Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Yeast Blending in Homebrew

On December 4, 2008

As seen in my American Brown Ale and Cascade Pale Ale recipes (still to come), I combined two yeast strains into the same wort. I had a couple reasons for doing this, primarily for my own curiosity. First, I have always been amazed at how well Safale-04 flocculates out. Getting clear beer is never an issue with S-04. I also love the English flavor profile that it brings to the table for those styles of beers. US-05 however, is a really clean flavor producer and is perfect for any American style ale. However, it is a really crappy flocculator. It takes some time for it to flocculate out completely. It’s not impossible and a little cold storage will help it along. So my primary reason to blend the two together was to see if the high flocculation of S-04 would also bind up the US-05 and pull both yeasts out at once. Only time will tell… I am expecting to get a slight diminished English character but not a completely clean American yeast character. But my main reason for the experiment was to test the flocculation cooperativity hypothesis.

My second reason for blending was that I only had one packet of either yeast type and they were both pushing their suggested expiration date. In normal circumstances, I would have pitched two packets of the same dried yeast. So I decided to use both as a good opportunity to try my flocculation experiment while still provided a high enough yeast cell count for the pitch.

Lastly, if by some weird luck I get a unique tasting combination with the two yeasts, I would maybe be on my way to developing a “house” strain of yeast. I plan to collect and store some of the blended cake for future use in a mason jars.

The Gift Of Homebrewing

By John Krochune

On December 3, 2008

In General

Tis the season as they say. What is better time than now to give the gift of homebrewing?

I am writing this post for a few reasons. I think we forget that friends and family may be good homebrewers but they just didn’t know where to start. Maybe a gift from their fellow homebrewer would give them the nudge they need.

For the readers who are learning more about homebrewing and want to take the plunge, send this post’s URL to a loved one as a hint to what to get you this holiday season.

There are a few different sellers of starter homebrewing kits out there. I would shop around for the best price. Some of the sellers we have highlighted in the past are:

Northern Brewer

Beer-Wine.com

DIY Brewing

And if you want more information about what you are buying, check out these posts:

Brew On.

Corn Sugar Versus KreamyX

By John Krochune

On December 1, 2008

In Experiments

Yesterday was bottling day for the Brown Porter and this time around, we threw in a little experiment. Bottling can be boring so we sometimes like to throw a smidge of excitement. Just a smidge.

As described in our priming sugar experiment post, we split the beer into two different bottling buckets with two separate priming sugars. One bucket had corn sugar in it, the other had KreamyX. Each priming sugar was weighed and measured for 2.5 gallons and not the standard 5 gallon quantities.

Bottling went on without a hitch. Our friend Lyle was there to help out and was rewarded taking half the bottles home.

Our final gravity was 1.016, a little high from where I wanted it to be (1.011). Then again, our starting gravity was higher than the predicted gravity: (1.052 vs 1.047). We tasted the sample and it didn’t repulse us.

Now we wait. All bottles have been labeled as either a KreamyX bottle or not. We will crack a few open 2 weeks from now and see.

UPDATE: Here are the results of the experiment!

Priming Sugar Experiment

By John Krochune

On November 26, 2008

In Experiments

Oh, it’s on. The stage is set for this Sunday. I have purchased a pound of corn sugar for bottling the brown porter. We are going to test the results of priming with KreamyX versus priming with corn sugar.

Here’s our methodology:

Split the unfinished beer in half; placing 2.5 gallons of the beer into two separate bottling buckets.
Prepare the proper amount of KreamyX and corn sugar for 2.5 gallons (dissolving the priming agents into two separate amounts of water, cooling them down to fermentation temperatures).
Bottle as normal, but using the two bottling buckets.
Condition for the same amount of time (2 weeks).
Pour out 2 beers; one that had corn sugar as a priming agent, one that had KreamyX as a priming agent.
Compare results.

UPDATE! Here are the results!

Palisade Hops

By John Krochune

On November 24, 2008

In Hops

Here’s a new hop variety that may be one to try: Palisade Hops. I found that there is little official information and varying forum and personal accounts. Here is a culmination of what I read plus a large employment of my own editorial power.

Origin: USA. It is bred and trademarked by Yakima Chief Ranches. From other sources, it appears to have been bred from a version of Tettanger (possibly Swiss?). I couldn’t find any release date information.

Aroma: Floral. Subtle Apricot. Grassy. “Pretty”.

Alpha Acid: 5.5-9.5%

Typical Usage: Although the alpha acid is pushing double digits on the high end, this is an aroma hop variety. I think Palisade hops are similar to Glacier hops. Many of the things I read both online and offline seemed to support a subtle, non-aggressive, smooth hop flavor with a fruity, non-citrusy aroma. If you are a hop head, I think you will be unimpressed by this variety. I would bitter with a high alpha acid hop variety and combine Palisade with a citrusy aroma hop variety to make a American pale ale. This hop variety is better for English style pale ales.

Here are some other newish American hop varieties:

Santiam Hops

Simcoe Hops

Ahtanum Hops