re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

some of you may remember my hoptree discovery

The area where I found it is in a pine plantation which was scheduled for thinning and possible herbicide and understory burning. Needless to say, this would be bad for the hoptree.

So, I decided to try to transplant some. I dug up a few and planted them in my yard, and sent some to Zappa. Mine were doing really well for a while then the late summer heat and drought killed them, or so I thought. Turns out they came back up from the roots this year. Before I had noticed them coming back, I went and dug up a few more to transplant to try my luck again, and so far so good with those as well.

In addition to transplanting, I had collected seeds. I planted several, and sent a bag of them to Zappa also. Neither of us saw any results from trying to sprout them, and mine were quickly forgotten, and the container I put them in left behind the hose reel box.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed some weeds growing in the box, and when I looked closer, I saw there are some clover looking weeds, a bunch of winged elm seedlings coming up, and two rows of evenly spaced seedling spouts with the unmistakable trifoliate leaves

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I'm no expert, but I would try leaving about an inch of beer over the yeast cake when you keg, then give it a good swirl to mix things up again, and pour some into sanitized mason jars, seal it up and put it in the fridge. Then build a starter with it next time you want to use it.

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I will be dry hopping this beer, do i need to "wash" the yeast? If so, how does one wash yeast? Also, how much should i gather? Was thinking of getting some of those large mason jars, and putting an airlock in the lid

How do ya'll keep the fermenters at the right temperature in the summer time?

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How do ya'll keep the fermenters at the right temperature in the summer time?

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I use a chest freezer with a Johnson temperature controller.

However, there are options to go cheaper. You can use, what is called a swamp cooler.

My first ferm temp control chamber was a swamp cooler using an igloo cube ice chest (i think it was 40 qt? maybe bigger). I took a drimmel tool and cut a hole for the carboy neck to poke through the lid (though this is probably unnecessary). I would then take tap water, and fill the cooler about half way. I then place my carboy in the cooler. The temperature of the water will moderate the fermentation temps. To get teh water cooler, i'd freeze a few water bottles and place 2 or 3 in the cooler with the carboy. I would rotate 1 or 2 out every couple days to keep my temps consistent. I used a floating thermometer to measure the cooler water temps and assumed those temps were close enough to my wort ferment temps.

Dry hop for first IPA of 2016: 2 oz centennial 1 oz Columbus 3 oz mosaic. It'll get the same in the keg in 3 days :)

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on't you have to streak the sample to seperate out individual yeasts/bacteria?

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Yes. That's what I did here however I am seriously out of practice. It's been a long time since I've streaked agar plate for isolating microbes.

With that said I started this project because my goal is to produce a beer/wine for spirits that contain as much of the local terroir as possible.

I harvested the microbes from two locations, blueberries and wild blackberries. Now I'm just trying to isolate each individual microbe. My objective is to select a yeasts that is judged to produce the following:

1. Brown sugar based fermented wort (SG 1.060) for a rum base. Needs to be somewhat alcohol tolerant but most importantly produce fruity esters (banana, pineapple, etc.).

2. Malted barley and cane sugar wort (SG 1.080) for a neutral spirit (vodka, gin, etc.) that has very low ester production and very high ethanol tolerance.

3. Malted barley wort (SG 1.040) for a whiskey (bourbons and single malts) that has pleasant ester production and moderate ethanol tolerance.

As I mentioned earlier I somewhat encourage by the color of the colonies. White is is typically good for Saccharomyces. However I'm concerned about the morphology.

I was just posting my pick in this thread hoping that someone has had more experience with capturing wild yeast and identifying colonies.

BTW, the picture below...within that red circle, I'm very confident that that is one colony that grew out of one cell. Unfortunately it seems like I've only captured one species. I was expecting more.

I probably have to start over...bummer.

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You have to request membership to post there, but it really is one of the best wild yeast/bacteria information hubs out there.

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Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

I thought about pulling a sample from mine, it's been 3 months since the last one, but then I got distracted. I probably won't mess with it again until September. By then it will be 18 months old, and hopefully ready to keg.

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Does it usually take longer for the Brett to shine through? Now that i've tasted it, i want to keg that bad boy...but i'll wait.

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I have no idea. I've realized that I can follow the instructions of others and make a sour but I really have no idea what's going on with it, biologically and chemically speaking.

I just know mine tasted like crap for a long time, and at 12 months or so it finally started tasting like it would be something decent.

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I just know mine tasted like crap for a long time, and at 12 months or so it finally started tasting like it would be something decent.

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Literally like crap? My first batch of golden sour had a bit of fecal smell to it for the first few months, but I think it may be turning a corner. I debated pouring the whole thing, but figured a beer designed for 12-18 months might hit some rough patches along the way...