I agree with some of your observations Ross. Clearly, there is no point of contention on the use of a unique strain of liquid yeast in commercial quantity vs. a close approximation dried. Many of your points are draconian in relation to commercial operations, where they need not be. With respect, brewing is problem solving@ any scale :icon_cheers:
1. Equipment - Commercial equipment rarely (if ever) allows the control & freedom that a homebrewer is able to acheive. This is from brewing equipment right through to fermentation. On my commercial equipment I personaly can only handle single infusion mashes, & fermentation is restricted to a single coldroom set at the same temp (19c) for all beers which are fermented in 60l plastic fermenters. I was speaking to a small brewer the other day who has just added a 500L conical, but is having real problems keeping the initial ferment temp down even though it's in a coldroom like mine. He does not have the luxury of being able to use a $30 temp controller on a second hand fridge for the sort of control homebrewers can achieve. Fantastic Craft brewers like Murray's are constantly fighting the limits of their commercial brewing equipment, whether it be alcohol or hop limitations.
Lumping all equipment into the same basket is confused. Additionally, commercial breweries will be unique in their own right (turn-key, generic, purpose built solutions aside) including differing standard operating procedure affecting final product.
Step mashing is generally a matter of efficiency in terms of brewer's wage and resources. But it can be, and is done on commercial scale. A good friend of mine, who is an award winning commercial brewer in KS, USA recently used his fermentation program to monitor his mash, sending his wort through his PC which was recirced with hot water to desired step temp. He effectively turned his system into a giant RIMS@12BBL. Oh, and this was so he could ferulic rest his Weizenbock.
Any decent pro brewery will have glycol jacketed fermenters with individual temp control. Chucking several ferms in an ambient environment can present problems including the ones you've mentioned. The only commercial operation that I've seen attempt this is Emerald Hill, and they're out of business (for a myriad of reasons including no/poor control of fermentation temperature).
Limitations in commercial equipment can be addressed just as they are on a homebrew (or any) scale eg HLT is restrictive to a brew day, requiring top up and ramp time where, as solution, a larger HLT can be installed. Ferms not meeting production? 3x sized unitank as replacement. Limitations in alcohol? Explain. Limitations in hop? How and where? At what stage in the process?
2. Ingredients - a pro brewer has to take into consideration the commercial value of his end product, a homebrewer has no such restraints & can make what they want. Some specialist ingredients are also not available in commercial quantities.
Of course consideration is made on a commercial scale. How is consideration a restraint?
Take a Pilsener in production with 96% base of domestic pils, retailing@ $15AUD/6pack, where the brewery decides to shift to a base of import floor-malted boh pils. Retail would necessarily shift from $15 to $19 to reflect the change in bill. Where's the problem? If the final selling price reflects the cost of ingredient, why does it matter? I've paid $30 for 1 bottle of commercial beer, and would happily do so again so long as the brewery keeps making the stuff. If consideration simply means time involved, who wouldn't want to do that? We're all passionate here - home, pro, commercial. And money matters to each of us.
Agreed, some specialist ingredients are not available in commercial quantities. This is where a good commercial brewer explores alternatives eg dried curaco orange. A homebrewer does the same (and probably, rightly so atm with Curaco). If the commercial brewer can't get it to begin with (at his scale) alternate ingredients come into play and necessarily so. And there are plenty of both private and public pro forums where subs (and ingredients, in general) are addressed.
3. Final product - Having produced say 500 to 5000L of a beer the commercial brewer can quite easily be faced with a beer that they're not actually totally happy with. Financial constraints mean this beer will inevitably (unless really bad) still be the beer put to market. The homebrewer can put it down to experience & brews another batch.
Commercial breweries will blend beers that don't meet their targets. If batch A was brewer error = forgot bittering hops, batch B would be brewed with compensation eg highly bittered and both beers blended to batch C. If SRM isn't met, a number of commercial products are available to adjust in ppm. Point is, commercial beer is never run down the drain and can almost always be fixed. This is where it's important for the brewer to have a very developed palate, where final product meets consumer expectation across the board (this isn't that difficult - you make your APA taste like your APA). I use the example of a brewer forgetting his bittering hops as a homebrew-friendly example. This would certainly qualify as a serious bonehead manoeuvre on a pro scale (and frankly, I've never heard of it happening) the reality is we're talking missing very specific targets like gravity being out by 2 points or flavour perception being lessened at a specific batch where maybe a specialty ingredient like a nut used in mash isn't quite as toasty as the brewer had expected, so an excessive batch is brewed and ideally, in the bending process, a target beer is reached.
I have never worked in a commercial environment where a beer has been infected, but I can guarantee the drop valve would be opened to the floor without question or hesitation. Infection can not be fixed or masked at any level. Pro brewers have the experience where anomalies are rare, and batches don't need to be put down to lack of experience or chalked to experience.
You shouldn't be brewing commercially if you're running beer to the floor on any regular basis, period.
4. Yeast - not many commercial brewers can afford to buy pitchable quantities of liquid yeast, so again they either compromise or propogate. Not a problem if they have the ability & the equipment to monitor, but many don't & again I can't see any advantage to the pro over the amateur.
100% agreed, here. It's no so much that AUS brewer's can't afford pitchable quantities of liquid yeast, it's not readily available in Australia at pitchable quantities. Or to get commercial pitchable quantities on a per batch scale@FedEx international priority, would run you several hundred dollars.. maybe 4x the cost of dried. Commercial micros in the States requiring 1st gen can contact WL/wyeast with their brew roster requesting x strain even request overnight quantity.. need to pitch tomorrow at 4pm sort of deal. Commercial quantity is affordable, readily available and systems are in place to make the entire operation convenient. We're scratching our asses here. And you're right, only the big boys CUB etc. have the proper gear, labs & environment to correctly monitor this leg of operation.
In terms of propagation, homebrewers propagate all the time. We step to correct pitching rates. We propagate from slants, etc. If I were to hazard on who had the upper hand, both being lab-less, I'd say it's the commercial operation as they're not fermenting 4 meters from a toilet, or dryer, or weird blossom tree opposite the window from the homebrew den. Generally speaking, a commercial operation will be a more sterile environment than a person's home (I don't change shitty nappies at work, but I do at home)!
5. Experience - Most commercial brewers are only making a very small range of beers & those that have formal qualifications quite often are quite blinkered (for want of a better term) in their approach & reluctent to experiment with new techniques & ideas. Whereas the homebrewer is genrally more open to learning as the risk of failure is so much less critical & he is often experimenting & making new beers every week.
Commercial brewers are commercial. They brew so they can stay in business so they can brew. You're not going to see Mountain Goat brew a Berliner Weisse any time soon, and not that I'd want them to. I don't want a rye IPA today, a Flanders red tomorrow, a cal. common, hell a funky lager randalled through asparagus. I want that name brand (and not Goat, necessarily) to be what I expect of that name brand, when I belly up to the bar to plunk down a $10er. Commercial breweries are not going make new beers every week because they need consistency. Their punters need consistency. I've never had a VB that didn't taste exactly like the VB I had before it. It's a good thing. And I don't think it's entirely a risk of failure, it's more wanting to provide a consistently familiar product. I know homebrewers who are very good at brewing Weizen. They nail it hard every time. I like that. I like their familiarity and consistency in that style, as a brewer.
Pro brewers are unlikey to want to put their name to beers entered in a non-commercial comp as bad results could impact quite severely financially, so i guess you'd be unlikely to see many commercial beers entered into an open competition where all results are made public, but I really can't see a need from an "unfair advantage" angle to ban them & i'd personally love to see totally open comps with no restrictions. These were just a few things that come to mind & I'm keen to hear what people reckon from both sides of the fence.
Leave the pro vs. am tasting to your mates, or your bar, or your workspace. Let everyone around you know how great your beers are, and leave it at that.
Cheers
h34r:
