I posted this same topic over at “the other place” ;D
I decided to follow the progress of a recent batch of BVIP by running samples on HPLC. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now.
The recipe is listed below. Its Denny’s recipe, but I had to make some modifications due to being low on brown malt, so, I guess its not really Denny’s recipe
13.9# rhar two row
1# crisp brown
3# munich
1.6# chocolate
1.2# C120
0.6# C40
I experienced a long lag time with this one. There was finally activity somewhere between 50 and 63 hours after inoculation. I pitched plenty of yeast (wyeast 1272). The problem, I suspect, was that the yeast was centrifuged after harvesting it from a previous batch. This made the consistency of the yeast almost like peanut butter. My guess is that the large clumps were not dispersed into the wort well at all, leading to the lag. Once it got going it was very active, blowing out of the airlock.
At each sampling point, about 10mL was pulled from the center of the fermentor. A pH measurement was taken with a Fisher Scientific Accumet Excel pH meter, and the sample was filtered for HPLC
On the graphs, there is a “-1” timpoint which is representative of the preboil wort. The “0” timepoint represents the wort postboil, before inoculation. The DP4+ represents a lot of compounds that did not interact with the column. Dextrins and longer chain sugars will be included in this value.
I plan to add to this data as the beer finishes. I’ll take more samples when I add vanilla bean in the secondary, bourbon, and again after carbonation. I have values for the following, but have not included all of this on the graph.
DP4+
DP3
Maltose
Phosphoric acid
Glucose
Xylose
Arabinose
Succinic Acid
Lactic Acid
Glycerol
Acetic Acid
Levulinic Acid
Propionic Acid
1_3 Propanediol
meso-2_3 Butanediol
D/L 2_3 Butanediol
Butyric Acid
Acetone
Ethanol
2-propanol
5-(hydroxymethyl) Furfural
2-Furaldehyde
I do have the ability to run organic acids. Some were included in this method, but I didn’t post the results because the levels were less than 1 g/L (100ppm) and they wouldn’t be seen well on this graph.
I would love to run samples on every brew I do. Its not much effort, but I’m not able to use that many consumables at work.
I would like to do some confirmation work on the viable cells in a starter–aerated, shaken, stirplate, simple, etc. I’d ether confirm by plating serial dilutions or using a FlowCam instrument.
Forgot to answer your question. The OG was 1.088. That’s something I would have liked to track with each sample, but I didn’t want to waste 4-5 ounces for each gravity measurement because I’m stingy :
As a reference, each 1000 ppm is equivalent to 1g/L, so there was nearly 100 g/L maltose in the wort at the 0 timepoint. You won’t be able to figure gravity by the data I have posted–at least I don’t know how.
This information would be a lot more useful to me if I knew what BVIP and HPLC stood for. Google doesn’t find acronyms for BVIP that come close to brewing. The V is perhaps vanilla? I would think that HPLC is High Performance Liquid Chromatography?
Right - it’s a 10% maltose solution, and about 2.5% glucose at time point zero. So it’s a 12.5% sugar solution, which is 12.5 brix. Brix is roughly converted to OG by multiplying by 4, that’s how I came up with 1.050. I knew the minor wort sugars you didn’t measure would have an affect, but I didn’t account for the unfermentable things that affect SG.
As for the SG, if you could track Brix via refractometer that would still be cool.
I don’t have Travis’s access to toys, but I took refractometer readings for a couple of fermentations (two different pitching rates) recently. Yeast Pitching Rate Results « SeanTerrill.com - it’s about halfway down the page.
Nice, Sean. I don’t know why, but I didn’t even think to take a brix reading through the fermentation. I know there are a few refractometers at work…D’oh!!!
