Any data on inactive yeast time, say from a chilled starter decanted and pitched? Or that mason jar from the previous batch pulled out and pitched?
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Thanks, appreciate it!
Forgive me if you already did and I lost it somewhere in the last 9 pages but, to bring this back around to where the OP started: care to share your gold medal recipe?
I don’t have it on me at the moment, it’s in the Zymurgy medal issue.
Off the top of my head, It’s like:
Fairly soft water with 1g/gal cacl/strike water
50/48/2 wheat/pils/melanoidin
Couple grams of magnum 10 ibus or so.
Wlp380
Mash in at acid rest 10-15
Protein rest 10 or so.
Beta 45 mins or so.
I think I skipped an alpha rest if my memory serves me correctly.
In Zymurgy I called it an open/closed ferment.
pitch at 15c and open ferment at 15c (15+15 comes from the 30 degree rule or whatever they call it.) ferment 72 hours
Transfer to a keg with speise in it, keg condition 72 hrs at like 18c is the closed part
I let it build to a bout 2.8 bar or like 40 psi(whatever the bar equivalent is)
Crash, usually lager for 10-14 days, but for the comp with shipping and stuff I bottle it about 3 days after the crash. Usually for comps my hefe’s smell like malt, wheat, light clove, moderate sulfur, very little isoA. By comp time it seems to be malt and wheat, big banana, no sulfur, same moderate 4vg. That change is why I wonder if Sulfur Dioxide SO2 or sulfites SO3 can catalyze the synthesis isoA outside of the yeast cell. Seems coincidental that sulfur seems decrease, while isoA increases. In lab production they use sulfuric acid (H2SO4) as a catalyst to convert isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid into isoamyl acetate.
Can one of these sulfur derivatives initiate the synthesis isoA?
Is H2O + SO3~>H2SO4 happening and catalyzing isoA synthesis outside of the cell in the wort?
May have to proposition big monk to scour the research for data.
After reading a bit over some tea this morning, I’m more certain than I was previously that the fermenter geometry theory doesn’t really hold weight. There has to be something outside the normal fermentation variables that explains what you are talking about.
I’ll scan some references today and report anything of note I find.
Rob, that’s a typical recipe, but I see that you do interesting enhancements in brewing. Reviewing Zymurgy, I see that your recollection was good. Only the acid malt addition was omitted. That provides a dose of lactate that I feel is an enhancement in that style. Lactate is metabolized by yeast and I’m guessing that it has a hand in the overall gold-medal effects.
One question: Did you rebrew for the second round? I didn’t and my beer was nothing like it was in the first round. Freshness seems to be a needed hallmark of this style.
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What fermenter geometry theory are you talking about?
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How can you be so certain as to whatever #1 is, is invalid?
Lactate can also be synthesized by the yeast into the ester, ethyl lactate. Phosphoric acid always makes wonder if I’m creating more calcium phosphate precipitate than anything.
Rebrew: absolutely. I doubt you (anyone not you personally) can medal with a hefe from the first round. For a hefe I usually brew it 2 weeks before the last day of drop off. That usually puts the beer on the judges table in pretty good condition. I rebrewed all 4 that advanced last year.
Agreed! I found that out the hard way over a decade ago, but it bears repeating to all competitive brewers and beer afficionados. Unless your entering a style that requires significant lagering or maturation time, a fresh beer is more likely to do better in the drinker’s glass.
You had stated previously that you thought the open fermentation was a contributor (i.e. shallow geometry, exposure to oxygen, etc.). Most of the scientific literature states otherwise, i.e. increase in oxygen leads to ester reduction.
Granted, my main area of interest is in Trappist yeasts. Your discussion of technique with Hefe presents a different set of circumstances. It isn’t terribly difficult to grasp once you think about it: Use a yeast which is a known sulfur producer and see how banana develops after packaging with dissipation of the sulfur. That, IMHO, is the smoking gun in your case.
It could be that my assumptions and interpretations on the oxygen content driving yeast growth and reducing esters is true and pertinent for the types of beers I brew. I don’t want to generalize your experiences and points and say they are wrong outright, but it could be that the pathway to banana for you exists outside of these generally accepted ester synthesis pathways, and that your theory that open fermentation is a contributor is overshadowed by the transformation at the packaging stage.
Whatever the reality is, it doesn’t change that you made an award winning beer. It is just interesting to me to try and understand why you did.
Damn bro. He’s a water expert that created a killer spreadsheet that he offers for free or enhanced with no set price. He ain’t Microsoft.
Option 1 - Page setup → sheet → check black and white.
Option 2 - Use the new window and arrange features to view both the instructions and the other sheet at the same time
Option 3 - Open a second copy of the workbook and arrange side by side
Derek,
I’m sure you’ve seen photos of the open fermenters in some German Hefe breweries. I’ve got to believe that the weizen yeast has some sort of affinity to some slight oxygenation. Even under a big krausen, I’ve got to assume that some oxygen gets into the wort. While I’m not sure how effective the loose foil cover is for Rob, with respect to enabling oxygen ingress to the fermenter, I suppose there is some.
Isn’t it possible that those scientific literature are presenting results that are non-weizen related and there could be some truth in the benefit of micro-oxygenation in this case?
Certainly! I even stated that right after the above quoted comment:
You have to temper my comments with the fact that in the beers I love (Trappist), I’m looking to minimize banana. If the IsoA content in Hefe is driven by synthesis of higher alcohols during fermentation than I am in no way shape or form arguing the open fermentation concept.
I think we were just communally sussing out whether the role of yeast derived sulfites once packaged may contribute as well, which seems to line up with hackrsackr’s brewery data.
Regarding open fermentation, I was under the impression that it was more a factor of allowing the CO2 to offgas freely rather than access to O2. I’m sorry that I don’t have any primary literature to quote here, but I swear I’ve heard on more than one occasion that CO2 concentration can alter yeast metabolism.
CO2 pressure will affect ester content.
Hefe yeast produce sulfur, a lot of it. Not sure what you’re getting at there.
In the nih piece you posted it showed semi aerobic producing more isoA than aerobic or anaerobic.
As I do advocate open fermentation (it is how Weissbier was traditionally made, Germans, I didn’t make this up…,) I’ve never mentioned fermenter depth as a factor (I think the bottom of the fermenter’s slope angle is a factor, but haven’t mentioned it.) Open fermentation has nothing to do fermenter height. If I said something about fermenter geometry please quote and repost, so I can qualify what I meant.
I’ve compared actual beers, not just thought experiments. Hypotheses need tested before disqualification. If you try it and get different results then there’s data to analyze and discussions to have. Tea leaves, lucid dreams, or whatever else are never a valid reason for disqualifying a premise.
Absolutely.
Another factor I should highlight about the foil over the mouth thing is that I usually ferment around 4 gallons of hefe in a 6 gallon better bottle, so there is a significant amount of head space. More volume for gas mixing, plus it provides plenty of space for krausen.
I have brew buckets now(what has led to my thoughts on fermenter slope angle having an effect), and I just leave the lid completely off. If that worries folks, you can put the lid on and leave the airlock out, put a piece of foil over the hole.
wow, I haven’t checked this in a few days (busy with my engineering classes). If nothing else, I suppose I’ve started a great conversation. I hope you guys make this and give feedback.
(heavily out of context quote. In my defense: there was soooo much context)
So there are a bunch, I’m mostly quoting myself from another thread on here:
[quote]While many authors tend to agree that increased biomass production (i.e. creation of cell walls) reduces the Acetyl CoA that is available for ester production and leads to reduced ester levels in the beer (Narziss 2005, Cone, Noonan 1996, Fix 1999) authors differ with respect to ester production and yeast growth. Fix (Fix 1999) writes that any, “increased activity on the acetyl CoA branch”, whatever that means, will increase ester production while other authors (Narziss 2005, Cone) state that increased yeast growth leads to a decrease in esters since more of the acetyl CoA is used for sterol synthesis.
Sources:
Cone - http://www.danstaryeast.com/library/yeast-growth
Fix - George J. Fix Ph.D, Principles of Brewing Science, Brewers Publications, Boulder CO, 1999
Narziss - Prof. Dr. agr. Ludwig Narziss, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Werner Back, Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Fakultaet fuer Brauwesen, Weihenstephan), Abriss der Bierbrauerei. WILEY-VCH Verlags GmbH Weinheim Germany, 2005
Noonan - Gregory J. Noonan, New Brewing Lager Beer, Brewers Publications, Boulder CO, 1996
[/quote]
HOWEVER, I wrote ^ because I was puzzled about seeing the exact opposite results in practice, that is, esters and growth seem to vary directly to me in acutal brewing. I was writing the above to Jess Caudill (who was at Wyeast at the time). My findings definitely jived with his and what you’re seeing in practice hackrsackr. (link to thread: American Homebrewers Association® Forum)
To paraphrase Jess (and maybe Yogi Berra): In theory practice and theory are the same, but in practice they’re not.