Trying to figure out how an award-winning recipe I found in the AHA recipe section for Vienna Lager cites an SRM of 28, which is way out of style. The ingredients listed come out to about an SRM of 12 when plugged into a couple of different beer SW programs. Also noted no real IBU values for that same recipe, by Sprague and Kohl. Trying to replicate a recipe that far off tends to lead homebrewers down the wrong path. Any thoughts on why their values were skewed so badly? WHEW and BREW!!!
All they know is what the brewer tells them. It’s not like they brew or even check the recipes
Yep Denny, I figured as much. I looked at an award-winning recipe of a Helles that my cousin won Gold with, and it had water prep with 12 Campden tabs, that didn’t really make sense. Guess it’s like - let the buyer beware, bwahahaha!!! Fortunately, I was able to talk with my cousin and get the straight story.
Take care Buddy! BREW!!!
Sometimes there would be corrections mentioned in Zymurgy but I’m not sure if those corrections make it to the website. You always need to view recipes with a critical eye for mistakes as well as potential issues where your brewhouse may require adjustments to reach the same end result as a recipe on another person’s system.
OTOH, it’s not uncommon for beers to win awards both pro and homebrew that are out of the style guidelines. It’s a pretty well known technique to brew beers with more intense hops/malt/ABV/color because they’ll come across with more character than beers within the guidelines and subsequently win. So don’t take a recipe out of guidelines as necessarily printed erroneously.
Like any recipe anywhere, you have to know enough to know if its wrong
I’ll bet the brewer reported the EBC value for color rather than SRM. EBC is “European Brewery Convention” method for color determination, and is almost exactly double the SRM. So, 28 divided by 2 is… 14. Sounds legit.
I think Dave is right and Campden tablets maybe were intended to be 1-2 tablets? Hard to say…
Quite possible. I remember seeing a recipe for bourbon barrel stout that said to soak the oak chips in bourbon for 47 days. They later corrected it to 4 to 7 days.
Likely 1/2 tablet. “They” say 1 Campden tablet is enough to remove chlorine from 20 gallons of tap water.
Once again, I think Dave is right. I don’t ever need to use Campden tablets because I am on a water well on my property.
i find the more popular a style is and the higher regard it is held in competitively ie. WCIPA, NEIPA, Imp Stout, Kolsch, the better studied it is and the more examples of highly reviewed recipes there are, and ones that are on say tested version 10 rather than just a theoretical, never-actually-brewed one.
vienna lager isnt super obscure, but it also suffers from being shattered into negra modelo style vienna, historical vienna, old-school homebrew heavy on the crystal malt and oxidation “vienna” amber lager, etc etc.
becuase of this frankly i dont even consider it as a hard style, i consider it a malt type.
I like that way of approaching things! It always seemed weird to me that a beer with 100% Vienna malt would be outside of the BJCP style guidelines for Vienna lager…I recognize the distinct purpose of style guidelines, of course; oh well! I guess I could be really contrarian and only call something a Vienna lager if it is a pale beer and mostly Vienna malt…
Also, typos happen all the time and are acknoweldged when pointed out. You see it occasionally in the letters section of Zymurgy magazine.
I have made a Vienna lager in many ways and more than one has turned out nicely…Devils Backbone is tasty, but so was an award winner from a home brewer my club several years ago which used Red X in hefty quantities (it was scaled up and brewed by a few breweries - most called it “Pancho Vienna”). I couldn’t find the recipe for it on a quick search, but I suspect it is out there if you look hard enough…
Here’s a link to the Devil’s Backbone homage: Devils Backbone Brewing Co.’s Vienna Lager clone - Brew Your Own
Cheers!
If you can share with me the recipe name and/or link, I can get that updated!
Hi Duncan - the link is A Day in Vienna (Vienna Lager) - Beer Recipe - American Homebrewers Association
The SRM listed could be the EBC value - I’m not sure - just not within the style guidelines as listed. Thanks and BREW!!!
Turns out the Campden tab info is correct. My cousin got it from an article on German LODO brewing and shared that with me. Those pesky low oxygen brewers, Bwahahaha!!! BREW!!!
Oh, in that case, I don’t know if they used enough
Oh cool! Glad to hear it. Appreciate you following up, too!!
BREW ON
Wait… so you’re saying that your cousin’s gold-medal winning helles was using water that was treated with 12 [TWELVE!] campden tablets? For a 5-gallon or 10-gallon batch??? I mean, even for 200 gallons, that would still be overkill, right?
In terms of water chemistry, what does adding more campden than needed do to one’s water?
I don’t do anything with water chemistry (except campden) as my tap water tastes pretty good and I’m told that north-Atlanta has a very good water profile for beer (coming out of Lake Lanier, presumably). So I’ve never bothered to learn about adjusting my water.
I have wondered what effect doubling my campden treatment would produce, but haven’t dared to maybe ‘waste’ a batch to test it out. If 12 tablets didn’t really hurt your cousin’s beer, then maybe it’s a low-risk experiment…