Topic: Fermentation
Racking Question
MEMBERS ONLYRacking beer from your stainless conical to a PET secondary fermenter is a great way to free up your stainless fermenter. If you have yeast in the cone or trub, I would suggest either clearing the bottom and moving all of the beer to your All Rounder, or transferring out of the racking valve if
Yeast Nutrition: Feed your yeast to ensure success
FREEYeast nutrients may not always be needed. Learn what they are made from, when you should add them, and why, in certain situations, they are highly recommended.
Maximizing Your Pressure-Rated Conical
FREEThanks for the question from down under, Terry! Although the fermenter you describe is pressure rated and has a conical bottom, you can use it as you normally do with your carboys.
Biotransformation
MEMBERS ONLYAs a hop chemist, it breaks my heart and wounds my ego slightly to admit that when it comes to fermentation, yeast are the empresses of the kingdom. In Tarot and perhaps in a fantastical life imagined of long ago, the empress card signifies abundance, the senses, birth, fruition. The mother of all, taking in,
Always Question Your Instruments: II
MEMBERS ONLYIf fermentation is truly complete, what you are seeing in your airlock is most likely the signs of carbon dioxide in the beer equilibrating with the environmental conditions of temperature and pressure. While it may seem that freshly fermented beer should already be in equilibrium with the environment, it’s probably not because carbon dioxide is
Always Question Your Instruments: I
MEMBERS ONLYMy column usually lacks a theme within a single issue and my answers tend to be long, but this short answer is going to contribute to a theme in this issue about trust, as in don’t blindly trust what your instruments are telling you. To recap your question, your measured wort temperature quickly jumped to
The Impact of Fermentation on Aroma
FREEIn the “Mail” of the December 2019 issue of BYO, the question was asked “Does fermentation really strip hop volatiles?” This question piqued my interest as a homebrewer and analytical chemist. The
A Walk on the Wild Side
MEMBERS ONLYYears ago, while I was serving as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, West Africa, I loved ending my day with a drink or two of whatever local beverage that might be available in town. In my community, located in the rainforests of the hinterlands, that beverage was palm wine. There were two different
A Deep Dive Into The Dynamics of Glycol Chillers
MEMBERS ONLYYour question brings up several interesting points that could be expanded into deep dives into topics that most homebrewers would not find very useful, so I will avoid spending too much time crawling down these rabbit holes. However, it does help understand this topic by first reviewing how refrigeration works. The modern human interacts with
Fermenter Choices
FREEAs a homebrewer, the selection of different fermenters is pretty astounding. Make sure you choose wisely.
Spontaneous Fermentations: Tips from the Pros
MEMBERS ONLYWild beers can be fermented a couple of ways —from pitching cultured yeast/bacteria or leaving the wort exposed and allowing it to ferment spontaneously, as Belgian lambic brewers do. While riskier, spontaneous fermentations result in some of the most unique and complex flavors known to brewers. In this issue, two pro brewers share advice for
Fermenting Lemon Juice
MEMBERS ONLYIt seems that people, past and present, have accidentally or intentionally fermented just about everything. The easy way to categorize alcoholic beverages is by raw material; beer is made from grains, wine is made from fruit, and mead is made from honey. One commonality with all of these beverages is that the starting point (brewer’s