Being Active Is Healthy!

This is true for beer fermentation, too! As I mentioned in an earlier post, the quicker the yeast begins its process and the more active it is, the better chance you end up with a cleaner, more complete fermentation. And this ultimately results in a better finished beer. So, you can imagine that I was excited to find that my porter began fermenting faster than any beer I've ever brewed (activity was clear within 4 hours), and once again it was rather explosive. The krausen (the foamy stuff on top of the fermenting beer) once again blew through the airlock, but this time it only created a tiny mess. It did not explode all over the room like during previous brews. Luckily, I now have a blow off tube and put it on just in time. My mom asked me if I'd really use it when she gave it to me for Christmas, and as you can see from the videos below, it was very much needed! Here are a few pics from the brewing process. Here are the grains in the mash tun getting ready to steep for an hour at 154 degrees in order to convert the starches in the grains to sugar. This is 11 lbs of grain including Belgian 2-row, chocolate malt (not actual chocolate, just malted barley that gives a dark color and chocolatey, roasty flavor), crystal 120 (which gives a dark color and sweet, caramelly flavor), and black patent malt (roasty flavor). The next picture is the grains after the 60 minutes and some more hot water added to stop conversion and prepare to run off into the brew pot. I didn't take many more pictures throughout the brewing process, but I can do that for future batches if needed. Usually I have other people helping me brew (ahem...Colleen!), so I have more hands to brew and take pictures. The next pictures show the beer in it's highest point of active fermentation. This usually takes 3-4 days but I will keep it in this primary fermenter for about a week, maybe longer depending on how long it takes to fully ferment. I brewed more than I wanted, which has it's good and bad points. Good--I have more beer! Bad--it won't be as strong since the additional water diluted it a bit. Plus, it forced me to put the additional beer in a second, one gallon fermenter. This isn't the worst thing, but it's just more work, more cleanup, and again not what I expected to do. But, overall, I'm still quite happy so far. Here is a picture of the 6 1/2 gallon fermenter and the 1 gallon fermenter:

















Finally, I thought I would share a few videos of the beer fermenting using the blow off tube. I'm posting three videos to show how violently it can ferment and how it progresses over just a few hours. Hopefully you find this interesting. If not, sorry, just deal with my obsession!










Pretty crazy! So basically, the tube is submerged in sanitation formula to keep any bad stuff from getting in. And all the 'stuff' coming out of the fermenter just gets mixed in with the sanitized water. Thus the progressively darker liquid. I considered narrating as I was taking the videos, but I hate listening to myself on tape/video! I also figured it's pretty self explanatory (although I felt the need to explain here).

I'll post again once it's done and the tasting is to begin, and then again perhaps when there's a winner!