Alchemy in action

It really is a bit of a miracle how brewing suddenly turns from chemistry to unadulterated alchemy. The simple introduction of a benevolent strain of micro-organisms is enough to trigger the magic, and turn a sugary bitter concoction into, well, beer.

For the past week, my beer has been fermenting in the boiler room. Every other day or so, I need to do that slosh slosh slosh thing to stir the yeast from its slumber and get it working again, but so far, it's been doing what it's supposed to do.




In layman's terms: booze & bubbles



For the last 24 hours or so, fermentation seems to have stopped altogether. Whether this is a good sign or not remains to be determined.
With science!

CO2 intoxication causes blurry Internets

What you're seeing here is a densimeter in action, which measures the specific gravity of the brew.
Dumbed-down a little, all it does is float in a liquid (like beer). The denser the liquid, the more it floats. The more sugar is left in the beer, the denser it will be. More sugar in the beer means the yeast hasn't finished its plate and needs to take seconds. Or thirdses.

In other word: a high SG reading means the yeast still has work to do. And 1020 is still quite high, even though the OG (original specific gravity, before fermentation was initiated) was 1085.

So I'm leaving the brew to stand for a few more days, protected by a cover of carbon dioxide and yeasty froth. Either it will wake up again with the munchies, or it won't. If it doesn't, then perhaps it's just "used up" (I seem to've cultivated a yeast which is renowned for its sluggishness), or perhaps it can't handle the booze.

Alcohol is, after all, a by product of yeast fermentation.
Refuse, if you will.
Saccharomyces sewage.

Yeast-pee.

Time will tell whether 't is one or t'other.

In the meantime, I discovered that an added advantage of the hydrometer is that you need a considerable sample size to measure the density. About 100 ml should do, and what oh what is a scientist to do with that when the measuring's all done and dealt with?

Right.

Because a good scientist is never wasteful. Although sometimes wasted.

So far, it's beer alright. The malt has lost its saccharine stickiness (thank you, yeasties), and the hops are prominently present. Harshly resin-like, but already mellowing and blending a bit with the solid mouthfeel of the malt. Flat, of course, since the liquid cannot contain the produced carbon dioxide without some sort of pressure keeping it suspended.

A few more days (weeks?) and I'll be lagering. The observant reader may have noticed the utter lack of floating yucky bits in my beer sample. That's all thanks to gravity, and one of the reasons I'll be lagering in a clean vessel in a couple of days (week? please let it be days and not weeks).

Until then!

Greetz

Jo