Beer-Bottle Time!

Final gravity on my homebrew is 1.011. Woohoo! This gives my red ale a final ABV of 6.2%. Yes, nice and strong. Face-in-gutter time! Kidding. Sort of. Apparent attenuation is 79.61% and real attenuation is 65.22%. This is great! I love this dry yeast.

Tonight is bottling night. Do I see a How to Bottle Beer video in the near future? Yes, yes I do. Personally, I think bottle-conditioned beer is more fun than kegging it. I like handing bottles to my friends and just popping one open after work rather than climbing over my fence and bothering my neighbors about getting a pint of my homebrew out of their keg.

Five-Day Hydrometer Reading

Woohoo! The yeast is still boogyin' down! I wasn't able to lower the temperature of the brew, so it's still at a warmish 68 F. Suggestions for summertime? I guess I could stand over it and fan it.

The reading today (after using my trusty conversion app to adjust for the 68 F temperature) was 1.016. ABV is now 5.55%, apparent attenuation is 70.77%, and real attenuation is at 57.97%. Yes! I'm totally digging this dry yeast and homebrewing stuff. It's working its magic faster than the liquid ale yeast I used last time around. Of course, I completely destroyed that batch of homebrew on my own, despite what yeast I used, but you know what I mean.

Attenuation and Homebrewing

Why am I obsessing over my homebrew's attenuation? Because I have OCD. To refresh, attenuation is basically the amount of sugars converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide by the yeast (thank you, Wiki Brew). This number is given by a percentage. Here’s where it gets a little confusing: There is “real” attenuation and “apparent” attenuation. Why not just go by real? I have no idea. Why do beer brewers make this so difficult for me? I do know that by understanding what attenuation is, I can build a better beer, and that’s all that matters.

How does attenuation affect the character of beer? The yeast won’t eat up all the sugars during fermentation, so the amount of fermentable sugars left in the beer will affect the all-around “character” of the beer. Different styles have different amounts of fermentable sugars left when it’s at the drinking stage. This is where the hydrometer comes into play and where “real” versus “apparent” is found. The thing is, a hydrometer can’t measure the amount of ethanol in the beer, so the reading is off a little bit. The reading will show a lower sugar (extract) level than the “actual” beer has in it. That’s why this initial reading is called the “apparent” attenuation. If you want to know the “real” attenuation, you’d have to burn off the alcohol before using the hydrometer and use this formula: real extract = 0.1808 * original extract + 0.8192 * apparent extract. I prefer to use my beer app, though.

Here’s what I found most interesting about this whole thing: Different yeast strains have different attenuations. This is where getting crazy-awesome with your own personal made-up recipe can get fun. Lager yeast actually consumes all of the sugars, so there’s already a huge difference between ale and lager yeast right there. When the yeast drops to the bottom of the bucket (flocculation) or sit on the surface of the beer, it stops having much contact with the sugars. A funeral for the yeast cells is then needed. What happens when the yeast “dies?” There are still fermentable sugars left in the beer, which is part of that whole character thing. The rule usually goes:

Less flocculation = more attenuation

Closer to attenuation = drier and sweeter flavor

This is the gist of it and all I’m willing to absorb, but I’m sure I’ll get into it more later when I understand it a little better. For now, at least I know why there are different strains of yeast.

Thanks to Home Brewing Wiki, here’s a great illustration showing the process:

48-Hour Update

My friend calleth and I goeth to L.A. Hence the reason I didn't do a 24-hour pull for a hydrometer reading yesterday on my homebrew. That's ok, what is time but procrastination's devil?

At 48 hours, hydrometer reading is at exactly 1.020 at 68 F.

Ok, at exactly 48 hours, the hydrometer now reads 1.020 at 68 F. This brings up two things: First, the beer is a tad warmer than I'd like it to be, so I'm going to throw it in my bathroom corner, which doesn't get much light, therefore is cooler. I want it down to about 64 F if possible. And two, since I didn't take the reading at 60 F, I need to pull out my trusty Brewzor Calculator app and figure out what the reading really is. Oh, well that's not much of a difference now, is it? It's actually 1.021. Now, I subtract 1.021 from 1.058, the original reading, and find out that the ABV (alcohol content) and attenuation is at ABV 4.88% and apparent attenuation is at 61.99% with real attenuation at 50.79%. I'm not exactly thrilled by this because I was hoping the attenuation would be at least 70% and a little more productive, but it's only been two days, so hopefully these numbers will change for the better.

The color shown above is the actual color at the moment, too. This will most certainly change and get darker over time. Now for a little sippy poo. Wooooweee, that is bitter! But wow, those hops sure taste good!

Ok, another reading will be done tomorrow at the 72-hour spot. A lot of people on forums said this yeast finishes its doing its thing after only two days sometimes, but I'm hoping to get one more day out of it at least. Unfortunately, the airlock (excuse me, but that burp tasted delish!) isn't moving, so that worries me a bit. Last time, when I used a liquid yeast, it took a good four or five days  to finish up. I'll wait for at least three days of steady hydrometer readings before I decide to bottle my beer.

Yeast on Fire!

I was starting to get worried when the fermentation process for my home brew hadn't started after a couple of hours but, last night, about six hours after pitching it, it finally woke up. Phew! If it hadn't started, I would have gone and purchased a bottle of liquid yeast and pitched that in there, so it wouldn't have been all bad. Below is a video of the airlock spitting away. That's a sign the yeast is eatin'!

 

Nosh told me how to read the hydrometer, so now I know what the actual original gravity (OG) is. Seeing as I read it while the wort was at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, I will need to calculate it to convert the number to what it would be at the temperature I was supposed to test it at, which is 60 degrees F. The gravity reading shown is about 1.055. To convert it as though it was taken at the right temp, either do the math or open a fancy app, such as the one I use, called Brewzor Calculator. The math is as follows: For every 10 degrees above 60 F, the measurements are off by .002-.003. So, if your brew measures 1.038 at 80 F, you need to add .004-.006 to that. Brewzor Calculator did it for me. My actual reading came out to 1.058, which is .006 higher than what the recipe said it would be. This is ok, that's pretty darn close! This could be because I didn't add quite enough water to replace the water that evaporated, but I still think I did pretty well. I'll take another reading at the 24 hr. since pitching mark today so I can follow what's called the attenuation.

Attenuation is the percentage of sugar (extract) that has converted to alcohol and CO2 by the yeast. This is important if you want to really take great notes and start to understand how to build your own better brew in the future. At least, that's my goal. For now I'll just play scientist and pretend I really understand. The type of yeast strain you choose affects attenuation, which I never really considered before. This, in effect, affects the taste and character of the beer. Most companies will give you the attenuation rates, so I'm going to go check mine. Be right back. Great, the attenuation rate looks like Greek to me. After scouring 326 forum posts about this particular yeast, it looks like the attenuation is perfect for an ale. Most people said the best temperature to ferment at is about 65-68 F. I'll check the temps this afternoon at the 24-hour point. Apparently a dry yeast also takes less time to ferment, so keep that in mind before you reach for the same liquid version. Be back in a few hours with the exciting results!

And that's why your kids should help you brew: Science!

The bubbles are covering the reading, but original gravity is at about 1.055.