Fermentation Notes, Steam Schwarzbier

Fermentor was left @ 66-67F until signs of fermentation occurr. Positive pressure was noted within 8 hours.

UPDATE (17mar2008):
Woke up and at 18 hours post pitch, the yeast was foaming up through the airlock. This airlock was removed for 10 hours until the foam stopped coming through the gasket hole. the muck was cleaned up and airlock clean and re-attached. Despite my best efforts to cool with a wet t-shirt, it is fermenting around 66F, with ambient temp @ 62. A little higher, but I can't run it any cooler without racking up a monster power bill. I figured 66F is close enough, and I will let it condition for a good 4 weeks to clean up any funkiness left over.

UPDATE (18mar2008):
Beer is now fermenting @ 62F, ambient room temp is around 60F. I will try to keep it in this range, but that maybe be impossible if it warms up. Which will probably happen in a few days. I would like primary fermentation to be almost done before I let it warm up more to minimize off flavors. Hopefully conditioning will be accelerated at the warmer temperature in my house after primary is done. There are definately some sulfury odors being thrown off right now. The same kind of odors the Nottingham yeast through off when I fermented wine with them. Hopefully the yeast will clean up any sulfuryness they produce.

UPDATE (19mar2008):
Beer is fermenting @ ~64F with ambient temperature of 62F. This yeast is different than those I have used before as it seems to have slowed down but to a constant rate and is going for longer than the ale yeast I normally use. The ale yeast tend to ferment harder but then abruptly stop. This yeast is still chugging away with a bubble every 5 seconds or so.

UPDATE (24mar2008):
Gravity is down to 1.016. Fermenter is around 60 degrees as it randomly got cold again. There is still pressure in the airlock and it bubbles every few minutes. I'm going to let this sit probably another week to condition. The CO2 coming out is still carrying a sulphur smell.

Brewing Notes, Steam Schwarzbier (Sat 15mar)

I decided to try and brew a Schwarzbier because it is one of my favorite kinds of beer. Since real lagering is out of the question given my location and lack of extra fridge/freezer, I decided to try it with the Cali/San-Fran type lager yeast that should still make a clean malty lager at the temps that are closer to what I can maintain in my house. So while it won't be exactly authentic, hopefully it will be delicious:

The recipes as followed, from a NB kit:


6.0 lbs. Munich LME (2 lbs. after steeping grains, 4 lbs. @ 20 minutes)
1.0 lbs. Muntons Dark DME (~ .25 for starter,~ .75 after steeping grains)
0.5 lbs. Durst Dark Crystal Malt
0.5 lbs. Dingemans Debittered Black Malt
1.0 oz. Argentina Cascade, 3.2% AA (60 minutes)
1.0 oz. Argentina Cascade, 3.2% AA (30 minutes)
Wyeast California Lager yeast, .75 liter starter made 20 hours in advance

Couple of notes:

1 - I tried the extract late method to try and increase my hop utilization. It took about 15 minutes to bring it back to boil (after remainder of LME added) so I don't know how that affects things, my electric stove just can't crank much heat even near high. I didn't count this time as part of my boil time.

2 - I made a starter for the first time by boiling 1/2 cup dark DME and ~.75 liters of water (jar couldn't hold much more). This got going for about 18-20 hours before pitching, I would've pitched sooner, but I wasn't done till then.

3 - I only boiled for 5 minutes prior to adding hops. I came out low on gravity, maybe from not boiling off as much water as usual.

OG turned out @ ~1.045. It said it was supposed to come out around 1.052, but I guess I didn't boil as much water off as normal.

I pitched a .75L starter @ 65F into 68F wort. This is supposedly better than pitching a warmer starter into a cooler wort as it supposedly stimulates yeast activity, according to Mr. Malty (although such a small change as in this case probably doesn't make too much difference).

Bottling Notes, Sweet Stout (Tues 04mar)

Bottled the sweet stout yesterday after 16 days in fermentor.

The gravity at time of bottling was approximately 1.023.

This corresponds to an approximate 54% attentuation and ~3.5% abv.

1/2 cup of corn sugar was used to obtain ~ 2 volumes CO2.

Final yield was 4 x 24 oz. bottles + 39 x 12 oz. bottles.