Stone Levitation clone question

[Beer-lord]

I've been listening to the Brewing Network talk about Levitation and they mention actually doing a diacetyl rest after fermentation stops at about 72 for a day or so.

I know Inkleg has done this and I think Kealia has as well so I'm curious if it's needed.

I'll be brewing this great session beer tomorrow.

[Kealia]

I usually raise my temp by a few degrees near the end of fermentation on every brew, just to help the yeast out. I figure if it's a good enough practice for Jamil, it's good enough for me.

That being said, I sure wouldn't worry about it if you don't do it. I haven't detected any sulphur nor diacytel in the batches of this that I have brewed (and because of the dry hopping I do get to smell it and taste the samples I use for gravity checks). This is the beer I use WLP007 on, so I do have limited experience with this strain, though.

[FrozenInTime]

I guess, without realizing it, I do a diact. rest too. My batches ferment downstairs in da temp controlled chill box. I move them upstairs where I keg them, so I move it 2-3 days ahead of time so the trub can settle back down. In the mean time it warms up to ambient, depending on time of year by atleast 5-8 degrees. I guess without thinking I'm doing a rest. No wonder my beer rocks! (well, except for the infected keg of wheat I had to dump...)

[FrozenInTime]

Corrections... my beer rocks because of all the help I recieve from ya'll! Ya'll rock too!!

[Kealia]

And since this IS a Levitation thread - I just dropped 1.5oz of Amarillo into mine today. I'm going to let it ride until Wed when I'll rack it to a carboy with some gelatin to really clear it up. Then, I'll keg it on Saturday.

The only reason I'm racking it is because my Ale Pail (primary) won't fit into my mine fridge or I'd just put the gelatin in there.

[Beer-lord]

Thanks Ron. I'm using 04 yeast but Jamil has done it with both and they are basically the same. He did say only 5 days dry hop and that he was told 2 oz Amarillo dry hop but he thought 2 was too much and tried it with both and he felt the 1.5 oz was a much better choice.
I'm sticking to the recipe even with the 157 mash which many forums say is too high. Heck, if 157 isn't good, I'll just have to brew it again. That would be such a shame.

[Kealia]

The next time I brew it, I'm using a lower mash temp. The last one didn't attenuate as low as I would have wanted and this one looks like it may finish around 1.016 which I still think is too high.

Take that for what it's worth. Even at 1.016 I LOVED this beer! Sounds like you've got a great plan - enjoy your brew day.

[Kealia]

Damn, I'm at a decision point with mine.

My Ale Pale won't fit in my mini fridge to cold crash so I can either keg it without the cold crash, or a I can transfer to my carboy (which I think is actually just over 4.5G), add my gelatin and cold crash it in there before I keg it. If I go that route I'll likely end up bottling a number of them during the transfer since I think I have about 5.5 in the fermenter right now.

Decisions....decisions.......(I have until Wed to decide)

[Beer-lord]

For me, these decisions are easy as I can't cold crash mine.
As an aside, I decided to mash at 156 for 75 minutes and the the last 20 minutes or so were down to about 154 so we'll see how that works out.
I opted for 04 since I don't do lots of starters in the hot months and the 04 has done so very well for me. It kicked off in 5 hours so I'm happy.

[Kealia]

Nice. Here's to hoping for a strong and healthy fermentation

I'll likely do the transfer and cold crash, just because I've really like the clarity of my last few beers using the gelatin. But I still have two days to go back and forth on this, too.

[Kealia]

FWIW, I've decided to keg this tomorrow and rack it on top of the gelatin mixture.

It seems that a lot of people use gelatin in the keg (versus a secondary or in primary) and honestly I'd rather avoid an unneeded transfer if I can. I figure that I'll lost a pint or two on the first few pours to the gelatin but that's likely the same amount I would leave behind in the secondary so I can't see an advantage to using a secondary so I'm going to skip it.

[Inkleg]

Still playing catch up around here. Not being able to get on at work puts me a little behind.
My Levitation is still in the fermentation fridge and I haven't looked in there in 3 days, hope it's ok. I mashed at 154 for 75 minutes this time and have held it at 66 degrees. I plan on transferring to a secondary and dry hopping on Saturday. Going to brew Stones SSR and put on half the yeast cake. I'll update here in a few days.

[Beer-lord]

I'm curious why you are both going to a secondary on this one. Do you guys usually secondary or are doing this for some special reason? Is it only for clarity? Personally, clarity isn't a huge priority for me but on my Maharaja, I racked to secondary due to the mega dry hops. Levitation doesn't have much dry hops so I am curious.
As of now, I plan 3 weeks in the primary and 1 in the keg and many weeks in my mouth.

[Inkleg]

For me it's because I'm going to use half the yeast cake to put the Stone SSR on top of and don't want to do it after the dry hop. So while I'm brewing I transfer and dry hop, leave the bucket in the fermentation fridge and scoop out some of the yeast just before pouring the wort on top. I'll have an active air lock in a few hours.

[Kealia]

My only reason was to add the gelatin for clarity. Since I'm going to do that in the keg now I won't be using a secondary.