. Whiskey barrel aged, wine barrel aged, or in some cases just oak barrel aged, etc.

Elmer should be getting close to bottling by now, eh? Ya, 17-19 I see up dere.

 

[Elmer]

The other beers that benefit from aging, my professional brewmaster friend says, are the barrel-aged beers. Whiskey barrel aged, wine barrel aged, or in some cases just oak barrel aged, etc.

Elmer should be getting close to bottling by now, eh? Ya, 17-19 I see up dere.

Initially I was going to bottle the weekend of 17th through 19th, but now after extensive discussion and research on the internet and a beer making forum I am thinking of pushing it off until the following weekend.
Right now day 15, my primary has stopped bubbling and is sitting at 63F, hopefully clearing.

The consensus is that waiting the extra week allows more to drop. Also since I will not be doing a secondary prior to bottling, this will allow more clearing time.
however it seems that there are those that are for a 3 week primary and those who are for 2 week primary.
I based my decsision most on the fact that while waiting an extra week may clear the wine a little more (yet this can not be certain), it appears there will be no damage to the wine.
The wine is still sitting in a primary, lid snapped shut covered in many, many blankets.

of course if anyone would like to change my mind and talk me into bottling this weekend, I am willing to listen. If anyone wants to send a bribe in the form of monetary payment (small untraceable bills or bearer bonds) I am sure that could change my bottling schedule.

 

[BernardSmith]

Just curious: the blankets. What is the purpose of covering the bucket or carboy with "many, many blankets". Again, as I like to say I am not a natural scientist (I am a social scientist) so I may have this all confused, but after fermentation the beer is not exothermic, so "blankets" are not going to trap heat produced by the beer. And many layers may - in any event be self defeating. If you have one layer that can help trap some of the heat between the heat generating body (the exothermic bucket) and the cooler ambient outside air, but since the blanket is "leaky" then trapping the escaped warm air under another blanket will help maintain the temperature of the bucket AND act as a barrier to keep the colder air from being in contact with the first blanket and so having a cooling effect on the air heated by the bucket . More than two layers (unless the blankets are incredibly "leaky") would seem to be kinda redundant...
So as a non physicist I would imagine that two layers - at most - might be needed IF (IF) any covering was needed. But the only need for coverage after fermentation is over that I can think of is to prevent UV light from reaching the hopped liquid, and you can do that by simply having the beer in a relatively opaque white bucket or placing a cardboard box over the fermenter or covering the fermenter with a towel.. I may be wrong and I am always happy to be corrected....

 

[Elmer]

Just curious: the blankets. What is the purpose of covering the bucket or carboy with "many, many blankets". Again, as I like to say I am not a natural scientist (I am a social scientist) so I may have this all confused, but after fermentation the beer is not exothermic, so "blankets" are not going to trap heat produced by the beer. And many layers may - in any event be self defeating. If you have one layer that can help trap some of the heat between the heat generating body (the exothermic bucket) and the cooler ambient outside air, but since the blanket is "leaky" then trapping the escaped warm air under another blanket will help maintain the temperature of the bucket AND act as a barrier to keep the colder air from being in contact with the first blanket and so having a cooling effect on the air heated by the bucket . More than two layers (unless the blankets are incredibly "leaky") would seem to be kinda redundant...
So as a non physicist I would imagine that two layers - at most - might be needed IF (IF) any covering was needed. But the only need for coverage after fermentation is over that I can think of is to prevent UV light from reaching the hopped liquid, and you can do that by simply having the beer in a relatively opaque white bucket or placing a cardboard box over the fermenter or covering the fermenter with a towel.. I may be wrong and I am always happy to be corrected....

Bernard, I wont or cant correct you but I can try and explain my rationale behind the blankets. (As an aside I minored in social science, to which a buddy who is a PHD in philosophy would tease me about the "science of the obvious")
My brew is in a white bucket, sitting on top of a small sturdy coffee table in the corner of my basement, southwest corner. (for reference here is a crudely drawn blueprint http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/winemaking-storage-dilemma-41968/, all my brewing and storage is now at the "new location" )
Anyway, I use a a bunch of heavy blankets and bed sheets, old shirts ect to keep heat in while fermenting, but more importantly to keep the change in temp of my basement out.

While my wine and brew are sitting out in the open of the basement they are close to the heat duct, which does not heat up too much. The Washer & Dryer are there as well. My thought was that when running the dryer and a quick increase in temp all the blankets act as a barrier to keep the primary from being effected.
The same happens in reverse when it is fermenting, I want to keep the heat in and not have it exposed to the sudden drop in temp that we get here in the great white northeast.

 

[jswordy]

Hmmm, social science, eh?

“[F]or a social theorist ignorance is more excusable than vagueness. Other investigators can easily show I am wrong if I am sufficiently precise. They will have much more difficulty showing by investigation what, precisely, I mean if I am vague. I hope not to be forced to weasel out with 'But I didn’t really mean that.' Social theorists should prefer to be wrong rather than misunderstood. Being misunderstood shows sloppy theoretical work.”
― Arthur L. Stinchcombe

Your blanket rational seems within the realm of possibility to me. Did you notice how you switched from "beer" to "wine" in your earlier post? I'm of the opinion it was intentional.

 

[BernardSmith]

Leaving aside your explanation for your use of blankets, which I have to admit does make sense (although I guess because I live not too far from you and am subject to the same sudden temperature changes (minus 6 yesterday to what feels like about 30 today)... and my basement seems to be at a fairly constant 60 plus (the section with the furnace is walled off... ) my kind of sociology does not in fact deal with the obvious in any obvious ways.. or rather it absolutely embraces the obvious and asks us to look at what we take for granted and at what is rather invisible precisely because it is taken for granted - and the example I often use is this:
There is a kind of "rule" in our culture that says that you do not walk through two people who are "together" . You walk around them. Agreed? And we all . - most of us - appear to follow that "rule". My kind of sociology asks how do we determine that any two (or more) strangers we come across in the street are in fact "together" such that we are pretty confident we are following the rule, and such that when for one reason or another we may not follow that rule we are (at least in Britain) likely to acknowledge our failure with an "excuse me" or some such... The exploration/investigation of those kinds of questions are not in fact "trivial" - they point to how we in fact make sense of the world we find ourselves in and that kind of sociology is called ethno-methodology (the practices and methods people use in going about their everyday lives)... my own particular interest is in what is called medical sociology and my research was in how family doctors (in Scotland) determined whether they could treat a patient themselves or needed to send the patient to a specialist (a consultant). The problem for the local family doctor is if she or he sends every patient to a specialist then the consultants view that doctor as incompetent and if the family doctor fails to have the patient who really needs to be seen by a specialist then again, the doctor highlights their incompetence so how do they "manage" a presentation of themselves as competent given the uncertainties they face every day... So... not so obvious and yet THAT is something that every "competent" doctor manages...

 

[jswordy]

^^^ And this kinda stuff is what drives Bernard and Elmer to DRINK!

Boy, I'd like to be fly on the wall if you two ever get together with a few bottles!

 

[BernardSmith]

^^^ And this kinda stuff is what drives Bernard and Elmer to DRINK!

Boy, I'd like to be fly on the wall if you two ever get together with a few bottles!

Not at all.. this is what drives me to wine making.... and brewing

 

[petey_c]

Elmer for future ref. you can also use a water heater blanket to wrap the primary. That should keep the temps a little more stable. I've also heard people using fish tank heaters to keep the beer temps up. If you're only brewing in 5 gal batches, it shouldn't be a big deal. Or, the ever popular brew belt...

 

[petey_c]

Bernard, I experienced just the opposite. I pitched the yeast at 67°. (Pinot Gris) During fermentation it rose to 73°. Now it's dropped down to 63°. No noticeable change in brew room (laundry room) temps.

 

[petey_c]

Elmer, just another observation. I usually leave the grain bag a little looser and give the wort a stir every 10 minutes or so. I think it allows for better dispersal of the sugars in the grain. Sorry, no scientific evidence to back this up.

 

[BernardSmith]

I also don't tie my grain bag - basically just allow it to line the inside of my kettle and so I know the grains are thoroughly soaked in the mash. I think the basic idea is less like that you are making tea and more like you are making a porridge. my understanding is that there is in fact a sweet spot between the amount of water in which the grains are soaked and the volume of grains being mashed, and (not a chemist) that that sweet spot has to do with the ability of the enzymes extracted by the water to convert the starches in the grain. If there is a tightly wadded ball of grain then the enzymes are not able to have any impact on those starches... On the other hand if the volume of liquid is too great for the quantity of grain then that level of dilution inhibits the ability of the enzymes to connect to the starch molecules. Not certain but I think that that sweet spot lies around 1.25 - 1.33 qts : lb

 

[Elmer]

Elmer, just another observation. I usually leave the grain bag a little looser and give the wort a sit every 10 minutes or so. I think it allows for better dispersal of the sugars in the grain. Sorry, no scientific evidence to back this up.

That is a great advice. I think I had that tied way too tight.
I did squeeze that sucker really well before tossing it.
I think next boil I will leave it loose.

 

[petey_c]

If you have a garden spent grains make great fertilizer. You can make bread or biscuits. If you have a dog you can make tasty dog treats (no hops though).
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/spent-grain-make-your-best-friend-cookies-87097/
Since you usually remove the grains before the boil, this shouldn't be an issue.