Aug 142010
 

OK, it’s been a while.  Between moving, removing a fallen tree, generally taking care of a one-year-old, and working, it’s been hard to find extra time.   Here’s the questionnaire we presented to the homebrew club a few months ago regarding the English ale yeast strains.  In short, everyone could taste differences in all beers. […]

Apr 272010
 
Bottling/Wrap-up

Bottled all beers on Sunday (4/25). Added ~1.6 oz dextrose to each, to give us a final CO2 volume of about 1.8. Got an average of 30 bottles from each. The only problem we had was forgetting to add the sugar to the 1028, which we had to pour back into the bottling keg, prime, […]

Apr 102010
 

Since all of the fermentors are at Mark’s house, he’s keeping an eye on things. Fermentation has slowed down or stopped for most. He gave the kegs a quick roll to rouse the yeast, since some are very flocculent. He also raised the temp to 72F for a couple days to perform a diacetyl rest, […]

Apr 042010
 
Brew Day

Yesterday’s brew day went well.  First, I got the new pack of 1099 counted.  It was still lower than it ought to be (67.6 billion viable cells, 98.5% viability), but enough for today’s brew. Second, the brewing went surprisingly well.  We were pushing the limits of Marks’ equipment – mash tun totally filled, both keggles […]

Apr 022010
 

I counted the number of cells in the four smack packs.  Here are the results: Sample              % Viability    Viable Cells/ml        Total Viable CellsWyeast 1028      90.6            8.64e8                     1.04e11Wyeast 1098      97.7            7.83e8                     9.39e10 Wyeast 1099      96.0            4.76e8                     5.72e10Wyeast 1882      98.3            1.22e9                     1.46e11 The 1099 has only half the amount of cells it ought to – only 57 billion.  So I bought another pack […]

Mar 312010
 

I’m getting ready to embark on a mega-brewday with a couple guys from the homebrew club.  We are going to make 8 3-gallon batches of a special bitter and ferment each with a different English ale yeast. Here’s a list of yeast: Wyeast 1026 PC British Cask Ale Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley Ale Wyeast 1768 […]

Dec 162009
 

I inoculated 2 1.6-L starters with Wyeast 1214 or Empire Brewing Company yeast for an upcoming beer.  After the starter completed growth, the cells were counted using a Beckman Vi-Cell XR 2.03 automated cell counter.The Wyeast 1214 was 282.11e6 cells/ml and the Empire was 132.86e6 cells/ml.  Compare that to the Wyeast 1056 I did last […]

Nov 012009
 

I’ve begun a new experiment examining how to best scale up a yeast starter from a glycerol stock, plate, or slant. Typically when starting from one of these storage methods, a 5-10 ml culture is inoculated. From there one can either pitch that culture into the final starter volume (typically 1-2 L). Alternatively, one can […]