Wyeast Rep Visit

Hello everyone, I want to let you all know that Jess Caudill, from Wyeast labs will be available to meet anyone who wishes to come to Crown on Thursday April 8th. Jess has been one of Wyeast’s microbiologists and brewers for 6 years. During his last semester of college, he began his brewing career at Treaty Grounds Brewpub in Moscow, Idaho. Over the next 7 years he spent time brewing at breweries ranging in size from 7 to 220 Bbls. He lives in Hood River, Oregon. He has asked me to ask you of any questions you may have for him. He also said he will have items to raffle off. My vote was for a second meeting, I don't think we should cancel Mondays meeting! Although all of the details have not been worked out, this sounds like a good opportunity for us all. Please post all questions so I can e-mail Jess, and please vote for "have a second meeting" so I can give him a head count. Thank You, see you there.

Q: Maybe a short discussion on yeast starters. I've read Wyeast's web site on the subject, but maybe he could eloborate.

I would be interested in an extra meeting. I don't know if Beth would or not.

Thanks

I would be interested in some discussion on re-using yeast. I know some people just dump fresh wort on an old yeast cake in the bottom of their fermentor, some "clean" the yeast and save it. Pro and cons?

I too voted for the thursday meeting, as I have many questions. Do we need to pre submit our questions, or could we just ask at the second meeting.

I would like to ask questions about using Bretts.

I would like to know if he could/would walk us through visually identifying different types of wild beer bugs by sight.

I'm assuming different bugs look differently when doing their thing, but maybe he can clue us in on strain-specific tell-tale indicators.

This knowledge may help us home-brewers determine whether or not to dump an infected batch...


For example, I recently did an American Wit beer, and decided to add a pound of blueberries to a gallon of the fermented beer to see if I should try my hand at a blueberry wit recipe....but something took over in the month or so after I added the blueberries. It grew all white and floury on top of the beer, and had three or four giant bubbles that would not pop. (giant = one inch plus diameter bubbles).


So, being the fearless home-brewer that I am, I drew off a sample, checked the gravity (1.003)...and drank it.

...and it tasted like a normal wit, with just the slightest tinge of tartness to it. Whether it was tart because of lactic acid or blueberries, I don't know.

So I drew off enough for three bottles, and capped with a few priming tabs.

Maybe I'll get lucky and it will turn into a blueberry kriek/lambic. I plan on drinking one soon, another bottle one year from now, and the last bottle three years from now...

However, if I were able to identify what type of bug had gotten into my beer I would've known right away whether or not to just dump it altogether.

Were the blueberries fresh or frozen?

They were fresh, then were frozen for 6 months...and then cooked down for an hour or so. I thought boiling it down for that long would've killed anything living in/on them...guess I was wrong.

I would think boiling them would extract all the flavors from them. From what I read, I think you could have just put them in frozen. Something about freezing them is better than fresh.

I would like him to tell me and everyone about Belgian yeast strains and Bretts and how to Tame them.

Thank you all for your input. I have E mailed Jess all the Questions so he can be better prepared for Thursday.

So we're for sure about this for Thursday? 7:00PM? At Crown Brewery.

I'll be there regardless...6:30pm.

YES, TONIGHT AT 6:30, CROWN BREWING, FOR SURE, EVERYONE IS WELCOME!

Good stuff last night at the meeting.

Thanks again to the Wyeast reps, and to Ron for putting this together!

I'll second that. Greg and Jess answered all the questions we had thoroughly, and where very cool to hang out with after. I'll be sending them a big thank you email from all of us in the club. I'm going to work on sending out feelers to reps from other companies, and see if we can't get more informative meetings set up in the future.