I reckon you will get there with some warm love
yesterdays heat should have helped a bitā¦ oof it was a warm one! (not so much todayā¦)
This is not going well. Had it at 40 degrees for a few days without any activity. Got a new sachet of yeast and made a starter. Racked the beer into a second fermenter and pitched the yeast while active.
Nothing.
Iām running out of options. Thinking I might give it a(nother) stir and rack it through some sort of filter to get some oxygen into it - risky though, if the yeast donāt respond to the additional oxygen then Iāve got a shit beer on my hands (heck, I might already be there.)
Then again if Iāve tried everything to get it going without any success then I might as well just bottle it and hope for the best.
Could be youāve got a bunch of unfermentables in there, a higher mash temp might have caused that and extra yeast wonāt help if it canāt cleave those bigger sugars.
Itās still at 1.024?
Yep
my last two brews have suffered from infection. the second one stung as i spent a heap of time cleaning and sterilising literally everything used in the process! taking a bit of time to have a think about it all and will have another crack soon! fun timesā¦
Damn, what were the symptoms - off flavours or over carbonation?
Iāve got an APA brewing at the moment. Used some Bluestone āMichiganā liquid yeast and it took aaages to start fermenting. Now itās happily bubbling away so I chucked in some hops tonight because I heard somewhere that dry hopping while fermentation is active is the best way to do it. YMMV.
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Ah fuck Luke ā thatās not good. Whatās the infection though? Off flavours? What are you doing to fix it?
Ahhh, Bluestone Yeastsā¦ I have had my battles with them and a few of the people in the club are experiencing the same, so much so that I wonāt be using or recommending them to anyone. I had one batch not kick off fermentation at all and had to add some dry yeast 1.5 weeks after. The NZ Pilsner I ended up with is probably one of the worst beers I have made.
Dry hopping, I have never added mine during active fermentation as I donāt want the hops to be in there for too long as Iād want to avoid the grassy flavours. However itās a widely used method so who knows!
I havenāt really brewed anything lately. I do have a tasty Vienna Lager on tap and that shit NZ Pilsner, I am trying to work out what to brew next and decided to try Chat GPT to develop a recipe. What it spat out was okay for the malt bill but the hop schedule was all over the place.
I picked and processed 3kg of plums during the summer that I have vacuum sealed and froze, I am wanting to use that in a beer in some way, I have thought of a plum stout, a plum wheat beer or a saisonā¦ still havenāt landed anywhere though.
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Thatās interesting, second time Iāve used it - first was a Brown Ale with London yeast, didnāt have any problems.
Iāll report back on the dry hopping results.
Plum stout sounds interesting, saison with plums was my first thought.
White, almost mould looking scum floating on top in the fermenter. The second time round I thought it may have been normal and just let it go a bit longer but nothing really happened. Both havenāt gotten past the fermenter before Iāve turfed it and Iām not game to taste it haha. Iām using FWK and no different to the first two brews I laid down which were successful.
Iāve pretty much pulled EVERYTHING apart, full clean and sanitise, including the bag of FWK and yeast sachet. Thatās the frustrating part as I donāt think Iāve missed anything. Iāve even used a new bottle of star san.
Itās put a little dent in my motivation but Iāll keep at it. Luckily I just had a keg filled at the local to keep me going while I work it out.
Hmmmā¦couple of thoughts. Often the krausen compacts following active fermentation and creates a foamy blanket on top of the beer. I like it when this happens because I feel it gives it a layer of insulation which helps with keeping the temperature stable as well as keeping any oxygen away from the beer.
If it is mould, it can be carefully skimmed off without adversely affecting the beer. Same applies if itās just leftover krausen as above.
In both situations you could rack the beer into a secondary fermenter being careful not to let the white stuff in. Thatās assuming your fermenter has an outlet near the base and you have a second fermenter. (Itās a good idea to have a second fermenter anyway when things like this occur.)
If I were you Iād still go through the process and see what the outcome is. Even if itās terrible at least you might be able to pinpoint the problem based on the off-flavours itās presenting.
Report back with your findings.
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Thanks mate.
I havenāt brewed in a while unfortunately as weekends have been tied up building the woodfire oven which is coming close to being done. Here are some recent beers though.
I had a Vienna Lager from Fox Friday which was really good so I tried my hand at this style. It came out well, nice and toasty malt and it finished up quite clear.
Then a pilsner using NZ hopsā¦ this one wasnāt amazing but the keg is now empty so it was still a winner. Iād like to revisit this, but try a different combo of hops as what I used didnāt play nice together in my opinion (Moutere and Wakatu).
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Home brew supply store Grain & Grape in Melbourne is closing down. This is a big loss to the Melbourne (and national) home brewing scene.
There are other home brew suppliers - of course, but G&Gās range and convenience really made them the primary shop for home brewers.
Surprised nobody is taking the reins, but maybe thereās other factors at play.
Iāll probably check out Greensborough Home Brew as an alternative - they might be busy!
Yeah the whole beer industry is not doing well. Increased prices everywhere.
BeerCo and Kegland are my shops of choice if I canāt shop local.
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Huh. Wasnāt familiar with BeerCo and theyāre not far from me (although doesnāt look like they accommodate pick ups.) Will have to check them out.
Yeah, it is a warehouse operation. $9.95 shipping for everything.
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