INTRODUCING BREWART DRY HOPS

[Mick]

Hi Allan

In regards to the water I have been thinking about going to see my brother who has a massive rainwater tank and trying that to see if it does make a difference.

Im sure tap water probably is not the best water to use!

I have been using sugar for my brews but now trying dextrose to see how that works.

As I have been told a few times it is certainly a learning curve but fun and interesting along the way 😁

[Dustin Frothman]

1 hour ago, Mick said:

Hi Allan

In regards to the water I have been thinking about going to see my brother who has a massive rainwater tank and trying that to see if it does make a difference.

Im sure tap water probably is not the best water to use!

I have been using sugar for my brews but now trying dextrose to see how that works.

As I have been told a few times it is certainly a learning curve but fun and interesting along the way 😁

FWIW I use filtered water. You can buy 10 Litres or so from the supermarket very cheaply but I have a Brita filter jug and storage brick that I sanitise and fill a couple of days prior to starting a brew so that it's ready to go.

I don't take any chances with sugar or dextrose for priming and prefer to use the Brewart sucrose.

No strange aftertaste on any of my brews. In fact we had a few of my beers at home tonight before going to the pub to watch the football and I can honestly say that the beer at home tasted better and cleaner than the 2 pints we had there. The Brewart ingredients are premium quality and in my opinion if you do things correctly you will get excellent results.

[Alan Batchelor]

Dustin, I have brewed with other systems and never had this odd taste. I just can't put my finger on it but reminds me of a diet coke. A fake sugar taste. The Ruby Porter was the only beer that seemed to lack the bite. But I drank that very early, maybe 10 days.

I sanitize and follow all the instructions. The coopers XPA and Narci where the ones I noticed it on the most (But these have a lot of E5 which does say moderate bittering). The Pub Ale and Lawnmover the least.

When I taste test it seems fine, just lacks carbonation. So it seems to come with the secondary. I leave in my dark basement at around 65F. The other thing I notice is they are bottled at quite a light color but when conditioned come out darker. But I have seen pictures of brews like the Narci and that looks to be a darker beer than I think is should and also nothing like the picture on the brewprint. 🙂

I will experiment with the BrewArt Carbonation tabs, The liquid packs and actual sugar. I am leaning to the Carb drops as the culprit. I always used sugar in my other brews.

~Alan

 

 

[Dustin Frothman]

8 minutes ago, Alan Batchelor said:

Dustin, I have brewed with other systems and never had this odd taste. I just can't put my finger on it but reminds me of a diet coke. A fake sugar taste. The Ruby Porter was the only beer that seemed to lack the bite. But I drank that very early, maybe 10 days.

I sanitize and follow all the instructions. The coopers XPA and Narci where the ones I noticed it on the most (But these have a lot of E5 which does say moderate bittering). The Pub Ale and Lawnmover the least.

When I taste test it seems fine, just lacks carbonation. So it seems to come with the secondary. I leave in my dark basement at around 65F. The other thing I notice is they are bottled at quite a light color but when conditioned come out darker. But I have seen pictures of brews like the Narci and that looks to be a darker beer than I think is should and also nothing like the picture on the brewprint. 🙂

I will experiment with the BrewArt Carbonation tabs, The liquid packs and actual sugar. I am leaning to the Carb drops as the culprit. I always used sugar in my other brews.

~Alan

 

 

I use the kegging system and the only time I've tasted anything remotely similar to the Diet Coke flavour you describe is when I completely emptied the keg liners on the XPA I recently finished. I held the tap open on the Brewflo until it was just foam and air pumping into an empty glass.

There was a tiny bit of that taste in the sediment and foam at the bottom of the liner i.e. the bit you wouldn't drink anyway. I did think to myself at the time that this could be what you had described.

I do wonder if bottling doesn't produce the volume of fluid to allow this sediment to settle properly out of the solution before serving.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Dustin Frothman

[Alan Batchelor]

Dustin,

That is very interesting.. With NE style IPA's on a lot of the cans it states rotate can slowly. So we always drink everything 🙂

There is sediment but I do tend to rotate the bottle the same way as cans. I will make sure I try some bottles and pour slowly to avoid the the bottom of the bottle to see if this might be the issue.

Alan

 

[Captain 3 Droids]

I use filtered water, a filter attached to the kitchen tap that can be turned on seperate to main tap flow. (removes chlorine).

I also don’t get any odd tastes or Diet Coke like effects. 
Alan, are you using the BrewArt sanitising tabs to sanitise the Droid??

 

[Alan Batchelor]

@Barrelboy Mark, yes I use the sanitizing bar from brewart. I have even just used starsan spray solution and a combo. I starsan new bottles and only using spring water in the last few brews. I had a highlands IPA tonight. Made sure I never mixed the sediment. Only 17 days but still a strange after taste. I know I 100% sanitize and make sure filling the bottles so there is minimum air at the top.

I will carbonate with sugar on my close to 18 days lawnmower 🤣  (I know it’s working BTW I get notifications that it is ramping the temp to mop up the last bit of yeast) 

so if it’s not the carbonation tabs then it’s just the DME and possibly the stronger bittering than I am used to. I like a bitter beer but not like this. 
 

My next brew will be LME based. 

But I’ve said this before, this is an Australian brew system and maybe it’s just simply not sitting with me. But that said the first taste prior to bottling does not seem to have it. So it’s secondary or it’s the carb tabs..

The ruby porter was great early on but the longer I leave it the odd taste comes more prominent..

Sorry if I’m looking like a a whinny arse twat but this is what I’m honestly tasting.

 

~ Alan

[Captain 3 Droids]

38 minutes ago, Alan Batchelor said:

@Barrelboy Mark, yes I use the sanitizing bar from brewart. I have even just used starsan spray solution and a combo. I starsan new bottles and only using spring water in the last few brews. I had a highlands IPA tonight. Made sure I never mixed the sediment. Only 17 days but still a strange after taste. I know I 100% sanitize and make sure filling the bottles so there is minimum air at the top.

I will carbonate with sugar on my close to 18 days lawnmower 🤣  (I know it’s working BTW I get notifications that it is ramping the temp to mop up the last bit of yeast) 

so if it’s not the carbonation tabs then it’s just the DME and possibly the stronger bittering than I am used to. I like a bitter beer but not like this. 
 

My next brew will be LME based. 

But I’ve said this before, this is an Australian brew system and maybe it’s just simply not sitting with me. But that said the first taste prior to bottling does not seem to have it. So it’s secondary or it’s the carb tabs..

The ruby porter was great early on but the longer I leave it the odd taste comes more prominent..

Sorry if I’m looking like a a whinny arse twat but this is what I’m honestly tasting.

 

~ Alan

No you aren’t a whinny arse, this is what a forum is about, helping each other.

Do you rinse out the Droid after the BrewArt sanitising tab, including pulling the tap apart?

[Dustin Frothman]

2 hours ago, Alan Batchelor said:

I will carbonate with sugar on my close to 18 days lawnmower 🤣  

I was thinking last night that I would love to know more about chemistry to be able to understand the differences between secondary fermentation using sugar, dextrose or sucrose. I know they're all just sugars and other brewers say it makes no difference what you use but I do find it interesting that Brewart was providing liquid sucrose and have now switched to sucrose bricks.

My uneducated assumption is that if their brewers had thought changing to dextrose would produce identical results then this would have been the opportunity for them to do so. Obviously the liquid sucrose was supplied partially with convenience in mind and since they have decided to switch formats anyway then if they were functionally equal why would they not use this opportunity to change to the cheaper sugar (dextrose) too?

FWIW I'm always interested in saving a few dollars here and there but not if there's any chance of it impacting on quality. I've had a cursory look into buying brewers sucrose in Australia and interestingly it seems that you can only buy in rather large quantities direct from chemical suppliers. It's a much different prospect to say swapping out the Brewart sanitising tabs for some bulk sodium percarbonate from the brew shop.

So for now I'm sticking with the Brewart primers even though yes you can probably argue that they're a little costly.

[Captain 3 Droids]

I bottle for years and only ever used the Coopers carbonation drops that are recommended with the kit beers. About 30 drops for $3.50 (Big W) gives you 15 longnecks or 30 x stubbies. No mess, no measuring, quick to use and excellent results. There is an amount for the 5litre kegs on here somewhere. (Note - is less in kegs for equivalent number of bottles.

[Dustin Frothman]

27 minutes ago, Barrelboy said:

I bottle for years and only ever used the Coopers carbonation drops that are recommended with the kit beers. About 30 drops for $3.50 (Big W) gives you 15 longnecks or 30 x stubbies. No mess, no measuring, quick to use and excellent results. There is an amount for the 5litre kegs on here somewhere. (Note - is less in kegs for equivalent number of bottles.

Interestingly they are a combination of sucrose and glucose.

[Mick]

Ok so my regime is as follows any comments advice welcome.

1. When the brew is ready to bottle I starsan all bottles using a spring loaded bottle rinse and let drain
2. I make sure all other equipment is cleaned and sterilised including my hands
3. Use one of those measuring scoops for the primer as mentioned I have been using plain white sugar now trying Dextrose
4. When bottling is done I wipe the droid clean then add 30g sodium percarbonate to 10 litres warm water and let sit for 20 min
5. Drain the droid, rinse with water then spray with starsan and fill with water. Have been using tap water but this will change, add ingredients and then set program
6. Meant to mention I thouroughly clean tap and drain plug When cleaning droid

 

[Dustin Frothman]

53 minutes ago, Mick said:

Ok so my regime is as follows any comments advice welcome.

 

1. When bottling is done I wipe the droid clean then add 30g sodium percarbonate to 10 litres warm water and let sit for 20 min

 

No advice here but just my method for comparison:

I use 5g /L sodium percarbonate (so 50g) which is the recommended dosage given on the bulk pack that I purchased from the local brew store.

Otherwise I follow the method in the Brewart videos - leave it to soak for 1 hour, open the tap to drain approximately one cupful through then let it soak for another hour.

I rinse thoroughly and drain all remaining water, spray with starsan/stellarsan leave for a couple of minutes, drain off any excess fluid and then fill with my brewing water.

I haven't had any issues with infection or unusual tastes.

[xpsTech]

1 hour ago, Mick said:

Ok so my regime is as follows any comments advice welcome.

1. When the brew is ready to bottle I starsan all bottles using a spring loaded bottle rinse and let drain
2. I make sure all other equipment is cleaned and sterilised including my hands
3. Use one of those measuring scoops for the primer as mentioned I have been using plain white sugar now trying Dextrose
4. When bottling is done I wipe the droid clean then add 30g sodium percarbonate to 10 litres warm water and let sit for 20 min
5. Drain the droid, rinse with water then spray with starsan and fill with water. Have been using tap water but this will change, add ingredients and then set program
6. Meant to mention I thouroughly clean tap and drain plug When cleaning droid

 

 

Sounds pretty thorough, consider the following as well from time to time:

• remove o-rings from the tap and sanitise.
• remove o-rings from the drain plug (V2 droids) and sanitise.
• replace o-rings periodically, not really necessary but it's just something I like to do annually.
• remove seal from lid and sanitise.

Always leave everything to thoroughly air dry if not using straight away, e.g. leave tap apart, lid off etc.

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by xpsTech

[Mick]

 

6 hours ago, Barrelboy said:

I use filtered water, a filter attached to the kitchen tap that can be turned on seperate to main tap flow. (removes chlorine).

I also don’t get any odd tastes or Diet Coke like effects. 
Alan, are you using the BrewArt sanitising tabs to sanitise the Droid??

 

Mark do you have a pic of the filter that is attached to the tap?

[Captain 3 Droids]

17 minutes ago, Mick said:

 

Mark do you have a pic of the filter that is attached to the tap?

No problems. I get the filters off eBay. The black valve on the tap nozzle changes the water flow from main tap to filter.

[Mick]

Thanks i found this one as well, made by the same company

[Alan Batchelor]

@Barrelboy Mark, Yes I rinse thoroughly and sanitize everything as per 101 videos. My issue is not contaminated beer.

 

When I find out what it is I will post here. Thanks for all the help.

 

~Alan

 

[Captain 3 Droids]

9 hours ago, Alan Batchelor said:

@Barrelboy Mark, Yes I rinse thoroughly and sanitize everything as per 101 videos. My issue is not contaminated beer.

 

When I find out what it is I will post here. Thanks for all the help.

 

~Alan

 

Fair enough, not always easy to track down sometimes.

[Dustin Frothman]

12 hours ago, Alan Batchelor said:

@Barrelboy Mark, Yes I rinse thoroughly and sanitize everything as per 101 videos. My issue is not contaminated beer.

 

When I find out what it is I will post here. Thanks for all the help.

 

~Alan

 

Keen to hear how you go.

I'll be sure to let you know if I get that Diet Coke taste again in the sediment/foam when I finish another keg in the next few days.

[Dustin Frothman]

I thought I'd provide a review of my experience with the new Dry Hop Filter. The brew was the Narci Citrus IPA. I ended up adding the first 100 grams of hops way too early as fermentation went for a lot longer than I had anticipated. When EOF was detected I added another 50 grams to bring the total to 150 grams (15g /L) to see if the filter could cope.

I cold crashed for approximately 60 hours as was away for work last night and started the heating phase via the app first thing this morning before arriving home.

As you can see from the photos and videos the beer ran clear after exiting the filter. I had to empty it between kegs; then a quick clean and sanitise before connecting the second keg.

The kegs took quite a while longer to fill as the filter became clogged but overall it performed really well. That's about 10 cm deep of hop sludge in the bottom of the Droid.

I'm putting the Jolly Roger Pale Ale on tonight and will hop as per the standard recipe and see how the filter performs with a little less sludge.

Next time I use more than 100 grams of hops I may add the last 50 grams via a hop ball. 

I am also thinking about trying a hop ball or two with sanitised dental floss attached so that it can be suspended through the vent in the lid seal and then come kegging time the ball(s) should be able to be easily and quickly removed before filling the kegs.

[Captain 3 Droids]

Shouldn’t clog as much with less hops. I’ll be interested to know if cleaning the droid was harder/longer due to extra hops and the cold crash hardening. Personally I’m staying with hop balls.

[Dustin Frothman]

2 hours ago, Barrelboy said:

Shouldn’t clog as much with less hops. I’ll be interested to know if cleaning the droid was harder/longer due to extra hops and the cold crash hardening. Personally I’m staying with hop balls.

I tend to agree. I figured that as I'd stuffed up anticipating EOF and left the first lot of hops in for too long that adding the remaining hops (the packet was already open) wouldn't hurt. It's proof that the filter still does the job.

I know you're not on the Facebook group but there's been a bit of conjecture there amongst some users that believe the filter doesn't work. They've posted photos and videos showing hop debris filling their bottles/kegs. I think they must be doing something wrong and just blaming their tools - the negativity bothers me. I was keen to prove it works. Clearly (excuse the pun!) it does.

As for cleaning - other than scooping the bulk of the hop sludge out with a rubber ladle it didn't take much longer at all. There was only a tiny bit of hardening near the sight glass and that was removed with your silicon spatula and clean Chux cloth technique.

I'll try a few more brews with just the filter (less hops obviously) but may come up with some sort of hybrid method using balls and direct hopping.

BTW the brew tasted great.

[Alan Batchelor]

@Dustin Frothman My Lawnmover is now coming up for 20 days and still no EOF. I added hops at 7 days or there about's anticipating around 10 to 11 days to EOF. I took a sample at day 11 I think it was very good. Looks like it will not get the official EOF and just simple run into the 20 days.

My did open lib and it looks and smells awesome. My concern down is 8 days or more since I took the sample pour. I am worried on two fronts after seeing your pictures and the amount of hop sediment.

1) Tap is blocked with some sediment and has dried out.

2) Infection with the stuck hops maybe sitting in side the tap.

I guess I will find out very soon.

~Alan

 

 

[Dustin Frothman]

@Alan Batchelor The Narci Citrus that I kegged today reached EOF at 17 days 1 hour. 

What weight of hops did you use? That's 150 grams in my photos there - a lot of sludge, but it all worked ok. As mentioned above, if I'm going to hop that heavily again I may employ a slightly different method. This was just a test as like you, because the Droid was on firmware P016 everything I did was jus the usual guesswork. Obviously I got it wrong this time.

My notes say that I dry hopped the first 100g towards the end of day 5, so they were in there for 12 days before adding another 50g. It appears to have worked out ok. It certainly tastes really good.

I guess the only thing I've done differently to you is the taste test as I don't open the tap until kegging.  

Will be keen to see how you get on. I'll let you know in 6 weeks time how this one has turned out.