1st BIAB in the Bucket - Questions

[clapping] Did you repitch as well as raise the temperature? I use a laser thermometer as well although I ordered myself a Tilt thermometer/ hydrometer combo.

Speaking of mill gaps did you guys read/see that Larsblog post about Russian Oven beer. The guy in that used a sausage grinder for his grains.

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No @squeegeethree I figured I’d try CPR on it one more time before re-pitching.

I talked to a local brewer who was familiar with Kviek farmhouse yeasts. He said he’s seen this before and suggested the heat pad. He said some of these strains will stall with OG’s above 50. He even guessed correctly where it was stuck (in the 30’s). He said it will sometime take a temp in the 90’s to wake it up. So I swirled the bucket a little to suspend some of the yeast off the bottom, put it on the heat pad, and voila. Well it’s awake and I’m seeing a very active stream of airlock activity. I have high hopes.

I’ve read up on harvesting the yeast and am looking forward to learning that process.

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Great! Good to hear. You don’t learn much from an easy brew; you can learn a bunch from a difficult brew.
Harvesting yeast is pretty dang easy. For the love of God don’t wash yeast! :joy:

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Now I read were you were going tom use distilled water for yeast? Don’t do that… Not much molecular make up, and the water will penetrate the walls of the yeast… won’t be good for the yeast… Use regular tap water… Sneezles61

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I had planned to use the canned wort concentrate Propper Starter. It calls for distilled water. But, doesn’t look like I’ll need it. Had I made a starter with DME I wouldn’t have used distilled water.

So far she’s still active. I plan on checking the SG Thursday or Friday.

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@voodoo_donut ok I’ll bite. What’s the hidden message here?

I spoke with the production manager at OYL about the stall and how I recovered it. He said that it should be ok and that the Hothead performs best at 90-95F. I’ve been able to keep it at that range and it’s been doing well. It’s slowed down a bit and I plan to check the SG and move it to the secondary in the next day or two.
I’m really looking forward to trying this beer. From there I’ll look at what change(s) and start planning another BIAB.

Keep it simple. Leave just enough beer on the yeast to swirl it up. Pour it in a sanitized container like a mason jar. Cap it loosely and store in the fridge. When you’re ready to pitch decide if you need a starter or not.

Better yet, time a brew day for the same day you rack a beer off the yeast. Pour off half the cake as described above and pour your newly made wort in on top of the other half.

See…Simple!

If you want to know more about yeast washing or rinsing a quick google will keep you occupied until your eyes glaze over. It’s a waste of time to do and may actually reduce the amount of viable yeast you have to work with.

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No hidden message: It’s just that too often I think homebrewers, who largely are pretty intelligent folk, tend to overthink things and complicate what should be a fun relaxing hobby.

Harvesting yeast is a great way to save some cash and have a ready source of yeast ready to go on a days(or two days)notice.
Pretty straightforward: after beer is transferred off the yeast cake for packaging, swirl the fermenter, then pour the resuspended slurry into 2 sanitized mason jars, and fill about 60-70%, leaving some headroom for expansion. They will settle out leaving a layer of beer on top. Cover with foil and an elastic band around the lid(again allows for some C02 expansion). Store in fridge until needed.
I almost always do a shaken not stirred starter/vitality starter and pitch the whole thing at high kraeusen.
Much better results with quick take off of fermentation, compared with pitching stirplated cold crashed, decanted stinky giant starters full of dormant or traumatized yeast.

Some confusion as to washing vs rinsing:
Yeast Washing & Yeast Rinsing: What's the Difference? - American Homebrewers Association

Rinsing yeast is ok at our level and probably not harmful, but I feel it is an unnecessary step…Some here on the forum rinse yeast…
Washing yeast, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated and of dubious benefit at the homebrew level. You have to lower the pH to @2 with food grade phosphoric acid. Primarily to reduce the propagation of small amounts of unwanted bacteria in a yeast culture, but best practices of good sanitation make this largely or completely unnecessary.(IMHO)

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I have 8 oz mason jars that I store Starsan in and then dump and fill with yeast after spraying the edges of the threads with Starsan as well. Easy. When I have a yeast that performs better fresher (an opinion for something like London Ale III) I will make a starter pour 8 oz of starter into the mason jar and pitch the rest. Then I will repeat that the next time using the 8oz as the seed.

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True that.

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Kind of strayed off topic with yeast but… I also just swirl the fermenter and pour some slurry in a mason jar then stick it in the fridge and leave the lid just a little loose. My starters are usually a gallon to be split up. I don’t calculate how many billion yeast cells I need. One quart of active starter from the slurry per five gallons with aeration always works and I like to brew big beers.

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Well, I’m at my wits end. 20 days in the primary and the gravity is still at 30. No, I didn’t re-pitch new yeast (probably a mistake). It seemed like it was doing very well after warming the bucket, but after another 5-6 days all airlock activity stopped (again). Today I went ahead and racked it to the secondary carboy to see what happens. Yes, I have activity after racking (kind of expected). I’m going to leave it in the carboy for 7-10 days and I’ll see where I’m at.

Tasting and smelling doesn’t give any indication, but my wife (who has a better nose) said it had a fruity smell and bitter taste (could be the hops with an IBU of 47). Taking my wife’s smell and taste into account, I believe that this points again to the yeast and/or fermentation process (temperature?). Lesson learned is to use a starter in the future. I think I’ll take a step back and go with a known all grain recipe, or recipe kit, on my next batch. That way I will take the recipe out of the equation and focus on process.

I did harvest the yeast and have it resting in a gallon mason jar for now.

I’ve spent the day going over in my head and brew notes trying to determine what went wrong. Here’s my post-mortem notes;

  1. Yeast - didn’t do a starter. Yeast was dated 3/2019 and I pitched in early May. Was the cell count sufficient? Started would have increased the cell count and possibly solved the problem.
  2. Temperature - I started the fermentation at 88F when I pitched the yeast. After a day or two the fermentation temp settled around 78F (bucket temp on the sticker read 74F). This was on the low end of the Omega Hothead Ale yeast. According to the OYL production manager stated that the Hothead works best at 90F. Need to find a warmer location when using Hothead yeast.
  3. Recipe - my first attempt at a recipe. This still looks like chocolate milk (see mill setting).
  4. Mill Setting - My local shop used a .070 setting and it’s not clear to me from talking to them if this is accurate on their mill. Forum recommended ~.030 setting for BIAB. Need to use grain crushed at .030 setting in the future?
  5. Sanitation - Cleaned with Easy Clean and sanitized with Star San. I have went back and cleaned/sanitized with a bleach solution all of my stuff.

I might have missed it but what are you using to take gravity readings?

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And what temp did you mash at

I wouldn’t play with it anymore. Just bottle it and drink them. You could have made a starter. I don’t think your fermentation temp was a problem. I’m still thinking aeration. That’s allot of Cara pils like 20%. Did you ever rack it to a secondary ? Why didn’t you add more yeast?

Sorry if you already answered these questions but it’s a long thread and I’m to lazy to go back and read it

For gravity readings I am using a standard hydrometer. I broke my original one and purchased a new hydrometer just before starting this batch. Just FYI my OG was 54 at ~88F and today is 30 at 85F (has been stuck in the 30-32 range for over a week). Yes I should have re-pitched, but after raising the temp it took off again. My bad.

It could be aeration of the wort. I put the lid on the bucket and sloshed it back and forth. It appeared aerated with bubbles on the top of the wort.

I mashed in at 155-160F according to my notes. Recipe called for 152F mash temperature with a strike temp of 170F. I also did a mash out for ~15 mins a 170F.

And for FYI, I did not make a starter for the Hothead yeast. I let the yeast set at room temp for ~3-4 hours and pitched the slurry directly into the wort at 88F.

I’m going to let it sit in the secondary carboy for 7-10 days and then I’ll check the gravity again. If it hasn’t made any progress, I’ll evaluate the taste and smell before making a decision to bottle. I’m concerned that once bottled I’ll be dealing with bottle bombs if what yeast is left decides to wake up in the bottle.

As far as my next venture, I plan to start with a proven recipe - not one I made. Next, I’m going to complete a good cleaning/sanitization of my equipment. I’ll need to review temperature control based upon the yeast used. Then I’ll make a second pass at it. This should eliminate most everything except the process.

This is what I would do. I’d make a bit of wort maybe a gallon pitch another package of yeast to it and when it’s active add it to the Stuck beer. It’s not the recipe by the way. An under pitch will still ferment but if you under pitch you need to aerate the heck out of it.

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