8 Mar
2005
8 Mar
'05
10 a.m.
Jim,
--- j.voosen(a)comcast.net wrote:
Last Saturday I picked up a Dopplebock extract kit
from Northern
which came with a yeast smack pack. I see on the new smack packs you
can activate the yeast 1 - 3 hours before brewing. Any advantage or
disadvantage to activate the night before you are going to brew??
When pitching the yeast, I heard it was better to have the wort
temperature pretty close to the temperature of the yeast. How
important is this?
You should always make a starter wort -- 1/4lb DME (dry malt extract) +
1 qt water (after boiling, so add a little more than 1 qt prior to
boiling). An easy way to do this is to set aside a couple hours on an
evening or weekend, and boil up a couple gallons of wort (15 minutes of
boil time is plenty), then pour into canning jars, and can for another
15 minutes. Pull out of hot water to cool on cooling rack -- careful,
it's really hot!
Now anytime you go to brew, about 3 days before brewing, just sterilize
a 1/2 gallon glass bottle (apple juice bottles or similar work fine),
pour in your sterile wort from mason jar (be sure to wipe the outside
of mason jar with sterilizer, and/or flame the edge you'll be pouring
over. if you feel like it, you can smack the pack before doing all the
sterilizing, then shake the package well, cut with sterilized scissors
or knife and pour into mini-fermenter. Just add a drilled, sterilized
rubber stopper (I think they are no. 8's) and a sterilized airlock.
Starters should be at or just past high krauesen (sp?) which is when
the foam has risen in the jar, then started to fall again, but not
completely gone, though we frequently build up starters a week in
advance.
Temperature of pitched starter should be as close to the temperature of
the wort, which should be as close to the temperature of the
fermentation.
When lagering, should I wait until the fermentation
activity starts
to slow before cooling the beer down. Is it better to wait until I
rack it over the the secondary and then put it in the refrig for a
couple of weeks? Our basement is in the upper 50's - is this OK or
should I lager it in a refrig at cooler temps?
For a Doppelbock, I'd ferment it in the basement in the 50's and lager
as close to 34F as possible.
You _definitely_ want to wait until fermentation subsides -- I remember
waiting until the airlock only bubbled once/minute, but I don't have
the kind of time management for that anymore, so I just wait until the
weekend after it's done fermenting to transfer to secondary. Not
waiting can produce seriously bad results. Waiting too long has minimal
negative effects -- possible yeast autolyzation (sp?), but that would
take several weeks or longer to produce.
Andrew
Thanks in advance.
Jim Voosen
Stillwater, Mn