When spell checking these blogs, the WordPress spell checker always has ‘fermenter’ as being incorrect but never as a suggestion for the proper spelling. So I took it upon myself to check it out.
Consulting with Dictionary.com I was given the following definitions:
fer·ment·er (fər-měn’tər)
n.
- An organism that causes fermentation.
- also fer·men·tor An apparatus that maintains optimal conditions for the growth of microorganisms, used in large-scale fermentation and in the commercial production of antibiotics and hormones.
Ferment er with an ‘e’ is the yeast, while Ferment or with an ‘o’ is the bucket or carboy or conical or whatever you do your fermenting in.
The spell check never suggested spelling it with an “o” and in fact if you look up fermentor on the Dictionary.com site, it takes you to the definition for fermenter. It seems that these two words are almost interchangable to a point that it doesn’t really matter which one you use.
I thought it was interesting. Cheers!
The Big River Brown that I brewed was so good, really good. So good, in fact, that it is now all gone. It started with a nice roasty touch and then the hop flavor would come through just right. The finish was sweet and crisp. The head would last to the bottom and even leave some lacing on the glass. I will be making this one again. The last bottle got drank on Friday, the 5th, when I was brewing up my latest batch.
The brew was pretty typical with the exception of my steeping grains. I knew that the Brown malt needed to be mashed in order for the starches to convert. I don’t have the necessary equipment to do that. So I thought about steeping the grains in a lesser amount of water to try to do a mini-mini-mash. And then I was given John Palmer’s “How to Brew” the day before as my birthday gift from my wonderful lovely wife. In the part about specialty grains, Palmer actually says to steep in a smaller amount of water, less than a gallon per pound. So that’s what I did. I added my pound and a half of grain to a gallon and a quarter of water and tried to keep it around 150º for half an hour.
It got poured into my main kettle being measured and noted that the grains soaked up a quarter gallon of water. Having friends and family over distracted me a bit and the wort boiled for a little while before I noticed what was happening.
I pitched the yeast and threw it in my closet with a couple of shirts over the fermentor. There was activity the next morning. I had to use my closet as my basement is getting too cold. I will take the shirts off and put it down there when fermentation is finished to semi lager the beer.
Knowing that last time I had too much water I started with only 6.25 gallons and was determined to only boil for 60 minutes. I brought my water up to 150º and threw in my specialty grains. I held the temp there for 30 minutes. This made me realize I’m basically doing the same thing an all grain brewer does when they mash and it probably isn’t quite necessary when just steeping grains. I will continue to it this way however with the intent of someday moving to all grain.
As soon as I saw the smallest indication I was reaching a boil I started my timer and threw in my bittering hops. 1oz Glacier at 6% AA. I put my hop pellets in a muslin bag but am considering just throwing them in the boil without the bag next time. With 2 minutes left in the boil I added the second addition of hops, 1 oz, and turned the flame off at the 60 minute mark. This is where I had a question. Do you take the hops out of the wort at flame out or wait until you put it in the fermentor? With the bags it makes getting them out easy at flame out but if you don’t use the bags you can’t. Do the hops continue to isomerize during the cooling period? If they do then I may need to continue using the bags until I get an immersion chiller. Using the bathtub to cool the wort takes at least an hour, this time taking 80 minutes to get the wort to 70º.
My OG came out to 1.046 at 68º. Correcting for temperature, it ends up being 1.047. I’m not too sure what the final volume ended up being. The next day I went downstairs and was pleased to find fermentation had started. Hopefully it was the yeast and not the funk in the fermentor. It was going to get cold that night so I wrapped a flannel shirt around my fermentor. I don’t know where my thermometer wandered off to, so I can’t be too sure about where my fermentation temps were.
It took around 10 minutes to get all this done. I put the flame back under it and brought it back up to a boil. Another 15 and I was ready to add the hops. Re-using the muslin bag from the grain, I put in my pellets. Time to drink some more beer and watch the boil. After 45 minutes I wasn’t even close to my final volume so I decided to extend the boil to 90 minutes. In hindsight, this wasn’t a good idea. But 45 minutes later I was down to around 5 gallons.
Not having a wort chiller, I filled my bathtub up with cold water and added a bunch of ice. Carrying a hot kettle filled with 5 gallons of hot wort inside and into the bathroom is a daunting task. I did not burn myself though. It took about 50 minutes to cool the wort down to 75°. I poured it into my fermenting bucket, added the yeast, closed the lid and tried shaking it as much as I could. It was quite heavy. I added the airlock and to the basement it went.
Back to the basement went the bottles. Again the temperature stayed pretty constant around 68°. A week later I opened the first bottle. Actually two, my Dad was over helping me with another project. I was pleased to hear hiss when I popped the top but a tad let down when the head wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I presented a glass to my Dad and when he took a drink was surprised and said, “That’s beer!” He had thought it was iced tea. The color was dark and the head had completely gone away when he got his glass. All in all it tasted pretty good.
A few days later I opened a couple more bottles only to find the had not carbonated at all. I think this was from me forgetting to add the priming sugar first to the bottling bucket. These bottles also didn’t taste so good. A little worried, I figured some for time in the bottle to condition might help.
ND Brew 