I brewed today!

Never called an audible? As disciplined as I am, I've done that! Meanwhile, today is brew day for a lagered, noble hopped pale ale - is that just a bit contradictory? Anyway, SWAMBO's wine is coming out of the lagering fridge (it's a damned good Gewurztraminer - French spelling intentional) and my lagered pale ale is going in. Then I have to get the Dortmunder recipe from the Dry Dock Brewery!
 
finally got time to brew my Ozarks Hoppin Red Ale, did all the prep work yesterday bleached, rinsed and set up everything along with filling the HLT with 20 gallons of filtered water, mashing now and this is already orange in the mash, looking good

well it looks like im in trouble with this one, used my starter plus one more dry packet for this 11 gallon batch, ran out of oxygen right when I opened the valve so I did the safe shake for 5 minutes, open the lid closed it then shake for 5 more minutes, then again after the first day thinking I wasn't going to have enough oxygen and low and behold on day 3 my glass filled with star-sans is now the color of yeast, so I guess I did everything right but its blowing yeast out the top which can be bad, Ive had this happen before and the results was bad attenuation from losing to much yeast out the blow off tube
 
That is a monster then ! had to check the size of my drums in silly gallons and they're 8.5 gal for a 6.3 gal batch , i've had a few batches try to escape but not quite that bad that i'd need a blow off tube
 
I always use a 1/2" blow off tube for the first 5 days, i should have taken the lid off, I still might
 
It musta been a high gravity brew eh? I would of just pitched in the starter. Your probably lucky you did run out of oxygen or fermentation may of been a lot more vigorous :p
 
Try a wine degasser. I bought one that has collapsible blades, so it could even fit into a carboy. I bought it to use with my immersion chiller. Tired of stirring by hand. I use a drill. Now, when my wort is chilled, it has a froth on it that's so thick that I can't use my hydrometer. I'm certain it's getting more atmosphere (and therefore oxygen) than it was before. It's funny to think about our brewing differences.
 
Wine degasser is good for about 8ppm, about the best you can get with air That said, going to pure O2 didvget me better attenuation.
 
Do the big boys gas up their beer when they pitch? I don't know.
 
Ive seen it happen where they add oxygen inline pumping from one vessel to the other not allowing any outside air in
 
Pushing it with the O2 I guess?
 
I use an oxygen cylinder and a 5 micron air stone. 8 mins at 1/32 lpm gives me about 10 ppm O2, if my high school chemistry is still any good.
 
I know this is hard to do the traditional way with an open top and it just bubbles up back into the air its just a waste, but if you can add the oxygen into a somewhat closed fermenter it works the best and less needs to be used
 
oh bugger .... think my hop bill will need changing a lil bit
boil gravity is 8 points higher than calc expected

Brewing another clone attempt of the number 1 selling commercial beer in my state (and the only large scale brewer in the hemisphere to be family owned , only large scale brewer in country to bottle / keg condition every drop of the Fine ales they produce )
Coopers Pale Ale
 

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