Open Fermentation

After our visit to Geary's Brewery in Maine, I got inspired by the open fermentation and decided to try one for myself.  The results turned out fantastic I must say.  I made a Black butte porter clone for my friend Jim.  He's coming home from the army after 8 years of service 2 tours in Iraq and 1 in Afghanistan.  I think he deserves a good beer don't you?  Anyways I made this beer like I would most other beers except for fermentation.  I decided to oxygenate the wort after pitching the yeast.  I used a regular aquarium air pump with a clean and sanitized tube and airstone.  The tubing and airstone are fairly cheap at the pet store.  I added the air for about 15 min.

That is not yeast yet, its just foam from the wort.  Though it does look the same.  The yeast was added before I put the tubing in so that the yeast could get a good start.

This was taken about 8 hours later you can see all the yeast already on the sides. Success!!

 It's hard to see in the next 3 pictures (I should have taken a video) but as I lowered the lighter towards the foam you can notice the flame getting dim and going out.  This is because there is no oxygen on the surface of the foam.  It's putting out so much carbon dioxide that it forms its own little atmosphere.  Pretty neat huh!

This next picture was from the third day.  You can see a ton of yeast working hard to make that beer!!

We recently tasted one beer before Jim's arrival to make sure it turned out okay and boy did it ever.  Probably one of my best batches to date!! When I first looked into this method many books and experts say its a big giant no no.  However if you have lots of experience and your able to keep your brewing area very clean and you have the time to transfer as soon as the primary fermentation finishes, I think you'd be alright to try this out.  As Charlie Papazian always says relax don't worry have a homebrew!!