I still cannot believe it, but I have read more than one posting on the homebrewing subreddit that credits Australians for inventing SNS, only giving me credit for popularizing the technique. A poster named “chino_brews” appears to pushing that meme. Reading that information was like being caught in a episode of the Twilight Zone. Does anyone know how SNS morphed from being my invention to me merely getting credit for popularizing it? The reality is that I invented SNS and Denny popularized it. I challenge anyone to find an Australian posting that was posted more than six years ago that outlines my starter method. The Australians have given us BIAB and No-Chill, but SNS is not one of their inventions.
I know Chino. He’s a great guy, but unless he has specific evidence I don’t believe it.
I’ve never seen anything on Australian brewing forums about SNS. I didn’t know about it until recently myself, reading about it here. I did have a break from brewing from 2014 to around 2019 though. Which forums?
There is some evidence that the British were brewing in a bag long before us as well. There’s someone in my brew club from the uk who used a bag in a bucket in the 80’s. He also has a book from the 1950’s with pictures of what is basically brewing in a bag.
Forums can be a lot like a gossip session. Facts are distorted as they are passed along. I wouldn’t be too worried about it. Most people don’t really give a rat’s behind who invented a process unless it is a total disaster.
I too doubt that Chino would misrepresent something intentionally.
Chino is a great dude. It is possible he got his facts mixed up by mistake.
Who cares, really? There isn’t any money involved in patents or trademarks is there?
yup. i couldn’t imagine giving credit to all the hundreds if not thousands of “big name” posters and other posters whose advice or thoughts i’ve read and learned from.
i never did a stirred starter anyway, because i was simply too cheap to buy a stirplate and all that. so i’d occasionally agitate the bottle every few hours. no offense but i don’t think its rocket science.
+1. The Earth will continue to orbit the sun regardless of who came up with it.
It is not about not receiving credit. It is more the implication that I lifted someone else’s work. I did not invent shaken starters. I invented a specific shaken starter process.
The Internet is a stupid place. I’d just ignore it.
In one of the early draft scripts of Crocodile Dundee Paul Hogan walks into a Big Brew Day event, sees someone decanting from an Erlenmeyer flask, pulls out a gallon glass jug with a liter of wort, starts shaking and says “that’s not a starter, this is a starter”.
Lol!
The one area where I clearly fell flat when describing the method is that the fermentation vessel needs to be at least four times the volume of the starter medium and bottle-shaped, not conical like an Erlenmeyer flask. I see people using 2L Erlenmeyer flasks with 1L of starter wort and calling it an SNS starter. That setup may work, but not as well as a true SNS starter. The extra volume is part of the secret sauce. It is difficult to turn wort into foam when a container is not significantly larger than the starter wort.
It works well. Thank goodness for those Aussies!
I wish I had found this forum sooner than I did. Early in my brewing days I bought a stir plate thinking that was the way starters were done. After it crapped out on me it sat on a shelf for 2 years waiting for me to try and fix it as I was too cheap to fork out for a new one. In the meantime I thought I could replicate the process by placing my starter on my desk and shake it every time I walked by. Soon after joining this forum I found out that I had stumbled upon SNS purely by accident and promptly trashed my stir plate. Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge and experience on this and many other subjects!
If chino_brews is an influencer maybe someone who knows him from this forum can reach out and explain that Mark V is the originator of the SNS method.
PS. There is nothing wrong with wanting some credit for your contributions to the advancement of the hobby. Thanks, Mark!
The implication is one thing that can harmless but it also can be huge, not gonna enter in this discussion of what can happen or what can’t happen and how misinformation could be a disaster for new homebrewers, it was you that start this idea and this is important, not only because you just did that and work but there a sciencie behind that you explain, I wish I found a 1 gallon glass container for doing more SNS, bottle or container with more than 1 gallon it not common in my country, but I learn that I can buy a gallon of water give a good clean do the SNS then discart the container
ok, i understand it a bit better with that regard. high foam agitation. and yes, fair enough to try to defend your name if someone is implying you stole it.
reading the aussie homebrew forums can be brutal though, poor guys, if i had those year round temps i don’t know if i’d have gotten into brewing.
I don’t know if any of you (or chino) have been to Australia, but Drew and I found that virtually no one there had ever heard of SNS except maybe through the podcast. I’d love to hear the basis of chino’s claim.
Most people still use stir plates here. It does work. I got back into brewing after a few years off around 2019. I got rid of a really good stir plate, but they weren’t available anymore, so I bought a cheap kegland one. It works ok but it is noisy as hell, so I just used the flask with the “swirl when you walk past method” which works quite well. Like most things in brewing, there’s more than one way to do it