I will be making wine again after a long hiatus. I have used black and green table grapes earlier and want to now try using fruits and flowers. The apple and mango juices that I see on Alephont's website should be a good start. What yeast and fining agent do you recommend?
On some of my batches, I am getting quite a bit of sediment in the bottles. While not a huge problem, sometimes even when I handle the bottle carefully it comes loose upon opening and creates a slurry. I use bags for dry hopping, and usually move to secondary fermentation. So a few related questions:
1) When is the ideal time to add the Spindasol SB3? While most recipes indicate at bottling, a few say when moving to secondary.
2) What about using the beer fining gelatin available on your site? Should/can this be used in combination with the SB3?
3) Some of the recipes recommend crash cooling. Does this work with all/most beers, or only on certain types?
Perhaps if I use two or three of these in combination, it might be overkill? Any comments or suggestion you have would be appreciated.
1) Best time to add SB3 is at the time of your last dry hop addition and before a cold crash (if you so do). Most active yeast will chug through the introduced Oxygen using some of the hop oils as food and then clump together and drop with additional help from SB3. Even though most active yeast drop by the end of fermentation, there will be enough suspended yeast to carbonate the bottles.
2) Both Gelatin and SB3 attach to positively charged particles in your beer. SB3 only attaches to yeast and some of the malt proteins. Gelatin is more broad spectrum and that way also more efficient at it. However if used a little too much Gelatin can bring down polyphenols, flavonoids and that way stripping some of the malt flavours and colour. That being said, using upto 2 grams gelatin per 20 liter is fine. So Gelatin = more efficient. SB3 = more safe. A combination of both can yield great results.
3) It's established by Brulosophy experiments that cold crashing doesn't help with Chill haze at all. It would though help in combination with fining agents such as SB3 and gelatin to bring down suspended particles before bottling. So yes it depends. If you have floaters in your beer cold crashing will definitely help.
All of the above can be applied. No overkill. Just try to minimize the Gelatin, Keep it under 1 gram per 20 liter if used in combination with SB3.
Hope that helps. I am going to cover Beer fining in detail in my next blog post. I will try to throw in some cool tricks to achieve the clarity you are looking for in your beer.
All the description available online (mostly by AEB group) for Spindasol SB3 describes its usage for sedimentation of yeast and limiting the amount of yeast in filtration. Will it not affect carbonation in bottles negatively? Does it imply that while bottling, we need to use fresh yeast, when Spindasol SB3 is used?
SB3 won't affect active yeast much. Let me explain.
If your beverage has enough sugars (the reason for the yeasts to remain active) the yeast will keep chugging it until their attenuation threshold is reached and then they become dormant and start flocculating. Some yeast however flocculate really slow and need extra help to drop to the bottom. Also even high flocculating varieties take some time to drop out of the liquid completely. SB3 helps you do that in considerably less time. Simply put, SB3 will allow yeasts to finish carbonation and then quickly pull them out of suspension.
SB3 additionally helps to form a compact layer of yeast and other sediment at the bottom of your bottle or keg. That way minimizing the chance of muddling your bottle/keg at the time of pouring/transferring beer from it
I have a question about mash temperature control. I mash in a bag in a steel container and I always have the issue of temperature dropping too much while I let the mash rest, even when the pot is well covered by a plate. This drop can be more than 10 degrees Celsius. I would like to know how to maintain the mash temperature.
I understand maintaining temperature during fermentation needs special equipment, but hoping that's not the case with mashing.
Honestly I suggest using a mash-tun instead and say good bye to the brew bag. There are reasons for that. Brew-bags are functionally inaccurate and involves higher investment in further equipment down the road. Please go through my blog post on mash-tuns vs brewbags. The only way to address the temperature drop issue is by putting the bag in a kettle and transfer the entire thing to a stove. Turn on the stove a few times, while continuously monitoring temperature using a thermometer. However, this is not the perfect solution because of a few reasons.
1. First off, no even distribution of heat so, different pockets of your kettle will be having different temperature. Resulting in uneven enzyme activity and less efficiency.
2. Secondly, wort near the bottom of your kettle will start to caramelize due to excess heat. Also resulting in darker shade of end beer, less fermentable sugar and hence less alcohol conversion.
I hope you will find further information in my aforementioned blog. If any doubts please write back. Also accept my apologies for the delay in reply.
Hi Chinmay,(My apologies for the delayed reply)Thank you for the explanation here and in the blog post. I will consider the mash tun. I just hope they are not too difficult to clean (with the grains getting stuck in the mesh pipe and inside the valve).Thanks!
Unfortunately, not. We also had a difficult time selling the 25 liter glass carboys. It took us over 6 months to clear the first 50 carboys we got designed. We are not planning to sell them after the current stock is cleared.
Having said that I firmly believe Glass carboys are best for brewing anything but for some reason they have fallen out of public favour in recent years. Probably due to misleading marketing to sell made in China plastic equipment.
3 grams, which is more than enough to produce a 20L batch. With Kveik using more yeast is not particularly beneficial unlike other strains of beer yeasts.
Hi Chinmay, I have cracked my glass carboy, and my next brew plan is on the fritz. Are Bisleri 10L cans safe to use as fermenters? With proper seal & airlock of course.. but wanted to know if they're safe to use. Don't want plastic leaching into the beer.. Also, I plan to make a 8 mm hole in the lid, insert the airlock and use a Silicone sealant to close the hole. Will that work?
The PET plastic used for making water carboy is not designed for hosting alcohol in it. According to studies, PET and conglomerate BPA react with light and produce carcinogenic substances. These can readily leech into your beer. Also PET is not completely air proof, as in, it can hold large CO2 particles but will not stop smaller O2 particles from surrounding.
Even though I have seen some people using these cans, its not advisable. This is why, breweries don't supply beer in PET bottles which are much cheaper than glass bottles. Being said that, there are some commercially produced PET plastic cans which are specifically designed for hosting alcohol but for a short period.
There are other food-safe plastic types like HDPE, LDPE, PP, PPCP and ABS, Those can be safely used in brewing.
Greetings, When ordering malt, can one specify whether they want it milled finely or coarsely? I would like to try it a bit finer to see if I could improve mash efficiency. Thanks.
Hi Randall. Definitely. Please put a note in the order as per your preference. However fine crush has a tendency to create mud in the final beer but of course there are ways to tackle that. I will also suggest you to perform a three step mash, as in...- 40°C Acid Rest for 15 minutes. Lower pH (in the range on 5 to 5.4) helps with better amylase enzyme function.- 50°C Protein Rest for 15 minutes. Protein rest helps with gelatinizing malt by breaking down cellulose walls of grain so the enzymes can penetrate deeper and has access to higher amount of starch. - 61°C to 70°C (desired temperature) Saccharification rest for 60 to 90 minutes. The longer you do the better efficiency you get. However, longer rest can also contribute to thinning out the overall mouthfeel of beer.I also suggest you to look into Batch sparging and double decoction.
@Chinmay Nayak Thanks much for the information, but aren't these additional steps and temperatures difficult to achieve using a picnic cooler type mash tun? Does one need a brew kettle capable of mashing?
Also, while I have not looked through all of your kits, why aren't these steps mentioned in many or most of those?
@R. Arnst Hi Randal, thank you for your query! I'm really glad to share the information.As a matter of fact, it's much easier to perform step mashing using cooler mash tuns. Kettles actually aren't reliable with holding accurate temperatures for a longer period, unless rigged with a thermostat with electric heating arm.
Simple Step mash using a mash tun- Add 70°C water to equivalent amount of grains (as in 5 liters of water to 5kg grain) to achieve the first 40°C rest.
- Add 60°C water to equivalent amount of grains to achieve 50°C.
- Add 72°C water to equivalent amount of grains to achieve 65°C.
This way ultimately achieving 3:1 ratio of water to grist. Which is ideal for avoiding stuck sparges.
Water amount can be slightly variable. So basically you can add a little bit of boiling water or cold water to adjust and achieve desired temperature rests. Also when you close the tun lid you are assured that the temperature will hold steady for a very long period. The first two rest temperatures can be +/- 3°C without making any noticeable difference. Mash Kettle Systems
The mash kettle systems are great for those who use brew in a bag method (mashing with a screen and false bottom is based on the same principle so please consider them covered in the discussion), but I have a personal bias against mashing in kettles.
I find them messy and inflexible. Not worth the hefty investment. Also decoctions are not possible to perform unless you use two kettles simultaneously and I happen to have a particular love for decotions. With kettle mashing, the elbow grease is extra unless you go for totally automated systems which cost a fortune. To produce a 20 liter beer batch that investment doesn't make sense unless you have heap loads of money to waste. Frankly, no one has yet provided a counter argument to prove me wrong and I'm honestly waiting for that. Worth mentioning my blog entry on the subject here.
Having worked for 12 years with breweries I have the experience of handling a range of heavy equipment, the same mechanism don't make practical sense when applied to homebrew setting, which all of these "Robo-Kettle" systems try to mimic. I am saying this in spite of being guilty of selling a mash kettle myself but I had to bow down to the popular demand.
Not mentioning this information in Recipes
The reason why we don't mention step mashing or many other tweaks and tricks in recipes is to keep them short, less complicated and approachable for the first time brewers. We are treading on the grey area between homebrewing and homebrewing geekery here. However I like to discuss such subjects in my blog posts every now and then and there is much more in the pipeline.
Also please please please press like on my blogs if you find them useful or bash me up with your harshest criticism, but do participate. I love to talk, listen to opinions, discuss ideas and trade information. As you can probably figure from my excessively long answers. :-)
Making beer in an all-grain recipe, we mash the malted barley in controlled temp of ≈68˚C, to get the best from it.
After this, why boil the wort for a long 60 minutes?
My view is: Boiling the wort at 100˚C+ for 5-10 minutes is fine.., but 60 long minutes may not be required…
Boiling the Hops is understandable and required for the bitterness, and the aroma
So, my point/suggestion is, let’s boil the Hops separately in good water, for 45 mins, and then pour that mix into the wort which is at ≈68˚C.., and then boil this wort+hops mix for just 15 mins.. and add the aroma-Hops in the last 5 mins.
The first and foremost reason to boil after mashing is to get rid of bad microbes and sterilize your wort since species of some bacteria spores can survive for extended time in the mash temperature ranges.
Why not boil hops separately - Hop oils bind with many of the larger chain amino acids and floating debris and sink them to the kettle bottom. These particles otherwise create unnecessary haze and mud in the final product - your beer.
Proper hop bitterness can only be extracted with a longer boil. Believe it or not but it is highly HIGHLY desirable.
Many Abbey style breweries and some farm brewers boil their worts for upwards of 4 hours. Some even boil for 12-16 hours to get hyper caramelization (toffee chocolaty flavours) of the wort. You can argue that using crystal and melano malts can get you the same results. But apparently there are differences. Take for example "Westvleteren XII" - Widely considered the best beer in the world.
Longer boiling also helps you concentrate the wort by getting rid of a lot of water through evaporation. If you make separate batches with first, second and "so on" runnings you can understand the point.
Having said that, there are some Scandinavian - Russian farmhouse styles and south American traditional styles (they use corn) that skip the boiling step and goes directly into cooling and pitching. These styles fall into the "funky" category and involve many separate steps (like mashing with juniper branches) that seem to bring about the overall balance. Interestingly enough many of these styles promote mashing for longer than 3 hours.
Sure I can understand... Brewing beer in indian summer is a pain. I might be spoiling a surprise we have been planning to deliver but please wait untill Monday. We are rolling out some yeast varieties that can handle Indian temperatures quite well and actually flourish in higher temps.
Thanks Chinmay for your answer to my qn1. Here's my qn2:
I intend to home-brew my first all-grains 'only barley + hops' beer in Chennai, India. However, the ambient temperatures are never suitable for the main-fermentation and after-bottling as well. What is the solution then?
I was thinking of a permanent solution to make/order/modify a small refrigerator in which one can control the inner temperature in a wide range of 0 to 25 degC. with a temp gauge display outside, one can easily create the right temperatures and environment for regular home-brewing.. I'm assuming. What's your advice or view please.
The toasty, roasty, sweet, nutty, caramely, coffee or chocolate like flavours we associate beer with come from the kilning and roasting of the grain. You can certainly make a beer (if you like to call it one) out of green malt (as they are popularly known) or at least an alcoholic drink. However it will taste nothing like a beer. It tastes actually like uncooked vegetables but not in a good way. In the kilning process shoots and roots coming out of the grain are removed. If you choose to cook your beer with them, they'll contribute to an overwhelming amount of astringency and some unpleasant bitterness.
Also I suggest not to attempt to germinate grains if your weather is anywhere over 16°C. You can easily get the malting grains tainted with some bad fungus and bacteria, sometimes difficult to see, which can lead to lung infections, botulism or in other ways make you ill. There are also some mycotoxins produced by fungi that can collect in your body tissues and can possibly cause cancer over time.
Looking at the bright side, there are some whiskey styles that prefer green malt to achieve a certain taste/character post distillation.
Allow me to ask basic questions on home brewing. The first one:
- For my 1st try on homebewing beer here in India, I plan to use Indian barley (full natural variety with the husk etc intact). My question is, once the proper double steeping etc is done and each grain is germinated well as required, can I not go ahead and make the wort with this sprouted barley.. instead of having to mild-roast or dry it? I mean the freshly sprouted barley will be most potent and one can extract the most starch - as compared to the roasted grains.
Hi Sibin. We had mentioned in the item description. The airlocks had been out of stock for the past two months due to gov restrictions on imports. Fermenter price was also reduced accordingly. They have just recently arrived and we have listed them with a huge discount if you’d like to have a look.
If you do not want too much sediments in your bottles, you can mix SB3 in some water(boiled and cooled) and pitch it over the resting beer in slow circular trails. There is always a thick layer of CO2 seating on the top of the fermenter post fermentation. It creates an invisible protective layer from air since it's heavier than air. Hence always open/close fermenters slowly at this point, also avoid any sudden movements around it when it's open. That minimizes the chance of creating strong air currents and disturbing CO2 layer in the process.
Also try and keep height of the fall minimal and close the fermenter as soon as you are done pitching it. It is advisable to do this at the time of dry hopping or right after end the of fermentation (this also happens to be the time when you want to cold crash your beer to get rid of excess proteins). Some amount of oxygen will still get introduced but it will be quickly utilized by the yeast.
Also it is important to note that regardless of what you do you will always get some amount of sediments in bottle conditioned beers. Even commercially produced bottle conditioned craft beers come with some sediments. If you leave your bottles undisturbed for 3 weeks after priming, the sediment compacts at the bottom. Also it is advised to refrigerate your beer for at least 48 hours before consuming, that will further help to avoid transfer of sediments in your glass.
The height and diameter are both 33cm. Yes we do ship to Bangalore free of cost. You can also try our chat or email for product related questions. Thanks
Hi Chinmay,
I will be making wine again after a long hiatus. I have used black and green table grapes earlier and want to now try using fruits and flowers. The apple and mango juices that I see on Alephont's website should be a good start. What yeast and fining agent do you recommend?
Greetings,
On some of my batches, I am getting quite a bit of sediment in the bottles. While not a huge problem, sometimes even when I handle the bottle carefully it comes loose upon opening and creates a slurry. I use bags for dry hopping, and usually move to secondary fermentation. So a few related questions:
1) When is the ideal time to add the Spindasol SB3? While most recipes indicate at bottling, a few say when moving to secondary.
2) What about using the beer fining gelatin available on your site? Should/can this be used in combination with the SB3?
3) Some of the recipes recommend crash cooling. Does this work with all/most beers, or only on certain types?
Perhaps if I use two or three of these in combination, it might be overkill? Any comments or suggestion you have would be appreciated.
Thank you much, Randall
Hi Chinmay,
All the description available online (mostly by AEB group) for Spindasol SB3 describes its usage for sedimentation of yeast and limiting the amount of yeast in filtration. Will it not affect carbonation in bottles negatively? Does it imply that while bottling, we need to use fresh yeast, when Spindasol SB3 is used?
Thanks.
Hi Chinmay,
I have a question about mash temperature control. I mash in a bag in a steel container and I always have the issue of temperature dropping too much while I let the mash rest, even when the pot is well covered by a plate. This drop can be more than 10 degrees Celsius. I would like to know how to maintain the mash temperature.
I understand maintaining temperature during fermentation needs special equipment, but hoping that's not the case with mashing.
Thank you.
Hi Chinmay,
Are there any plans to stock smaller glass carboys - 1gallon / 5L?
Hi Chinmay, how many grams of Voss Kveik are there in the packet?
Hi Chinmay, I have cracked my glass carboy, and my next brew plan is on the fritz. Are Bisleri 10L cans safe to use as fermenters? With proper seal & airlock of course.. but wanted to know if they're safe to use. Don't want plastic leaching into the beer.. Also, I plan to make a 8 mm hole in the lid, insert the airlock and use a Silicone sealant to close the hole. Will that work?
Hi Chinmay,
can we recycle kweik as other commercial yeasts ?
Greetings, When ordering malt, can one specify whether they want it milled finely or coarsely? I would like to try it a bit finer to see if I could improve mash efficiency. Thanks.
Thanks Chinmay. Here's my qn 3:
Making beer in an all-grain recipe, we mash the malted barley in controlled temp of ≈68˚C, to get the best from it.
After this, why boil the wort for a long 60 minutes?
My view is: Boiling the wort at 100˚C+ for 5-10 minutes is fine.., but 60 long minutes may not be required…
Boiling the Hops is understandable and required for the bitterness, and the aroma
So, my point/suggestion is, let’s boil the Hops separately in good water, for 45 mins, and then pour that mix into the wort which is at ≈68˚C.., and then boil this wort+hops mix for just 15 mins.. and add the aroma-Hops in the last 5 mins.
Is this doable? What’s your view please?
Sure I can understand... Brewing beer in indian summer is a pain. I might be spoiling a surprise we have been planning to deliver but please wait untill Monday. We are rolling out some yeast varieties that can handle Indian temperatures quite well and actually flourish in higher temps.
Thanks Chinmay for your answer to my qn1. Here's my qn2:
I intend to home-brew my first all-grains 'only barley + hops' beer in Chennai, India. However, the ambient temperatures are never suitable for the main-fermentation and after-bottling as well. What is the solution then?
I was thinking of a permanent solution to make/order/modify a small refrigerator in which one can control the inner temperature in a wide range of 0 to 25 degC. with a temp gauge display outside, one can easily create the right temperatures and environment for regular home-brewing.. I'm assuming. What's your advice or view please.
The toasty, roasty, sweet, nutty, caramely, coffee or chocolate like flavours we associate beer with come from the kilning and roasting of the grain. You can certainly make a beer (if you like to call it one) out of green malt (as they are popularly known) or at least an alcoholic drink. However it will taste nothing like a beer. It tastes actually like uncooked vegetables but not in a good way. In the kilning process shoots and roots coming out of the grain are removed. If you choose to cook your beer with them, they'll contribute to an overwhelming amount of astringency and some unpleasant bitterness.
Also I suggest not to attempt to germinate grains if your weather is anywhere over 16°C. You can easily get the malting grains tainted with some bad fungus and bacteria, sometimes difficult to see, which can lead to lung infections, botulism or in other ways make you ill. There are also some mycotoxins produced by fungi that can collect in your body tissues and can possibly cause cancer over time.
Looking at the bright side, there are some whiskey styles that prefer green malt to achieve a certain taste/character post distillation.
Hello Chinmay
Allow me to ask basic questions on home brewing. The first one:
- For my 1st try on homebewing beer here in India, I plan to use Indian barley (full natural variety with the husk etc intact). My question is, once the proper double steeping etc is done and each grain is germinated well as required, can I not go ahead and make the wort with this sprouted barley.. instead of having to mild-roast or dry it? I mean the freshly sprouted barley will be most potent and one can extract the most starch - as compared to the roasted grains.
Hi Sibin. We had mentioned in the item description. The airlocks had been out of stock for the past two months due to gov restrictions on imports. Fermenter price was also reduced accordingly. They have just recently arrived and we have listed them with a huge discount if you’d like to have a look.
Does the 15L fermenter not come with an airlock? I ordered it assuming that airlock is included seeing the picture.
Hi Randal,
If you do not want too much sediments in your bottles, you can mix SB3 in some water(boiled and cooled) and pitch it over the resting beer in slow circular trails. There is always a thick layer of CO2 seating on the top of the fermenter post fermentation. It creates an invisible protective layer from air since it's heavier than air. Hence always open/close fermenters slowly at this point, also avoid any sudden movements around it when it's open. That minimizes the chance of creating strong air currents and disturbing CO2 layer in the process.
Also try and keep height of the fall minimal and close the fermenter as soon as you are done pitching it. It is advisable to do this at the time of dry hopping or right after end the of fermentation (this also happens to be the time when you want to cold crash your beer to get rid of excess proteins). Some amount of oxygen will still get introduced but it will be quickly utilized by the yeast.
Also it is important to note that regardless of what you do you will always get some amount of sediments in bottle conditioned beers. Even commercially produced bottle conditioned craft beers come with some sediments. If you leave your bottles undisturbed for 3 weeks after priming, the sediment compacts at the bottom. Also it is advised to refrigerate your beer for at least 48 hours before consuming, that will further help to avoid transfer of sediments in your glass.
Hi,
What is the height of 15L Broad Mouth Fermenter? Is the shipping free for Bangalore location?