What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[Michael]

Let me know if you want some 1968. I will likely fire up a starter some time in the next few days.

[JackoNZ]

Michael - I'd love some 1968, too late for this batch but Brewhouse have ran out of it so not sure when we'll see that one again.

jt - I'm pretty sure it's not started up properly, the starter looks exactly the same now as it did 24 hours ago, no krausen, no sign of yeast at all. It smells fine, quite sweet and tasty like the yeast in the pack did but it tastes like sweet starter still. I reckon I just didn't get enough yeast into it to fire it up, although I thought I'd get something even with a small pitch. 

The new gear went really well, enjoyed the brewday for the most part! Love the new pot I got and all the work Chris Banks has done for me is making my life easier. Most satisfying is getting my beer into the stainless conical at the end of the day, hope the first run is a good one! I'll get some pics up when I brew next. And I have an English Bitter for you if you're around sometime soon? 

[Kelly Milligan]

They got a bunch of new WYeast stock this week! 1968 included. Pretty much all strains and a couple seasonal releases now up on their site

[JackoNZ]

Yeah I was in on Thursday to pick up the 1968 it was the last one! The new yeasts were in the fridge so perhaps 1968 just went really quick

[jt]

Yea. No 1968 when I was in on Saturday, would've been tempted if it was there

I was meaning the pack might've been ok. I've used it before and it can be thick, though I can't remember if it was that hard to pour out of the pack

A bitter ? Sounds good, we should tee that up!

Cheers, jt

[JackoNZ]

Well I left the stir plate on over night, 30 hours in and the starter is looking a bit more like it should! So just looks like I had a slow start to it, I'll leave it the rest of today and store the yeast for next time.

[JackoNZ]

I see what you mean by cottage cheese jt! Now it's doing it's thing it does settle out like that. I was expecting to see more of the starter turn into yeast though. I reckon there is about 50ml of actual yeast in the 500ml starter. Should I just tip that into a storage container now for the next brew and step it back up or is it worth leaving it over night. It's up to about 46 hours on the stir plate now.

[jt]

Not sure what you'll get from it, open to suggestions from those knowlegable in stir plate propogation.

How's it smelling?
Been a while but from (a sometimes shabby) memory it can be quite estery in a starter along with some beautiful bready aroma

[JackoNZ]

Smells great, sweet, fruity, maybe some cream soda in there. Much better than the standard re-hydrated dry yeast I've smelt. I might leave it over night and then pour it all off tomorrow morning for storing.

[jt]

God news Jacko, let us know how it finishes up tomorrow

Cheers, jt

[JackoNZ]

Not much more yeast this morning jt so into the fridge it went. I'll decant off the liquid tonight and pour in some cooled boiled water on top for storage.

[jt]

Took a sample of this 1036 to 1011 and tasting just like my old extract & grain versions - guess it should with a tin of extract in it.
I used to love this beer but just couldn't do it as an all grain, looks like I'll have to give it another crack, a job for the weekend.
The yeast will need a bit of cleaning though, I'd forgotten how much crap gets through the kitchen sieve and into the fermenter