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Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Homebrew dropping fermentation

Anyone ever done a dropping fermentation at home? If you have, get in touch.

11 comments:

  1. I've thought about doing it with the Henley strain, the guys at Northern Brewer did a batch.
    http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2010/05/double-drop-fermentation/

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  2. I went through a phase of it probably 15 or more years ago. Ultimately, I didn't see any particular advantage.

    Here is a post I made in 2001 on HomeBrew Digest about my experience.

    http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3525.html#3525-8

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  3. I used the method continuously for about 10 years.
    It's a struggle to do if you're at work, and cant always pick the right time. When I eventually tried doing without, I couldn't notice a difference, and gratefully gave up.

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  4. So has anyone who's done it noticed a difference from a normal fermentation in terms of flavour?

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  5. It would also be interesting to know if it made a difference to the length of time the fermentation took (rousing up the yeast with the drop/adding oxygen?), the stability of the final beer and whether the beer dropped brighter once fermentation was over and it was racked than a "normal" fermentation did.

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  6. I used to.
    I would say you get a brighter beer quicker, but double (or more!) the risk of infection by introducing a second fermenting vessel?

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  7. This thread is making me want to try it. Specifically Jeff's old post. I wonder if there's a way to moderate any diacetyl that's produced in order to give a bitter a little more character.
    Seems that oxygenation can boost diacetyl production.

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  8. If you can locate the standard brewing textbook, Malting and Brewing Science: Hopped Wort and Beer, Volume 2, By J.S. Hough, D.E. Briggs, R. Stevens, Tom W. Young, pp. 678-670 cover this. These pages don't seem to be available on Google Books preview.

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  9. Jeff, I've a couple of editions of Briggs (published in 1975 and 2000) but both are a single volume. When was that one published?

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  10. Ron - It's the 2nd Edition, 1982, Look in the index for "Fermentation Systems." "Dropping system, 668" is a sub-category.

    See http://books.google.com/books?id=ciA6-YMTI-UC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

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  11. I see that I mistyped the pages - they're 668-670.

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