The Original Carboy Cleaner now available at homebrew4less.com

Dear Fellow Homebrewer,
Like you, I have struggled numerous times cleaning the leftover sediment out of my glass carboys. Getting all of the sediment out without wasting gallons of water was near impossible.
I decided to give the Carboy Cleaner a try. Not only does it save a ton of water and time, it leaves my carboy’s looking brand new after each use! If there is any sediment stuck on the bottom, or the neck of the carboy, it is instantly scrubbed clean by the Carboy Cleaner.
If you are a Home Brewer you know how important it is to make sure all of your equipment is clean and sanitized. the Carboy Cleaner will help make sure each batch of wort turns into a great tasting beer you can enjoy with family and friends.

Finally, a product that really cleans carboys!

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To combat this, I’ve assembled a brewing schedule of sorts to help me have mature beers ready for the right holiday or season.  To keep it simple, I’ve listed popular styles of beer for different seasons by quarter, and a corresponding list of which quarter you need to brew them in.  The assumption here is that 3 months lead time is enough for me to assemble the ingredients, brew the beer, and have it mature properly.  While I don’t brew all of these styles each year, it gives me a list to choose from.
Winter Beer Styles – Beers to Brew in Fall, Drink in Winter:

    * Holiday Ales
    * Christmas/Winter Beer
    * Stouts, Porters and other Dark Beers
    * Barley Wine (needs long aging – start a year or more in advance)
    * Winter Wheats
    * Smoked Rauchbier
    * Scotch Ale
    * Old Ale

Spring Beer Styles – Beers to Brew in Winter, Drink in Spring

    * Irish Ale and Irish Stout
    * Green Beer for St Patty’s Day
    * Bock/Doppelbock
    * India Pale Ale
    * Fruit Beer
    * Wheat Beer, Weizen and Weisse – particularly Hefeweizen
    * Saison
    * Blonde Ale
    * Belgian Wit/White Beer

Summer Beer Styles – Beers to Brew in Spring, Drink in Summer

    * Bavarian Weizen/Weisse
    * Pilsner
    * Cream Ale
    * Steam Beer – California Common
    * Kolsch Beer
    * Summer Ales
    * Saison
    * Fruit/Wheat Beers

Fall Beer Styles – Beers to Brew in Summer, Drink in the Fall

    * Marzen/Oktoberfest
    * Pumpkin Beer
    * English Pale Ale
    * Brown Ales
    * Dunkelweizen
    * Harvest Ale

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The OG will always be higher than the FG for two reasons. First, the
yeast will have processed much of the sugar that was present, thus,
reducing the gravity. And, second, the alcohol produced by
fermentation is less dense than water, further reducing the gravity.
The OG has a significant effect on the taste of the final product and
not just from an alcoholic standpoint. A high OG usually results in
beer with more body and sweetness than a lower OG. This is because
some of the sugars measured in the OG are not fermentable by the
yeast and will remain after fermentation.

Here are some rough guidelines:

Some Bitters, Milds, Wheat beers, and most “Lite” beers have an OG
ranging from 1020-1040. The majority of beers fall in the 1040-1050
range including most Lagers, Stout, Porter, Pale Ale, most Bitters,
and Wheat beers. From 1050-1060 you’ll find, Oktoberfest, India Pale
Ale, ESB (Extra Special Bitter). In the 1060-1075 range will be Bock,
strong ales, Belgian doubles. Above 1075 are the really strong beers
like Dopplebocks, Barleywines, Imperial Stouts, and Belgian trippels
and strong ales.

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    So you have devised the perfect Porter, hit all your temps and volumes, pitched a beautiful yeast starter and held a constant temp. All that’s left to do today is move this beauty over to a secondary fermenter (or bottling bucket as the case may be.) What could possibly go wrong? LOTS!
    Ok, that may be a little sensationalist, but let’s go over some things to make the transfer of your beautiful beer as danger-free and simple as possible.

Racking Tubes, Canes, and Siphons

    ”Racking” is just a fancy term for “siphoning” or moving your beer from one container to another while leaving behind any settled solids in the first container.
    If you’ve looked around, you will see that there are an array of devices available for achieving this. The most basic tool one could use is a plastic hose with no attachments. The more common version involves a hose and a plastic tube with about a 100 degree bend called the “racking cane.” Racking Canes generally have some piece of plastic on the end to allow the liquid to enter from above and cause less disturbance in the sediment. Racking canes come in plastic, stainless, steel, and even copper models.
    On up the food chain is the Fermtech AutoSiphon which consists of a racking cane and tube assembly where the cane is placed inside a plastic tube. A semi-loose grommet fits between the cane and tube, making somewhat of a piston out of the whole thing. By moving the racking cane up and down a few strokes inside the tube, the siphon starts with no other intervention. As you will see later, this is a good thing. If I were to to recommend one racking system over any other, this would be it.
    Now, as homebrewers, we are never satisfied with simplicity. What’s the fun in that? With a few extra parts, one could endeavour to make a racking system where the beer never touches open air (a good thing, more on that later.) Basically, you will need two carboy caps (those rubber deals with two spouts and caps that fit the mouth of a carboy), one plain racking cane/tube assembly, and, ideally, a sanitary micron filter. (example)
    By placing the apparatus into the upper container and placing your tube through the carboy cap in the lower carboy, you have created an closed system. When you blow air into the top carboy (through the sterile filter) you are creating higher pressure that makes the liquid want to equalize into an environment of lower pressure (the lower container.)
    Pretty neat stuff. Not ENTIRELY necessary, but you can never be too careful.

The Perils of Racking – Oxidation and Infection

    Without opening up another entire can of worms, the reason we rack our beer is to get it off of the trub in the bottom of the current fermenter. That or it’s done and we need to bottle or keg the stuff.
    Either way, we need to face the twin terrors of racking – oxidation and infection.
Oxidation happens in beer when we break the surface tension and allow atmospheric oxygen to absorb into our beer. Oxidation in beers shows up as a cardboard, papery, ‘old beer’ type flavor. In addition, oxidation can cause some darkening in your beer. Not good.
    Infection is caused by bacteria, mold, and wild yeasts brought into contact with your beer either through introduction aboard something you stick in the beer (the racking cane and tube or the vessel you’re racking to in this case) or just through the air.

No Worries

    Now that we know what can go wrong, how do we prevent it. Well, it’s easy really. Just observe a couple of simple rules no matter what technique you choose.

    RULE 1: Everything must be sanitized. ::: Not cleaned – sanitized. This means StarSan or Iodophor (or, if you insist, bleach – but I really recommend that you quit bleach ASAP as off flavors are imminent.) Before racking, fill a bucket of your favorite sanitizer and stick your racking cane, hose, carboy caps in there. Also, don’t forget to sterilize that target container thoroughly. Keep everything in the bucket up until the time when you have everything in place. When you remove your hose/cane assembly – don’t throw the thing on the counter. I hang mine across the shower curtain rod at the curve in the cane so it touches nothing.

    RULE 2: No Splashing ::: To minimize chances of oxidation, you will need to reduce any agitation of splashing of your beer. This means that you will need to place the outlet of the racking tube below the level of beer in the lower container. Whether that involves making sure the tube is long enough or raising the lower container, make sure you do it.

    RULE 3: Sucking Sucks ::: The first several times I attempted to rack beer, I had no idea how to get the siphon started and quickly fell victim to just sucking the end of the siphon to get it started. You’ve all heard that the human mouth is about the dirtiest part of our bodies (bacteria wise.) So, in hindsight, this was not the greatest of practices. Later on, I started worrying at took up the practice of swishing vodka in my mouth before starting the siphon. I suppose that’s better, but still not a great idea.
Later on, I somewhat got the idea of starting the siphon through filling the racking cane with water, plugging both ends, and quickly sticking it in place. The water falls the ‘right’ way with any luck and the siphon starts.
However the day I got the AutoSiphon (explained above) is the day all that nonsense ended. Seriously, get one.

Whatever method you choose, if you follow some simple rules, racking your beer will be simple, easy, and trouble-free.

homebrew4less.com

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If you are anything like me, you probably started out your home brewing ‘career’ by reading a few books and maybe buying a kit that contained a bucket or glass carboy to be used as a primary fermenter. You may have then purchased (another) glass carboy to conduct a secondary fermentation. Well, I’m here to tell you, there’s a better way!

I have recently discovered the Better-Bottle. This is a plastic-based product that is sold with or without a special racking spout at the bottom. The model I will be discussing includes an adjustable racking spout/arm that they call the Racking Adapter. Essentially, there is a spout inside the bottle that twists to keep what you are emptying from the bottle above the line of trub and can be twisted as low toward the trub as you please when you are nearing the bottom.

Why I like the Better Bottle system

Let me clear this up firstly – I am in no way affiliated nor do I receive advertising revenue from the Better-Bottle manufacturer. I just really like the product. Here are a few reasons:

It’s Unbreakable – I am always scared of breaking glass carboys and often read horror stories of folks breaking carboys and ruining their beer and even receiving serious injuries as a result. This is not for me. I like brewing but I am not going to endanger myself (more than necessary) during brewing, bottling, or cleaning.
It’s Light – The Better-Bottle is much lighter than a carboy. This saves my back and greatly decreases the chance of dropping my batch of hard-earned beer sometime from brewing to bottling.
Oxygen Permeability – These bottles are designed to be much less oxygen permeable than your standard water bottle and also less permeable than the fermentation buckets you may have used. Read their site if you want the gory details about exactly how much less permeable.
It’s Clear – If you like using plastic buckets but hate not seeing the fermentation in action, this one is for you.
The Racking Adapter – I have found that I am able to get a batch from yeast pitch to finished beer to bottle without ever exposing it to the outside air. Sanitation is paramount to brewing success, and this is a major plus to me. A regular bottle filler attaches easily to the Racking Adapter and allows me to finish my fermentation, let everything settle out, and bottle from the same container with little disturbance of the yeast/trub.

Use 1 – Clearing the Trub

I own two Better-Bottles currently – a smaller 5 gal. version and a larger 6.5 gal version – both with the racking adapters in place. After chilling my wort with an immersion chiller, I make a whirlpool and let it settle out for about 20 minutes. This clears the wort some but really never settles it completely. To remedy this and ease my worry about my fresh wort sitting in relatively ‘open air,’ I have started racking my wort from my boiling kettle into the 5 gallon better bottle for further settling. I seal the container then rack it again a bit later leaving some more trub behind. An additional benefit is that the dual racking allows time for easy aeration through splashing, etc.

Use 2 – Fermenting Completely

With most ales, once I get the wort into the primary fermenter it never leaves or is opened to the air until bottling time. Despite common practice/myth, you do not need to rack your beer into another fermenter if you are bottling within about 4 weeks. I suspect this practice got started with the use of oxygen-permeable buckets and the need to prevent oxidation by transferring to a carboy. However, with relatively impermeable fermenters like the Better-Bottle (or a glass carboy) I really feel no need rack my beer and possibly introduce not only oxygen but who-knows-what from the air. I have had no ill effects doing this and autolysis has not been a factor in any of my beers.
So, with the Better-Bottle, I just let the beer go at its own pace, undisturbed, until it’s done.

Use 3 – Bottling

Bottling is no fun, but using the racking arm of the Better-Bottle makes this process almost as painless as it can be. My technique is simply to transfer my Better-Bottle to a countertop the morning I am going to bottle and let any sediment I rustled up settle back down. Then, I sanitize the racking adapter with a spray bottle of StarSan solution, and attach a standard bottle filler (I use a Phil’s Filler) to the spout. Open her up and she’s ready to go.
Once the level of the liquid gets down, the process does start slowing down a bit. However, if you get a carboy cap, a sanitary filter, and a tube you can blow air into it to increase the pressure and the flow rate of the liquid. Even better, if you have a CO2 system, this can be used.

Use 4 – Lagering/Aging

If you have a beer that requires extended aging such as a lager or even an ale like a higer gravity Belgian or barley wine that will take longer than 4 weeks, you will want to transfer to a different container. I transfer from the 6.5 gallon Better-Bottle to the 5 Gallon one for this job. The transfer can be achieved in an air-free environment by attaching the racking adapter of one bottle to the racking adapter of the the second bottle with some tubing then attaching carboy caps or the caps that Better Bottle sells (the Dry Trap airlock) with a hose to make a closed loop. An illustration can be seen on Better Bottle’s website under the How-To Section / Racking / Carboy > Carboy.
Trub can be contained very well this way and your beer will be safe from airborne muck.

Challenges

Using the Better-Bottle system does have a couple of challenges that you need to be aware of. In the scope of things, these are no big deal – just gotchas’.
First thing is, you can’t use a brush to clean or the Better-Bottle will scratch. I usually overcome this by filling a used Better Bottle up with hot water from the bathtub and soaking in PBW for a couple of days. This sometimes cleans it completely, and sometimes it takes a second soaking. The Better-Bottle website also recommends the following method : “For faster results, put a few cups hot wash solution into a carboy, add a face cloth, and vigorously slosh the solution and cloth. Better-Bottle carboys are light, so sloshing the carboy in your hands will not be difficult; however, rocking the carboy back and forth on its side or rocking it on a tennis ball placed under its punt requires even less effort.”
Second thing is, if you use a liquid-filled airlock, be sure to remove it before moving the Better-Bottle even the slightest. It seems that, given any chance, the Better-Bottle will suck air in through the lock and bring some of the liquid with it due to the fact that it’s flexible. This can be overcome as well by a liquid-less airlock that the Better Bottle folks sell. I have never used one, but it seems a good alternative.
Another air lock solution is to make a blowoff system using a carboy cap (the orange ones seem to work for me) with a 1/2″ hose attached that runs into a growler filled with water.

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Also, after every batch I discard the stone that has contacted wort. A dollar or two seems rather cheap insurance against a contaminated batch.

An activated carbon filter removes odors but is not an efficient filter of particulate matter. A second stone in a jar half filled with 3% hydrogen peroxide (the common drug store variety) offers a solution. Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent that will remove odors and a mild antiseptic that will destroy airborne microflora. In addition, any particulate matter is washed out in the peroxide solution. Any peroxide washed into the wort is quickly broken down into water and oxygen, which at this point in the process is desirable. Here’s what the setup looks like.

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A yeast starter is a method of preparing your yeast for fermentation by introducing your yeast to a small amount of wort before fermentation in order to encourage yeast cell multiplication to create an optimum amount of healty, ready-to-go yeast cells for an ideal fermentation of your beer.

How Much yeast do I Need?

As an average, you need about 3.75 billion yeast cells for each point of OG for about 5 gallons of ale wort1. Lager fermentations will require a bit more due to the extended fermentation and generally cooler temperatures. This means that, for a 1.060 ale, you would need about 225 billion yeast cells for optimum fermentation conditions. To compare, an average tube or pack of liquid yeast has abut 100 billon cells. So, as you see, you’re going to need to increase this yeast count if you plan to pitch one tube of yeast.

As a rule, the larger the starter, the more yeast reproduction due to the fact that there are more sugars for the yeast to use as fuel for reproduction. As another general principle, a 2-liter starter will approximately double your yeast count1 (with varying conditions taken into account including the amount of oxygen present in the starter.)

There are mathematical formulas and researched-based ratios to calculate all this exactly. However, there is a much easier way. Jamil Zainasheff has written a great tool for calculating starters on his website : the Mr Malty’s Pitching Rate Calculator. I encourage you to use this tool and try various scenarios with different OG values and different starter configurations to see how the starter procedures affect the final cell count.

I plugged in 5.25 gallons of 1.060 ale wort using a stirplate aerated starter and found out that I would need to make a 1 liter starter from one vial of yeast in order to produce about 219 billon yeast cells.

Prepare the Starter Wort

First thing’s first, we’re going to need some wort to use in our starter. By far, the best food for yeast that is going to be consuming wort in the very near future is, you guessed it, wort. I say this because you may, at some point, have the idea that you can just use table sugar for your starter. This is a bad idea because the yeast will become accustomed to consuming the simple sugars in table sugar and when it’s time to eat up all those beer sugars (maltose, etc.) they will not take to the idea very well and may drop out of the fermentation before the job is done. Think of this as having to drink a Bud after having a great, homebrewed beer – you wouldn’t want that and, in a way, it’s the same with the yeast.

The best source of easy-to-prepare wort is dried malt extract (DME.) You will need enough DME to prepare a starter of about 1.040 OG. A higer gravity, regardless of the beer you’re going to make, is not better as the higher gravity will stress the yeast more than is needed for simple propagation and will leave your yeast in bad condition for the fermentation itself. To achieve the proper gravity, you will need about 6oz (by weight) of DME for every 2 quarts of water1. That equates to roughly 3oz. of DME for every 1000ml of starter water you use.

Do bother to weigh out your DME with that same scale you weight you hops with (you do have one, right?) as differing amounts of moisture in different DME brands might make 1/2 cup of one brand contain much more or less than 1/2 cup of another brand in terms of volume measurement.

The next thing you will need is a container. The best piece of equipment for starters is an Erlenmeyer flask made of borosilicate glass. These are able to withstand very high temperatures and temperature swings, are equipped with volume measurements, and have a flat bottom for use with a stir plate. If you do not have an Erlenmeyer flask the next best thing is a growler from your local microbrewery. Failing that, any glass container that can be covered with an airlock, stopper, or piece of foil will do.

To prepare the wort, weigh out your DME and add the volume of declorinated water (plus a little more to take evaporation into account) to achieve your desired starter volume either directly to the Erlenmeyer flask or to very clean and soap-free pot. Your Erlenmeyer flask can be placed directly on the stove. However, a word of caution, if the volume you are making does not provide enough headspace for the hot break material when your wort comes to a boil, it will be one nasty boilover and one messy stove. You can always boil some water on another burner in your flask while you’re boiling your wort for the sake of sanitation.

Boil the wort for about 15 minutes, remove from heat, and cover immedately as sanitation is now ultra-important. Cool your coverd wort to a reasonable temperature and, if needed, transfer to your sterilized starter vessel.

The temperature of your starter should be kept roughly the same temperature as you plan your fermentation to take place. Once your wort is at that temperature, sanitize your yeast packet or vial, the top of your starter container, and anything else like a funnel that might come into play here then pitch your yeast into the starter. If you are using a Wyeast smack pack, you can smack it to add a bit of yeast nutrient into the mix. If you don’t that’s fine too as the yeast is in the big container, not the little pillow in these systems.

Finally, make sure to cover your starter vessel. You can use a stopper and airlock. I personally use a piece of loose-fitting aluminum foil that I place on the top of my Erlenmeyer flask while I am boiling the wort (or water if just sanitizing) to ensure that the foil is sanitized. Bacteria, dust, and whatever else in the air that may affect your starter wort falls down, not up, so anything that covers the opening of the starter container and let’s CO2 escape during yeast activity should be sufficient.

You may be tempted to add some hops into your wort as well, knowing that they do have some anti-microbial properties and, after all, it’s a mini beer. This really is not necessary and, if you are worried about sanitation, put extra extra effort into making sure that each and every thing that comes into contact with your starter is sanitary. If you want to add anything to the wort, some yeast nutrient would be appropriate to encourage optimum growth conditions.

Oxygenate your Starter

Actively reporducing yeast need available oxygen to be able to reproduce and build strong, healthy cell walls. The presence of sufficient oxygen (8 to 16 ppm2) will allow the maximum amount of cell reproduction – the ultimate goal of the starter process. Oxygen can be provided to a starter in many ways, including the introduction of pure oxygen. If you do have an oxygenation system that you use for your wort, I would caution the use of this in the small volume of a yeast starter. I know some people do this with reportedly good results, however it is my opinion that the risk of killing your yeast in the starter solution may be far greater than then benefits.

The first way to more safely introduce oxygen into your starter is by simply shaking the starter as often as possible (for example, hourly.) This method is free, simple, and while the least effective of the methods I will mention, is much better than no oxygenation method at all.

A better method is the use of an aquarium air pump with a sanitary air filter inline and a bubble producing stone that is placed into the starter. All tubing and stone should be sanitized prior to introduction to the starter. This method produces agitation of the liquid which breaks up the surface and allows air/oxygen to be introduced to the solution. This method is reported to be better than periodic shaking.

The best method, albiet the most expensive, is the use of a laboratory stirplate to create a whirlpool effect in the starter. This method provides constant, gentle oxygenation and encourages the most cell reproduction of the three methods mentioned.

To illustrate the differences, I used the Mr. Malty Pitching Calculator again on a 1.060 wort but compared the volumes required to produce that same 220 billion yeast cells with different aeration methods. With a plain starter, no aeration, a 2.43L starter is required. With agitation, a 1.4L starter is needed. With aeration, a 1.22L volume is required and with a stirplate, only 1L of starter volume is required to produce the same number of cells. So, the correlary of this is that, with the same volume of starter wort, more cells are produced with better oxygenation methods.

When to pitch

After a few hours, you should see some bubbling and evident yeast activity going on in your starter. There are two schools of thought on when the best time to pitch your yeast might be. One way of thinking is that you should pitch the entire yeast starter into your beer wort when it is a high krausen (anywhere from 8 to 18 hours) as the yeast is actively eating sugars and is ready for more. Another way of thinking about this is that you should pitch the yeast portion of the starter after it has completely fermented the starter sugars and has had a day or two to build up its cell reserves.

I see both sides of this and, for me, it boils down to which method fits into my brewing schedule best. If I think ahead enough to prepare a starter a few days ahead and allow ample time to settle out, great. If I think of preparing the starter the night before or even the morning of the brew day, I can pitch at high krausen.

Why Bother?

With all this said, a yeast starter is not necessary to make a good beer. If you read this and find that it’s too much to mess with for your brewing abitity or you are not one who takes great precautions with sanitation – no worries. Pitch your yeast vial or smack pack as-is and your beer will likely end up just fine. The activity of producing a yeast starter is just one more tool in your toolbox to make even better beer.

Above all, enjoy your homebrewing sessions and drinking your hard earned beer.

Reference

1. Zumurgy – March/April 2007 – Making A Starter by Jamil Zainasheff (pp 21-25)

2. How to Brew – 3rd Edition by John Palmer

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