Update: Day 1-3

Day 1
Today we performed the three-step mash and brewing of the Sierra Nevada Stout clone. Not much of note happened other than a lot of getting used to the procedure. The original gravity is a little bit less than we were shooting for, but we don't want to manipulate it to avoid any adverse effects on our future analyses.

After the boil, we racked into 6 one gallon carboys for fermentation. 2 mL of ClarityFerm was added to three of these carboys. We placed them in a water bath in order to be able to easily maintain the proper temperature throughout fermentation. Some of the wort was set aside for analysis in a few days.

Day 2
Today we brewed the single-step mash of the Sierra Nevada Stout clone. I actually remembered to take pictures today which are below. Things went much more smoothly today, and I was able to work mostly on my own due to fewer mash steps and having experience from yesterday.

Carboys with sanitizer added

Draining the mash tun

Grain during the mash

Dr. Hamilton with the mash tun

We needed a lot of heat to get to a boil, so we used two hot plates and an immersion heater.

Draining into another pot to aerate and normalize the trub.

Like yesterday we added ClarityFerm to three of the six carboys and placed them in a water bath. We were able to see some krausen on two of the 3-step carboys. Hopefully we'll see more tomorrow.

Day 3
Today involved taking samples and prepping for the first assay tomorrow. We began to see a lot more krausen on the top of the carboys. One even began to ferment up into the airlock (see below), so it was cleaned out and placed back in the water bath.

The preparation for the assays was pretty messy. The fish gelatin was incredibly viscous (thick honey times three) and began to coagulate when ethanol was added to it. Thankfully, after vortexing, shaking, and centrifuging, everything seems to be in order. Everything is waiting in the fridge for analysis tomorrow.

One of our fermentation water baths with three of the carboys. Note the krausen beginning to form.

Sample with ClarityFerm on the left verses none added on the right. These are the most extreme examples of each. Notice how the krausen filled the airlock on the control.