jampot said:
Would like to have a go at this with some hop back yeast, is there a difinative "how to" guide here somewhere, how do you know when you have enough yeast for a 23 ltr brew ?
Its difficult to judge as to how much yeast you need. It depends on the viability of the bottled stuff etc.
When I last used Hopback. 1 bottle was enough to step up, I used a big jam jar 1/2 full of 1040 wort or you could use some spraymalt or what ever. Swirled the bottom of the bottle and just tipped it in. Within 12 hours, you should see some formation of a krausen in the jam jar. I suppose that if you havn't got the startings of bubbles at this point then you might need to tip in another bottle bottom.
I waited until it was really bubbling and kicking yeast off the top (about day 2.5) before I tipped it into the brew proper, so just poured it in...Whosh within 6 hours a new krausen was forming and off like a train.
Hopback yeast is a top cropper, it will chuck up a cream cheese like stuff. This is the new yeast, skim off into a steralised vessel with sealable lid and shove in the fridge for the next brew ( or make bread with it, yum yum :party: ) . It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks but then will deteriate.
When its finished fermenting, skim the crust off the top, drop it into another fermenter ( off the trub) and then you will need to use finnings. I use a packet of gelatin per 25 litres, mixed with boiled water and bunged in.
