Beginner brew advice

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

I've bottled a beer with a fresh hop pellet dropped in it before, and haven't had that "grassy" taste people complain about. And I agree - it's good enough for me, so eh?

[HoboSpit Member Find all posts View Profile Close HoboSpit]

I should strain my hops, but I never do. I prefer to add my hops straight to the boil (no bag). I've never seen a commercial brewery using bags or hop-spiders in the boil.

From there it goes with wort and all into the No-chill cube where it settles nicely at the bottom, but going from cube to fermenter some does make it into the FV but Im ok with that.

Then, since I do "beer-on-beer" it also makes it into the next brew when I pour fresh wort on the old yeast .... touch wood, it all worked out well for me and so far with no weird grassy notes detected.


PS:Like I've also said many times before, I'M the one drinking my brews so IM happy with every procedure I follow ... If I was brewing for someone else, I might change a few things

I've bottled a beer with a fresh hop pellet dropped in it before, and haven't had that "grassy" taste people complain about. And I agree - it's good enough for me, so eh?

Very interesting guys, thanks! I've heard that using hops at flameout is usually wasteful and you should stick to during the boil, and then rather dry hop for aroma instead of flameout. Any truth to this?

Also on another note, last night I brewed my Machiato stout which I'm very excited about (https://www.diybeer.com/au/recipe/ma...ato-stout.html) that I got through Beerlab. However the kit that they (Beerlab) supply comes with everything but the 11g Lallemand Nottingham yeast (I didn't notice this when I initially got it). So I rehydrated the 7g Coopers yeast that came with the can and pitched it. It's been 24 hours and I'm still not seeing any bubbler activity (I know this isn't the only indication of fermentation, but I don't want to pop the lid of the fermenter open to check). I've also checked the back of the yeast sachet and according to the codes supplied on the coopers website the yeast was packaged in March of 2018. Did I perhaps pitch dead yeast? Or should I just relax and wait?

[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

It actually looks good.
My first thought was. Man canned stout will be awful but in the link they say you need to add lactose and chocolate malt. With that in there it should be ok. On the the yeast pack though. It's always good to give it a bit more time. But after 48h it's ost likely a dud. And unfortunately it's not very uncommon for these kit yeasts. You will notice that when you buy yeast at the brew shop it's always stored inside the fridge. This packet travelled the seas, roads and storage areas on top of the can in all conditions. So it could be off. And being almost 2 years old I would say if you can get some better yeast.
In fact when doing a kit. Just buy some yeast 2. It's the 1st thing you can do to improve it

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[HoboSpit Member Find all posts View Profile Close HoboSpit]

It actually looks good.
My first thought was. Man canned stout will be awful but in the link they say you need to add lactose and chocolate malt. With that in there it should be ok. On the the yeast pack though. It's always good to give it a bit more time. But after 48h it's ost likely a dud. And unfortunately it's not very uncommon for these kit yeasts. You will notice that when you buy yeast at the brew shop it's always stored inside the fridge. This packet travelled the seas, roads and storage areas on top of the can in all conditions. So it could be off. And being almost 2 years old I would say if you can get some better yeast.
In fact when doing a kit. Just buy some yeast 2. It's the 1st thing you can do to improve it

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Yeah there's a few extras to the kit that should hopefully take it up a notch. The chocolate grains looked really good.
That's exactly what I was worried about. I'm a bit bummed as I heard that often the coopers yeast was pretty alright, and was hopeful that all might still go well if I rehydrated it to give it a head start.
But I guess there's not much you can do if it's old and stored badly.

It might be quite a while until I can get my hands on more yeast though as I'm waiting on NFP to get back to me on my order (I'm sure they're currently busier than they've ever been). Will my wort be fine just sitting in the fermenter for days?

Also, any opinion on what yeast would go well with this Machiato Stout? NFP doesn't stock Lallemand Nottingham. (Here's a pic of their yeasts).

NFP Yeast.JPG

[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

The plain English ale should do but in your case I'd hope it starts fermenting with the coopers. Waiting days is risky. It's done regularly with sealed cubes if you no chill. But you have a semi sealed fermenter so not great, but if you keep the lid closed and the airlock in it could last. I don't know what the other guys think. Maybe this is a good test of your sanitization practices. Or maybe chill the whole thing till you can get yeast.

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[HoboSpit Member Find all posts View Profile Close HoboSpit]

The plain English ale should do but in your case I'd hope it starts fermenting with the coopers. Waiting days is risky. It's done regularly with sealed cubes if you no chill. But you have a semi sealed fermenter so not great, but if you keep the lid closed and the airlock in it could last. I don't know what the other guys think. Maybe this is a good test of your sanitization practices. Or maybe chill the whole thing till you can get yeast.

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Unfortunately I have no way of chilling the whole fermenter. Currently it's sitting at a perfect 20°. I feel quite confident in my sanitization, but definitely not confident enough to risk a whole batch of stout that I was very excited for . Not sure if I should risk taking a gravity reading just in case it somehow introduces something foreign in the tap. Waiting on my order for now, but in the meantime if anyone even has a sachet of anchor yeast and is near Roodepoort I would be in their debt.

I'm not too optimistic about the coopers yeast honestly. When I rehydrated it, it didn't get as creamy as expected after resting for 20 minutes. And most of it sunk to the bottom of the glass within the first minute, but it's the only yeast I had.

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Did you do an airlock test to check for FV leaks?
What type of FV do you have?
If it a bucket there shouldn't be any harm in lifting the lid slightly and having a peak

Only other advise would be RDWHAHB

[HoboSpit Member Find all posts View Profile Close HoboSpit]

Did you do an airlock test to check for FV leaks?
What type of FV do you have?
If it a bucket there shouldn't be any harm in lifting the lid slightly and having a peak

Only other advise would be RDWHAHB

What sort of airlock test would you recommend? I've double checked a few times by pushing down on the lid and when I do this I can see the level of liquid in my bubbler adjust and eventually bubble due to the oxygen being pushed out.
I have a 23 Litre bucket fermenter with a spigot/tap at the bottom. If I peek in the fermenter and there's no krausen, I'm going to be even more stressed that I might have opened it up to bacteria .

Haha I thought I might receive some RDWHAHB advice! Perhaps I stress too much hahaha. But the last brew I did took off within 3 hours and it sounded like my lounge was going to fly away with all the bubbles.

I've managed to find a store in my area that has lager yeast available today. But I have no way to reliably ferment at or below 15° so I guess that's out the window as well

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

^ The test is at about 6min in, but do watch it all if you like .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WMc0xDbEbo

[HoboSpit Member Find all posts View Profile Close HoboSpit]

^ The test is at about 6min in, but do watch it all if you like .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WMc0xDbEbo

Thanks for that! I watched the whole thing. Never thought of the airlock liquid being sucked down when drawing from the spigot. I'll be aware of that next time .

So I ran through the tests and I definitely don't have a leak. Popped the lid and there was no krausen and no signs of any krausen having been there prior.

I managed to get in contact with Darren from BrewKegTap and bought a liquid stout yeast from him (https://www.brewkegtap.co.za/online-...ity-p195293696) Apparently it's from the same culture as Guinness.

Anyone have any experience with Liquid Culture before? (https://liquidculture.co.za/strains/stout_strains).

I re-sanitized everything and pitched the yeast. Never used liquid yeast before so lets see how it goes.
Hoping my wort is still viable!

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Darren is a top bloke and Liquid Culture he distributes is excellent. Get some kveik, Voss for sure whilst you're buying, checkout top cropping save yourself some cash going forward

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[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

Only hot oslo and ragnarok left. I have some en route. I'm building quite a bank over here. 3 kveiks.

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[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Ragnorok is voss, oslo is okay for pseudo pilsners, great to have in your arsenal

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[jannieverjaar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jannieverjaar]

I also have midtbust. Not a great strain to be honest but man its quick. And its really only distinguishable in side by sides from a similar beer with US05. Hoping ragnarok/voss and Oslo are awesome

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[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Won't be disappointed, run Oslo at 25c for 10 days for a lagerlike ferment. You can pitch Voss at 39c if you want, I run it at 30C for 3 days and then leave for 2 more to clean. Its great [emoji106]

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