Garrett Oliver recently came to Philly for a night of debauchery high-brow discussion.  A bunch of us met up at Bishop’s Collar, and after Garrett finished mixing some beer concoctions behind the bar, we figured we could pick up a few tips.

We learned that he has a new beer encyclopedia in the works, covering all aspects of beer.  How such a thing could exist and not have to be split into 8 volumes is as-of-yet beyond me.  But if anyone is able to make such a thing not only readable, but enjoyable, it’s him.

We were also able to glean a very important tip from him.  Joe asked, “If there was one thing you could tell all home-brewers that would make a definite difference in their brewing attempts, what would it be?”  Garrett didn’t even blink: more yeast.  He asked if we use liquid yeast (sure), if we’ve ever run into the situation where we ever waited more than a day for the yeast to start bubbling away (yes!), and if we ever notice off-flavors in those batches (umm, yeah).  He said that if his batches aren’t bubbling away after 12 hours, he starts sweating.  There are two good reasons behind this (the 12 hour mark, not the sweating).  Pitching too little yeast puts the yeast into “reproduction mode” first, where they have to multiply to achieve sustainable numbers.  He said this produces a lot of esters that you may not want in your beer.  Also, it gives other bacteria a head start, creating even more chances for those tongue-twisting off-flavors to occur.  He said that the amount that most home brewers pitch is between a quarter to a third of what big-time brewers use.

His recommendation?  Buy two pouches of the liquid yeast and pitch them both at the same time.  A yeast starter would work too, but if you’re brewing on short notice (as we often are) two pouches should be sufficient.

Which reminds me…  We’re brewing this weekend, so if I’m going to get that starter going, I’d better go buy some yeast.

Yes, it’s true.  I’m horrible at remembering to blog.  But can you blame me?  Sure.

Truth be told, I haven’t been feeling very beery lately, since our last batch has yet to carbonate.  I had a friend try it, and even after explaining the situation to him, his response was, “Where’s the body?!”  Beer without carbonation equals sweet alcohol water.  Considering how many batches we have done that have gotten their fizz on, what was different about this one (we keep asking ourselves)?  It’s not that this one has absolutely no carbonation, but it’s way less than I’d like to see.  We’re talking a "sck” when opening a bottle as opposed to a “sckxxxxxxx”.

Possible Problems

• We added the water and dried malt extract right off of the stove.  It went in when we had about a 2 gallons of the wort in the bottling bucket, with 3 still to go.  Even if the heat killed whatever yeast was in that 2 gallons, the next 3 should have brought the temperature down.
• There wasn’t enough yeast left alive to carbonate.  But the heat and additional sugars should have brought them out of hibernation.
• Too much alcohol!  Even with the extra sugar water, the yeast were suffocated in their own excrement (thanks Kurt Vonnegut!)
• Improper sterilization.  Always a possibility, and there’s no way to know exactly how it happened.
• Time!  We just need to wait.

Possible Solutions

• Pour all of the bottles into a soda keg and pressurize with CO2.  After a day or two, we’ll have beer!
• Distill the beer and make whiskey.
• Suck it up and drink it as-is.

My guess is that we have too much alcohol for the yeast to quickly carbonate the beer, but given enough time, it will be good.  Of course, the problem with time is that you have to give it, well, time.  I guess I can use that time to catch up on my blogging…

Cheers!

If you have the book, take a look on page 56 for Ed’s Honey Oatmeal Stout.  We followed this recipe excepting the following items:

• Instead of Liberty hops for aroma, George suggested Mt. Rainier — more alpha acids with the same flavor.  Who are we to argue?!  Just by smelling these malts, you can tell it’s going to need some serious balancing.
• George didn’t have any black patent malt at the moment, but set us up with some dehusked Carafa instead.  The dehusking removes some bitterness, tasting mellower and smoother than whole grains.
• Grains went in at 175°F instead of 155°F, but with the heat off.  By the time the half hour soak was up, the temp was down to 160°F.  My excuse theory is that over any range of temperatures, a wider flavor profile will be extracted than if it was held constant at one temperature…
• We used buckwheat honey from a farm in Gardners, PA—always good to use local honey if you can.  Thanks Ben!
• The recipe called for 1.5oz of cascade hops for bittering, but we used 1oz of cascade and 0.5oz of centennial that I found in the freezer.  They’re only three months old and still smelled great.

Sampling a little of the wort immediately brought back tastes of Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, and a little Big Black Voodoo Daddy.  Sweet, dark, but not overly focused on chocolate notes.  I tried eating some of the sweet, sludgy oatmeal, but the intensely astringent hoppy bitterness made it impossible to stand for more than 2 seconds.

Even though the book has a complete guide on using Starters for high-gravity beers directly above the recipe we used, we didn’t do it.  So, I immediately blamed myself when I looked at it on the morning of day 2 only to find the whole bottle completely still.  I asked my beerologist, Ed, who immediately suggested the starter.  He also said that dropping a sterilized aquarium air stone with a pump into the wort can give the yeast the oxygen they need to reproduce to numbers high enough for complete fermentation.

Luckily, Monday night brought me home to find a thick foam on the surface and an airlock bubbling away.  We’ll see if it’s enough…

Notes for next time

• Use a starter.  By thinking ahead 2 or 3 days, you’ll have enough yeast to immediately drown out any undesirable organisms that would create off-flavors.  I also won’t spend the next day wondering if we wasted $70 because it’s not bubbling yet.
• Plan & measure.  We measured every ingredient except the water, and didn’t account for the volume lost boiling the grains and oatmeal.  We should do a gallon extra (especially with our awesome new 7.5 gallon brew kettle—thanks Joe!) and rack it into a gallon carboy.  Then, hold that carboy at a different temperature.  See how it compares with the big batch…
• Strain properly.  We need a bigger funnel and cheesecloth.  How big do they make ‘em?

How will it turn out?  Only time will tell.  Two weeks, to be exact.