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!!

Keg to Kettle

So I know it's been a long time since the last update, and while I hoped to be completed with this project it is still in the works.  I acquired a keg from someone recently and I've been in the process of converting it into a kettle.  I also wanted to polish the keg to make it look good.  I still need to drill a hole in it and put a spout in to make it an official kettle but I don't know how to weld and I'm a little reluctant to try a weld free fitting, though I've been told they can and do work.  For now I've been concentrating on learning to use my angle grinder and polishing supplies to cut a hole in the top and shine this bad boy up.  These are just some of the results thus far.

Here is the original keg

Here I am dousing the stickers with paint thinner to make them easier to remove.

For the next step we put the keg in the shower and turned the water on.  Our thoughts were that the humidity would help with removing the glue and other crap off the sides.

We used a razor blade to get the job done.

 

Next I took the grinder to the lettering on the sides.

I then began to sand down the sides of the keg to get rid of all the scratch marks.

I also cut the hole in the top of the keg. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I'm checking to see if the cord will reach and decide to use the extension just in case. Also note the safety glasses and ear muffs.  It might look silly but the grinder is loud and dangerous and I'm not very experienced so I take full precautions.

The final result

Notice how rough the edges look?  I'll fix that by sanding it down with both a sanding wheel that comes with the grinder and some 220 sanding paper made for this type of situation.

 

The budlight is not mine I swear

 I have also managed to put the first layer of polish on, but it's a 3 step process and I've had trouble finding the time to do it.  You have to go over the whole keg with the polish and it can take a while.  I plan on finishing sometime in the next week or two.  When I'm finished with the polishing I'm going to fill the keg with water and heat it up to a full boil to make sure I don't have any leaks or problems.  I'll probably drill the hole for the spout sometime later down the road.  I'm anxious to get this thing up and running and I have a pump to get the wort out after the boil so I don't really need the spout at this time.  I'll try to have more pics up soon!  I hope you've enjoyed!

Fun surprises in Portland Maine

These past few days my family and I went on a mini vacation to Maine.  We planned on spending the days freezing and only braving the temperatures and elements to find the necessary food and drink, however; we ended up finding some great microbreweries and a distillery!  We toured Allagash  Brewery, Geary Brewery, and an up and coming distillery.  And the convenient thing is they were all within a half mile radius of each other!  Allagash was a larger brewery than we expected but they use and take pride in local suppliers. 

SP seemed to enjoy the brewery!

We then happened to stumble upon the up and coming New England Distilling, right next to Geary's Brewery.  The owner, operator, distiller, and basically one man show, Ned, was kind enough to give us a private tour.  Although he was in the middle of setting things up he showed us his layout and explained to us his plans for the first years. He will be distilling rums, gin, and whiskey, including one that is 110 proof and triple distilled.  Ned hopes to be up and running by this coming January.

Our last tour of the day was that at D.L. Geary's Brewery.  I had not heard much of them or their efforts but apparently they distribute to a vast area.   Steve, a brewer there, gave us a private tour.  Here they use brick covered kettles, open fermentation, and brew solely English stylish brews.  We sampled their Hampshire Ale (we highly recommend).

Summer label scholarship entries.

Who will win?  Find out Summer 2012!

Bottle line

Flaked hops

Open fermentation.

We ended the day with a sampler of brown ales and nachos at The Great Lost Bear pub that hosts over 50 brews on draft!  So in conclusion, we highly recommend stopping in at any one, or all, of these great spots if you find yourself in Portland. 

Streaking a Plate (Ipswich Ale Yeast)

Today I’m going to give you a little explanation on streaking a plate of yeast.  I recently had the good fortune to get my hands on some Ipswich ale yeast from the Ipswich brewery.  I managed to streak some of this yeast on to a plate.  A plate is simply another term for a petri dish.  I use glass petri dishes which I bought online, and I make my own medium for the plates.  This medium is just malt extract, mixed with agar and yeast nutrients.  The agar solidifies the malt to form a solid surface area.  To streak a plate I have a tool called an inoculation loop seen in the picture below.

 

The small metal loop on the end is what transfers the yeast from a liquid sample to the actual plate.  I first run the loop over an open flame until it is red hot.  This sterilizes the loop.  I then cool the loop by submerging it into the medium on the plate.  After this I dip the loop into the liquid sample and use the loop like a pen or paint brush and rub the loop onto the surface area of the plate making several lines.  I then turn the plate half way and do this again.  The idea is to spread the yeast out over the plate to form individual colonies of yeast, which can be stored in the refrigerator for later use.  There are several reasons for doing this, but most important is that you can get pure strains of yeast from a plate and know that your beer hasn't been infected by wild yeasts which can cause off flavors.

This is Irish ale yeast.  As you can see, I used a little too much yeast and though you can see the streaks there are no individual colonies to speak of.  I can, and have used this for propagation purposes because I took this straight from a store bought vial so I know it is not infected.  However it is not good technique.

This is the Ipswich ale yeast.  It was taken from a rather old sample and so the yeast aren't as healthy as in the pure Irish ale yeast.  However I will be able to use this for propagation and will streak another plate soon.  Also note the brown spots underneath the yeast are just malt that became more solidified than normal and resulted in some chunks in the mixture.  This doesn't affect the yeast, it just looks a little strange.

This is Bavarian Weiss yeast.  This is a much better example of what a properly plated yeast looks like.  Notice the individual circles, each of those is an individual colony.

 So you might be asking yourself where do I do all this stuff?  Well the answer is quite simple...right in my living room!!!  That's right, I use my living room table for my lab space and use an alcohol lamp to create a germ free zone.  An open flame creates an updraft which prevents micro-organisms from landing in the area you are working in.  I make sure all the doors are shut and there are no drafts in the area when I work.  I then clean the table with whatever cleaning products I have available and I go to work.

By keeping the plate underneath the open flame I can prevent unwanted micro organisms from landing on the plate.

I try to get as wide of a surface area as possible so that I don't have interference from nearby objects.

It may sound a little crazy but I also brush my teeth and rinse with mouth wash before I begin.  Even your mouth can contain germs, so I hope by doing this I'm lowering the chances of spreading germs by breathing on the plate.  I have yet to get one of those doctors surgical masks but I think it would be a better solution.  I also where rubber gloves too.  

I am still learning a lot about this stuff but it's certainly a fun and exciting part of brewing that I've come to love.  It also helps me make better beer, which at the end of the day, is what it's all about!

November update

I know it's been a while since I last updated the blog.  Jenna and I have been working a lot.  I managed to brew a maple porter.  For those of you who may not know what a porter is, a porter is an ale, usually with a light brown to dark brown appearance.  It typically has a malt aroma and flavor with some mild roastiness.  Sometimes it has a caramelly, grainy, bready, or nutty flavor as well.  I added pure grade A maple syrup to my beer to give it a nice sweet maple taste.  Porters originated in England and are considered the precursor to stouts.

 I also managed to make a Barley wine and did what is called a partygyle mashing technique.  Typically a Barley wine is a very strong beer usually between 8-12% abv.  Since so much grain is used in making a Barley wine, brewers will typically take the first wort (term used for pre-beer liquid) and start boiling it.  They then heat more water (liquor) and use that to get the rest of the sugars out of the grain making a substantially weaker beer but also getting a 2 for 1 deal out of the grains.  I took the second runnings from my Barley wine and made a cinnamon vanilla beer with some anise in there as well.  I'm hoping its a good spiced beer for Christmas time.  The Barley wine is going to be aged for a long time so I'll keep you all updated. 

I brewed an Imperial IPA a few weeks ago and its currently being dry-hopped with the last of my homegrown hops.  We recently acquired some Ipswich ale yeast and I've plated it on a petri dish and made a starter as well.  In my next update I'll be displaying pictures of the yeast plates and a little more information about the lab.

Almost ready for the big day

We've got the beers bottled and labeled we're buying the food today and we'll be cleaning off the deck whenever this rain decides to go away.  It's supposed to be a beautiful day Saturday high in the 60's and sunny.  We're looking forward to seeing all of you there.

Cheers!!

Most recent update on the brewing

The beers we've been brewing and the ones we think we're gonna brew soon.

Been brewed...
Maple Porter


Been Bottled
Summer ale
Sinfully Vanilla
Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout
Razzle Dazzle Raspberry wheat
Honey squeeze my lemon ale
Pumpkin ale
Pomegranate Wheat
IPA (unnamed) 8/5/11  dry hopped with my homegrown cascade hops on 8/25/11

Upcoming possible brews!!!
 
Imperial IPA (using homegrown hops)
Black Butte porter clone for Jim
Barley wine for Jenna


Have any idea's for a brew we should do? Email us at:

otisbrewing@gmail.com