Anhc - What Did You Learn?

[kevo]

From the sounds of it everyone had a great few days at the ANHC.

Would people be happy to share one thing they learned during the conference which they think would be of benefit to others?
Of everything you did learned, what would you pass onto other brewers first?
Highlights?

NB: getting a spooning partner early in the evening and not letting people borrow your camera don't count! Brewing related please!!

Kev

 

[Fatgodzilla]

Would people be happy to share one thing they learned during the conference which they think would be of benefit to others?

Not a huge amount of technical stuff expounded compared to anedotal stuff, but Palmer's talk on water was interesting and will make me look at the chemical composition of brewing water (if I can find it) as well as pH fundementals. The chemical guy's talk on sanitizers and cleaners made me realise that my techniques in this area is shyte, and Zamil's best point was that it's no good whinging about the failures of someone's recipes if you change / tinker from that recipe. From other blokes I learnt that the ingredients alone don't make the beer best, its what's done with them.

All in all, to steal a football term, I got lot more 1%ers out of the conference rather than any earthshattering epithany.

 

[domonsura]

I learnt a heck of a lot about water adjustment from John Palmer's talk on the subject ( I knew very little), I also had the benefit of sittng beside Pedro from Gulf Brewery at the time, and he'll attest to the fact that I was a complete pain in the *** bouncing little questions off him so I could keep track of the gist of it all.
The hop utilisation talk was also pretty informative but a little more difficult to follow, and I'd recommend to everyone interested in either subject that they try and get hold of some of the presentation material when/if it becomes available. Apparently they are being made available, they're just trying to decide on the most appropriate fashion to do so.
All in all though, as FG has mentioned, it was more of a 'bigger picture' kind of thing for me, and I think that most people who attended would have taken different things away to add to their overall brewing knowledge. I don't reckon there were too many epiphanies as such.
Regardless, I'm sure the info will be shared and pulled to bits on here over the next 12 months, and then the best thing to do would be attend next year Well worth it.

 

[Barry]

Learnt so much but if there was one thing that was so simple but such great advice it was what Jamil said about judging. Write down what you actually see, smell and taste. If you smell and taste oranges write that down.

 

[Weizguy]

I learned that Barry can tell a joke and do it well.

The main thing (other than a few negatives) that I take away from the conference is that the guys from the US are very approachable, don't have an opinion on everything, and can factually back up what they do have an opinion about.
I spent some time just chatting with Jamil and John Palmer at Transport and they are very down-to-earth and that's hard to fake (IMHO). I spoke with a number of brewers who had been corresponding, at length, by email with the two authors, as well.

Oh, and Chris White looks hot with an eye-patch. :lol:

Les

 

[kram]

Chris White looks hot with an eye-patch. :lol:

Exploding air lock?

 

[Hutch]

:excl: I learnt that the one time I mixed Phosphoric acid sanitiser with Household bleach, the green gas that I produced could have killed me

... So, amongst all the brilliant info, I learnt that we can be far too complacent with some of the potent chemicals we use in our brewery, and not recognise the required safety aspects in their proper use.

The presentation by Jon Herskovits (5 Star Chemicals) was very valuable to this end -
Basically, you can have a very effective and complete cleaning / sanitising regime with just 2 relatively safe products - PBW (cleaner) and Star-San (sanitiser). Of course it was in his vested interest to promote his company's products, though I thought he did so by presenting a fair comparison of all products available, pros and cons, with a particular emphasis on materials safety.

...oh and I was really hoping for a bit more verbal fisticuffs between Phil Sexton and Mick Jontef - Thought they were far to polite to each other

 

[kook]

All in all, to steal a football term, I got lot more 1%ers out of the conference rather than any earthshattering epithany.

Ditto. I also learnt that fatgodzilla loves sour beers.

I had an awesomely fun weekend though. Social aspect was the best part of it all. Club night was brilliant, as was the array of beers on tap from micros around Aus.

Bring on the next conference!

 

[goatherder]

A couple of key learnings for me which will change the way I do things:

- John Palmer - At least 50ppm Calcium is required in the mash, preferably 100ppm. Also, the sulphate:chloride ratio should be according to the beer style - balance it towards the sulphate to accentuate hops and towards the chloride to accentuate the malt.
- Jess Caudill from Wyeast - When making a starter with Brett (which I will be soon), don't give it oxygen like a normal starter. I'll be skipping the stirplate and leaving it in a bottle for a few weeks to grow.
- John Herskovits from 5 Star - Pure sodium percarbonate is a good cleaner for the brewhouse but not as good as PBW (which contains some percarb). PBW is more alkaline to clean better/faster, contains a surfactant to get into tiny flaws in the vessel surface and a chelation agent to keep minerals in suspension. The end result is that it works faster and at lower concentrations than pure sodium percarb. He is obviously going to promote PBW but he did so in a really constructive and respectful manner. I will give it a try as a result.

 

[lonte]

One and only note I made all conference was on Day 1 in the first session by Jamil ... when scaling a recipe for efficiency only scale the base malts not the specialty malts.

Edit: oh yeah, and after Plamer's talk I stand by my sig.

 

[kram]

One and only note I made all conference was on Day 1 in the first session by Jamil ... when scaling a recipe for efficiency only scale the base malts not the specialty malts.

Yeah that's a nice rule i've heard from Jamil on one of the podcasts. Kinda confuses the hell out of me on forums and the like when people list recipes in percentages haha!

 

[Tony]

Sounds like a great time was had........... and reads like a coverup for a bunch of keen brewers hiding the facts about an expensive piss up from their wives :lol:

cheers

 

[barneyhanway]

Ha Tony, there's probably a lot of truth in that. The beer was freely available and flowing. To our credit though I don't recall anyone getting seriously out of sorts, during the conference sessions anyway.

John Palmers talk on residual alkalinity was the only time I've ever made any sense of the subject. And realised I need to add some calcium to my very soft (tank) water.

Jamil's wisdom throughout was very beneficial. And what a nice guy to boot. What he said about scaling only the base malts needs to be taken in the context of scaling for efficiency - when you're only talking about efficiency percentages ( < 10% maybe? ) it makes sense. Obviously if you're adjusting to make a bigger beer you'll need to scale everything.

Jon's talk on sanitisation was really really good, and I for one couldn't understand why he refused to turn it into a sales pitch - would've been fine by me. But the honesty was appreciated nonetheless - I learned all about the requirement for surfactants - otherwise microscopic cracks and surface imperfections never get cleaned - the surface tension of the liquid stops it getting right into everything. Amazing.

Milletmans talk was awesome too.

I'm hoping all of the presentations are made available, there's a bunch of data and information that would be great to have as a permanent reference.

Barry the kiwi.

 

[Screwtop]

Ha Tony, there's probably a lot of truth in that. The beer was freely available and flowing. To our credit though I don't recall anyone getting seriously out of sorts, during the conference sessions anyway.

John Palmers talk on residual alkalinity was the only time I've ever made any sense of the subject. And realised I need to add some calcium to my very soft (tank) water.

Jamil's wisdom throughout was very beneficial. And what a nice guy to boot. What he said about scaling only the base malts needs to be taken in the context of scaling for efficiency - when you're only talking about efficiency percentages ( < 10% maybe? ) it makes sense. Obviously if you're adjusting to make a bigger beer you'll need to scale everything.

Jon's talk on sanitisation was really really good, and I for one couldn't understand why he refused to turn it into a sales pitch - would've been fine by me. But the honesty was appreciated nonetheless - I learned all about the requirement for surfactants - otherwise microscopic cracks and surface imperfections never get cleaned - the surface tension of the liquid stops it getting right into everything. Amazing.

Milletmans talk was awesome too.

I'm hoping all of the presentations are made available, there's a bunch of data and information that would be great to have as a permanent reference.

Barry the kiwi.

+1 on all of those points. Did we meet Barry?

Screwy

 

[koongara]

I learnt that beer at morning smoko should be mandatory at all conferences

 

[Wasabi]

Would people be happy to share one thing they learned during the conference which they think would be of benefit to others?
Of everything you did learned, what would you pass onto other brewers first?
Highlights?

There are three big areas that we have to constantly deal with when we run our short course and to some extent our Grad Cert. Although I'm pretty sure most AGers here are pretty much in the know, there is still a lot of confusion over a few areas. It was really great to see John Palmer and Jamil between them address those three issues

1) The pH of water for brewing is about as important at the colour of your stirring spoon. He e didn't say it quite so elegantly...but you get the message

2) Hop Utilisation is WAY TO COMPLICATED to be put into a formula. Use the formula as guide to relativity. If the formula says you have 50IBU's but a proper analysis says you only have 30 IBU's. IT DOESN"T MATTER. As long as you use the same formula, you can adjust it to your liking. Besides the one big influencing factor is your equipment, and no formula can take that into account

3) Don't get so hung up on efficiency. There are far more important things to worry about.

I was kind of hoping that there might have been a little bit of promotion for Aussie Home Brewer...oh well.

 

[Kai]

One and only note I made all conference was on Day 1 in the first session by Jamil ... when scaling a recipe for efficiency only scale the base malts not the specialty malts.

I have difficulty agreeing with that completely. If your efficiency losses are due to vessel deadspace, transfer losses or excess wort left in the grain bed then you are going to leave behind specialty malt contributions as well as overall extract.

 

[Andyd]

I'm hoping all of the presentations are made available, there's a bunch of data and information that would be great to have as a permanent reference.

We're going to be going into production mode over the next week or so to bring out a DVD with the presentations, as well as any video/audio we can pull from the recordings (one of our lessons - arrange better lighting for the presenters!!!)

We'll be selling it on the shop for a small fee, basically to generate seed funds for the next conference (I'm trying to be self sufficient in terms of getting our keynote speakers out next time). There should be a hell of a lot of material on it, so I think it will be well worth it - I'll be buying one ...

A couple of the presentations will also go out to some of the podcasts, so kep an ear out for those.

Andyd

 

[Peter Wadey]

I have difficulty agreeing with that completely. If your efficiency losses are due to vessel deadspace, transfer losses or excess wort left in the grain bed then you are going to leave behind specialty malt contributions as well as overall extract.

The engineering side of my brain has difficulty agreeing with any of it.

Pete

 

[Kai]

My engineering side doesn't either. Production and accounting are currently still united in disagreement, unfortunately.