homebrew help

Maybe I'm not finished trying to figure the end of this story yet. Your smack pack had nutrient, and you mentioned in another post that you added more nutrient to the wort in an effort to get things started again. The nutrient may be the only topic that we haven't considered here for a reason why your yeast did not perform. I've never used the stuff so I don't know much about it, but I searched the forum for threads that discuss yeast nutrient and found one where @Vikeman made a comment that too much nutrient is toxic to yeast, and I also saw a similar comment on the HomeBrewTalk website. @Roadk01, do you know how much nutrient that you've added, and does your container contain any warning about over use?

 

Do you know what the OG of your starter was? How much DME was used?

 

Cheers to you!!

 

Sorry there is nothing you can do to change that. My wife was like why is pickling lime and cocoa nibs on the grocery list?

The homebrew forum is where you will find the most helpful, knowledgeable and funny people on ba.

 

See, this is your 'baby'!

Cheers!

 

Even better...use a yeast starter calculator like the one at Mr Malty or YeastCalc, or download BrewCipher (which you can also use to build recipes), and calculate a starter size more tailored to age of your yeast (and thus the implied starting cell count) and to the beer you're going to make.

That's cold crashing. I do it with all my starters, because it keeps the starter beer, which has nothing flavor-wise to do with the beer recipe I'm making, mostly out of the finished beer.

Overnight is adequate for very flocculent strains. 2-3 days for less flocculent strains.

 

I agree that you may have found the source of your problem. Stirring the wort while it chills is something that I do just to evenly cool the wort with the primary intent to speed up the process, but that stirring action is something that I've never seen written down anywhere as a brewing tip.

 

How do you transfer from pot to fermenter? Do you use a siphon? If so how long do you let it settle after it reaches the desired temperature?

 

It sits only a few minutes to settle a little bit before I get things set up for the next step. Then I pour my partial boil, which is 4 gallons or so, into a carboy that has a large funnel which has a large stainless steel strainer in it that fits the funnel perfectly. My wife holds the funnel to keep it stable, which is necessary because I stick the handle of a sanitized large serving spoon into the neck of the carboy along with the funnel so that a gap is created and the air inside the carboy has an escape route. While pouring, the strainer typically gets clogged with the trub that is still in suspension, so she uses my stirring spoon to scoop that stuff out. I'll pour enough of the wort to where there is about a half-quart of thick trub soup left in the kettle. This goes out to my compost pile along with the trub that my wife scooped out of the funnel.

So far, this method has provided enough aeration for the beers that I have made (6-7 percent ABV or less), so I don't do the rock-the-carboy thing to aerate any further.