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

[Raffe]

Busy beer day today.

Brewed my Dubbel for the next WBC. All went pretty well, though I undershot the gravity by about 5 points. I may just up the amount of candi sugar I add after krausen by 100g or so to compensate.
I am using a donated Wyeast 3944, which is the Belgian Wit strain. I sampled some of the decanted beer from the starter, and it definitely had that 'wit' taste, so will be interesting to see how much influence it has in the finished dubbel.

Earlier, I bottled a tweaked version of my ordinary bitter following feedback from the last WBC. Much happier with this, far better balance between malt and hops and I got the yeast pitching rate correct this time too - the previous brew finished too low and dry at 1.008. Also used UK Goldings for the first time (with a dash of Motueka) - yum, what a lovely hop flavour. Thinking about an English IPA now, with shedloads of UK goldings....

Will be opening a bottle of 2007 Porter Noir to share over dinner. Looking forward to this, have never had it before....

[Simon David kelly]

What did you tweek on the bitter? I've just bottled one myself and found it finished at 1007/1008 instead of 1011 I was looking for.

[Raffe]

I used a packet of S04 yeast, rehydrated in 200ml of water. Mr Malty's pitching calulator said something like 0.9 of a dried yeast packet, so I poured in only 180ml of the rehydrated yeast. Finished out at 1.010 from a OG of 1.037.

Also rebalanced the OG/BU ratio to around 0.8 - before it was 1:1 and there wasn't enough malt structure to carry the hops.

[Simon David kelly]

Ah, that may explain a lot .... I made a starter of S-05, possibly a little over kill ... mashed a little loow too ...

I went from 1041 to 1007(8) ... it's a little thin, lacking a good mouth feel.

[Raffe]

Yeah, what has been your experience with starters for dry yeast? My understanding was that they were unnecessary.

[Martin Bridges]

The received wisdom is that dried yeast has all the nutrients it needs and is ready to rock as soon as it's rehydrated, so no starter required.

I've even seen it written that a starter can actually make dried yeast less active, although I'm not sure I quite understand how.

[Andrew]

I've just sprinkled it on top of the chilled wort and it takes off on its own or you can just start it in a little tepid water with sugar to give it a kick start and both have worked for me.

[Barry]

Yeah to re-iterate what Martin said, it's accepted that dry yeast generally works when you just sprinkle it but you get far better viability (percentage of healthy cells) if you rehydrate in water. The figures I've read suggest only 50% viability when sprinkling as opposed to up to 95% when rehydrating in water at the specified temperature.
"Kick start" ing with sugar is akin to making a starter - unneccessary and actually detrimental to cell health.

[Simon David kelly]

To be honest, it's all down to cell count for the beer you're brewing. Big beers require much more than is available in a single packet whether it's dry or liquid.

I was listening to a brew strong episode on it a while back and the camp was a little split over dry yeast starters ... if I remember righly both Doc and Jamil make starters regardless of type and match the starter volume to the beer OG. However you can over pitch as well as under pitch, which is what I think I may have done this time around.

I always make a starter now. I'll be using a pitching calculator to work it all out next time though :)

[Tony]

Brewing tomorrow:

Koanga NZ Pale Ale

4 kg Marris otter
400 g Caramel wheat

20 g Supper Alpha for 60
20 g Nelson Sav 10
20 g Nelson sav 5

slightly hardened water
Ringwoods ale yeast

37 IBU @ 4.8 ABV

[Christian]

Taking the day off work on Friday - time to brew!

'Cross the Breeze:

2.5Kg Golden Promise
2.5Kg Global Pilsner
0.15 Med Crystal
0.15 Dark Crystal
Southern Cross pellets
20 @ 60
10 @ 45
10 @ 30
10 @ 15
10 @ 10
10 @ 5
20 @ 1
10 @ 0
US05 yeast

[Reviled]

Looks lemony christian ;o) Should be good!