"Things I'm sure you don't need to do to make great beer&#

[AJS2154]

I agree whitegoose. I have thoroughly enjoyed this debate too.

The only thing I would say is that there are a number of people out there who want to debunk the old wives tales, yet they undertake their experiments with methods that are inaccurate and unsubstantiated....... ironically that is what they are railing against in the first place. In some instances they are creating and perpetuating their own old wives tales by work that isn't fact based. That was, if I am correct, the view of MHB and mantilce yesterday.

Providing they create thought and stimulate conversation I am all for it. Bring it on. Anthony

 

[GalBrew]

Yeah I think from a garage 'science' (I use that term loosely) perspective, Brulosophy isn't too bad. Right up until the point where the only experimental end point measured is if a bunch of random hobos can pick up any flavour difference in a triangle test. At this point the whole thing becomes a pointless exercise in my opinion and is a great indication as to why they rarely get statistical significance on any experiment.

 

[Blind Dog]

I’d agree there is a lot of misinformation, myths and neo-superstitions around in home brewing, but if you read reputable sources (and they’re not hard to find), it’s difficult to see why they still persist. Commercial breweries spend millions on their own research every year to better understand and improve processes and procedures. Universities and other organisation publish papers, books and other material packed full of useful information based on real experiments and scientific analysis – for example the technical and training material freely available from the IBD is incredibly informative, and is easy to read and understand.

To my mind, you should understand what a particular process or procedure achieves, or is designed to achieve, and how to measure if it has been achieved, before its altered or rejected. My problem with sites like the one linked by the OP and others is that they give no indication that they understand what the process is intended to achieve nor how to measure whether that has been achieved before they design an “experiment” based on a blind test of beers by themselves and their mates and then loudly congratulate themselves on debunking another brewing myth.

I’m interested in brewing the best beer I possible can using the systems, ingredients and time available to me. There are much better resources available than Brulospher and its ilk to help me achieve that.

 

[MHB]

I really enjoy this sort of article and this sort of debate.
Personally I think that brewing is riddled with old wives tales, myths, and half truths... and I think that many people never question any of it and take it for gospel.I question pretty much everything, and granted, a lot of it turns out to be valuable, but not everything.

Ok name one, I mean myth or oldwives tale...
Compared to what is recommended in pretty much evert brewing book amateur or professional, Good water, Good malt well mashed, Sensible mash regime, Effective boil, Good yeast pitch at the right temperature...

What I would call the brewing basics, that if we think about it we know will produce good beer, and yet there appears to be a whole industry devoted to debunking the "myth" that good brewing practice makes good beer.

Seriously and as I said name one of these revelatory steps that have changed what works and how most people brew that isn't a development based on long standing well established brewing practice.
Don't say BIAB - please. Developed as a cheaper option than a Braumeister - a highly engineered brewing system that is designed by professional brewery engineers.
The closest may be No Chill, there are plenty of commercial examples that way predate AHB not to mention No Chill (anyone else remember the "original" Coopers kits).

Again every couple of months someone reinvents brewing, or has an epiphany, it all gets argued through and then most of us go back to trying to make good beer the same old way - because it works.
So for all the crap and debunking of traditional brewing can someone point me to a single gain.
Mark

 

[Blind Dog]

Only sources of myths, misinformation etc I've come across are home brewing sites (predominantly in the the US) and a couple of HBSs I've had the misfortune to visit. Pick up any non-self published brewing text, and I'd have to agree that rapid chilling of wort is pretty much the only one that might qualify. Even then, I'd maintain you should try to understand what rapid chilling achieves that slow chilling does not, before sayings its a myth or unecessary. Plus its not new - coolships have been around for centuries; Hook Norton's is 116 years old and still in use.

 

[Killer Brew]

OT, but Congratulations. You must have been stoked

Yeah thanks, I was. Exam pass mark was 66% and was heavily focused on chemical reactions in the production and cleaning processes so I left not entirely confident I had got there.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Yeah I think from a garage 'science' (I use that term loosely) perspective, Brulosophy isn't too bad. Right up until the point where the only experimental end point measured is if a bunch of random hobos can pick up any flavour difference in a triangle test. At this point the whole thing becomes a pointless exercise in my opinion and is a great indication as to why they rarely get statistical significance on any experiment.

While I agree that using evidence of "tastes ok so myth busted" is flawed, it's not exactly "random hobos" doing the taste testing. The majority of the time there are several BJCP judges involved. I'm all for calling out pseudo-science but there is a fair bit of unnecessary Bru-bashing going on in this thread.

 

[GalBrew]

While I agree that using evidence of "tastes ok so myth busted" is flawed, it's not exactly "random hobos" doing the taste testing. The majority of the time there are several BJCP judges involved. I'm all for calling out pseudo-science but there is a fair bit of unnecessary Bru-bashing going on in this thread.

I am a regular reader of Brulosophy and I know how it works. I stand by my random hobo comment.

Maybe if they had a panel of master BJCP judges and maybe if it was the same panel of tasters for each experiment I might give it a bit more regard. Unfortunately I have only ever seen a couple of experiments where some sort of objective measure was used (IBUs in those cases). If they could back up the subjective tasting data with some sort of objective measurement of whatever is relevant it would be far more believable. Every experiment has to be qualified with the caveat of 'adjustment of factor X could not be picked up in a triangle test by the current cohort of tasters', rendering every result meaningless as it is the only result presented. They facts are the current way the experiments are conducted are never going to result in significance unless someone replaces one beer with raw sewerage.

 

[klangers]

Things you don't necessarily need to make great beer:

• An airlock (or kittens)
• Reverse osmosis water filtration
• RIMS
• HERMS
• A plate chiller
• A counterflow chiller
• Sub-gram accurate scales
• An arduino
• An STC1000
• A mongolian burner
• A conical fermenter
• Cryogenic freezer for yeast storage
• Pants

But there's a reason why people so almost invariably have most of the above. They make it easier to brew great beer.

I don't know if there's a process that people can stop doing, but there certainly always are ways to optimise product quality, elapsed time, energy usage and materials usage. Brewing science (supported by brewery engineering :super: ) has made this optimisation its primary goal, especially so in the last century. Just like (al)chemists have given up trying to turn lead into gold (you'll need a nuclear physicist for that), brewing chemists have given up on attempting shortcuts.

The most obvious optimisation for home brewing is yeast care and pitching (as MHB mentioned). You can save time AND get a better beer!

Typically an industrial brewery would also carefully tune its CIP regime to not waste time, energy or materials. Homebrewers don't generally have the knowledge or microbiological testing kit to do this though, and if I suggest it I'll be flamed. So I'll just leave that there as a thought.

 

[JDW81]

So for all the crap and debunking of traditional brewing can someone point me to a single gain.

Yep, it emphasises that sound brewing practices, based on tried and true methods are the cornerstone of making good beer, and no amount of gimmicky equipment or "revolutionary processes" will ever replace good, basic brewing principles.

 

[Elz]

Gimme post modern brewing which encapsulates traditional ingredients and I'm on board. Keep home brewing moving forward and I'm a happy brewer. More hops, different/blending styles, intuitive brewing and forward thinking. Keep on experimenting. Hop shots, WW, BIAB, new hop varieties, etc are great news for brewing.
Cheers
Elz

 

[Coldspace]

I agree , brulosphy can be right or wrong , I've been brewing great extract brews for 20 years plus ,
last few with all grain . Some great lagers, I sort of did my lagers similar to brulosphy, before reading his articles,
It worked then , but now I've upped the game I do mine with a double stepped 2.5 ltr starter pitched at 10 , raised to 12 over first week.
But....
I've got 2 mates who last year or 2 wanted a quick easy brew to guzzle at home. These guys couldn't give a dam about anything near what we all here on AHB do, although one is getting more interested , so starting them out, I made them but simple chest freezer step ups, fermenting Fridge which I recon is one of the most important steps, simple kit/ and add ons Morgan's receipies, Pilsner / great northern , mix up at 22 degrees , throw in one satche of s23, drop to 13 degrees over 18 hrs, hold 1 week, second week raise 1 degree each day to it hits 20, then cc / fine and leave 1 week. They get very drinkable guzzling lager that all their friends love.
I made it easy for them to start , and if they decide to persue the hobby down the track like I have then cool. If not at least they save themselves a fortune in guzzling beers at home that turn out pretty good. Maybe not compitiion quality but for them , who cares.

I myself , well I'm like you guys, obsessed lol ....... Hrs on AHB, even at Winton on mates phone, shhh, grain father after brew in bag esky mash tuns , bulk buys, grain mills, freezing yeast, brewing ris's, stir plates, refracs , aging spirits in 220 ltr barrels, 3 types of portable kegs set ups for family and friends , camping setups , **** I've only scratched the surface , my wife thinks I'm on another planet , lol

Could be doing worse things I tell her......

 

[Zorco]

Ok name one, I mean myth or oldwives tale...
Compared to what is recommended in pretty much evert brewing book amateur or professional, Good water, Good malt well mashed, Sensible mash regime, Effective boil, Good yeast pitch at the right temperature...

What I would call the brewing basics, that if we think about it we know will produce good beer, and yet there appears to be a whole industry devoted to debunking the "myth" that good brewing practice makes good beer.

Seriously and as I said name one of these revelatory steps that have changed what works and how most people brew that isn't a development based on long standing well established brewing practice.
Don't say BIAB - please. Developed as a cheaper option than a Braumeister - a highly engineered brewing system that is designed by professional brewery engineers.
The closest may be No Chill, there are plenty of commercial examples that way predate AHB not to mention No Chill (anyone else remember the "original" Coopers kits).

Again every couple of months someone reinvents brewing, or has an epiphany, it all gets argued through and then most of us go back to trying to make good beer the same old way - because it works.
So for all the crap and debunking of traditional brewing can someone point me to a single gain.
Mark

This entire line of thinking overlooks the neurotic factor of market differentiation.

The single gain is claiming market share. And that gain can be significant.

And not just commercial credit, but social credit. Fostering self importance or simply airing their feathers, people play games and the 'debunk' is a manoeuvre appealing to a large proportion of people.

It seems deviant to me, but I understand it.

Nothing new is emerging from this debate.

Edit: removed word 'tragically'. May have seemed critical of MHB. But was intended to slag the society pathogen of Marketing.

 

[MHB]

Pretty much agree, except for the last point - please be critical of MHB - be critical of everything.
I think I know just enough about brewing to know just how little I do know and how much there is to learn.

Just spent the last two days teaching some guys to run a brewery I have never seen before (a 200L Brewiks). Point being it runs on well understood principles and used known processes. The same grain requirement and strike water temperature equations work in a 20L pot on a stove because we are all doing the same thing.

Sure there will be tweaks and different efficacy, but at the core the processes are all the same, do the basics right and make good beer.
Mark

 

[Zorco]

I have no fear criticising you and need no encouragement.

From what I've seen of you and what I know of myself, these occasions will be constructive.

But, because you asked and are such a persistent bugger who needs to be correct:

"MHB is a poo poo bum face"

I copped that one the other day; straight to tha bonez right?

I appreciate your work Mark

 

[MHB]

I didn't say to make it personal
Skid Mark

 

[welly2]

Things you don't necessarily need to make great beer:

• An airlock (or kittens)
• Reverse osmosis water filtration
• RIMS
• HERMS
• A plate chiller
• A counterflow chiller
• Sub-gram accurate scales
• An arduino
• An STC1000
• A mongolian burner
• A conical fermenter
• Cryogenic freezer for yeast storage
• Pants

But there's a reason why people so almost invariably have most of the above. They make it easier to brew great beer.

I don't know if there's a process that people can stop doing, but there certainly always are ways to optimise product quality, elapsed time, energy usage and materials usage. Brewing science (supported by brewery engineering :super: ) has made this optimisation its primary goal, especially so in the last century. Just like (al)chemists have given up trying to turn lead into gold (you'll need a nuclear physicist for that), brewing chemists have given up on attempting shortcuts.

The most obvious optimisation for home brewing is yeast care and pitching (as MHB mentioned). You can save time AND get a better beer!

Typically an industrial brewery would also carefully tune its CIP regime to not waste time, energy or materials. Homebrewers don't generally have the knowledge or microbiological testing kit to do this though, and if I suggest it I'll be flamed. So I'll just leave that there as a thought.

British brewers have been making fine ales for hundreds of years and the common attribute among all those brewers is pants. So the single most important key to making a great English bitter is the wearing of pants, clearly.

 

[Blind Dog]

British brewers have been making fine ales for hundreds of years and the common attribute among all those brewers is pants. So the single most important key to making a great English bitter is the wearing of pants, clearly.

True - but they are worn on the head

 

[Bribie G]

Well that excludes the Scottish brewers.

 

[Jens-Kristian]

British brewers have been making fine ales for hundreds of years and the common attribute among all those brewers is pants. So the single most important key to making a great English bitter is the wearing of pants, clearly.

For much longer, the British brewers were wearing skirts, as most brewers throughout history have been women. Perhaps we should all wear skirts instead?