For an overall BOS round for a moderately sized competition, say 200-400 entries, do you think all gold medal winners from all 23 beer categories should be included in the final BOS round? I’ve seen many comps just pick the top 10 highest scoring beers or so, and I think that fails to take into account scoring variation.
How important was becoming a highly ranked judge to improving your brewing?
What has been one of your favorite judging experiences/memories (I’m sure you have many to pick from)?
My question is how does a brewer develop great malt aroma in beer? Is it the type of malts used? Is it the brewing process? Is it a water profile? I’m sure the answer is all of the above, but I’m wondering if there is a major factor in overall malt aroma? My lagers tend to have a much better malty flavor than a malty aroma. I use fresh, quality ingredients and have even built my water up from RO, so I’m at a loss.
It seems that when I brew my favorite recipe, I can have great hop aroma in about 2 weeks of bottle conditioning, but the malt flavors are missing, or I can have a nice roasty malty tasting beer in 4 weeks but the hop aroma is almost non-existent. How can I get that balanced malty and the nice hop aroma at the same time? I should note that I bottle condition… would kegging help?
Pleasure meeting you at the NHC in Philly during the BJCP Tasting Exam, and again at your book signing. I must say that you were super friendly and approachable, which was a pleasant surprise given your notoriety.
In your book, and you when you talk about your home brewery I cannot help but think that you have a Sabco Brew-Magic setup, is that what you brew on?
BTW, loved your recent “Hop Techniques” podcast on BeerSmith!
Are there plans to update the guidelines for IPAs, category 14? It seems that the style has rapidly evolved, both with alcohol content (triple IPA) and with balance between hops and malt. The current description includes “the malt backbone will generally support the strong hop character,” which is not necessarily the case in the current best and most popular commercial examples.
I recently entered a well-brewed variant of a highly hopped IPA (PTY) that scored 42 in one competition and 28 in another. The results varied only based on the judge’s interpretation of the style, not on flaws in the beer.
What is your general process on the cold side of making a lager? I have only made 3-4 lagers but none of them have really been up to my standards yet and I am looking for ways to improve. I have temp control, make large yeast starters, oxygenate my wort alot, etc… I tend to have alot of issues with acetaldehyde the most… I have tried leaving the beer in primary for many weeks to allow the yeast to clean it up they just don’t seem to…
For a spiced ale; is it best to add the spices (tea or tincture or…) to the secondary or are some OK for the boil? I worry about astringency when tossing cinnamon sticks in the kettle. Boiling wood doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. What is your take?
Do you feel that competitive brewers and the BJCP have become too exclusive? Do you think more casual brewers have an equal playing field, particularly at the national level? Is there any thinking about restructuring competitions to address the “submit as many beers to as many competitions as possible” game?
Any recommendations on the testing process for BJCP judging? What’s do you think is the best place to start?
Listened to an interview with you on Beersmith. Enjoyed it very much! I had a couple of questions:
You mentioned that you have a false bottom in your kettle. Do you prefer whole hops or does your false bottom filter pellet hops as well?
As a big fan of FWH do you have a preferred variety?
I had read some tips that you gave in Zymurgy. You said that one of the ways you can brighten up a finished beer is to add some phosphoric acid to it. Do you have a target pH range for hoppy beers? Do you think lower pH helps with flavor and aroma? How low is too low?
Thanks to everyone who posted a question for Gordon Strong to consider! The question submission window is now closed, and Gordon will post his answers by 11/11/13. Stay tuned!
It’s been kicked around a few times before, but nothing was ever workable. There is currently a proposal under review for an outside party to develop something like this for judges and competitions. We’ll see how it proceeds.
There are several real problems involved with any kind of crowdsourcing app, mostly with making sure the data is actually valid. If it’s used for people to flag people they just don’t like regardless of their judging skills, I’m not sure that gains us anything. It’s also not clear what the BJCP would do with such data, if anything, or if it would just be feedback to the judge.
We’ve looked at scoresheet review systems before, as well as disciplinary systems. Again, none were really workable, but maybe we should take a new look since technology has changed since that last review about 6 or 7 years ago.
In the meantime, there are certainly other things people could do, such as emailing the judge directly about complaints, or providing them to the competition organizer or BJCP competition director. Most judges include their email address on scoresheets, but I’ve heard very few actually say they’ve ever received feedback. That would be a good start, IMHO.
That’s hard to say since the BJCP doesn’t track a judge by age, gender, race, or other similar tags.
Anecdotally, I know Kris England made Master when he was 28, so there’s a goal for you. As far as soonest to Master, I took a look at some stats and it looks like the fastest was 431 days. Points are more available now through more competitions, and they are also processed faster than in the old days. There are also more study materials available, so that could help some people. It took me 871 days, and that was the fastest I saw until around 2007 or so.
Master rank in the BJCP is a huge accomplishment since it is earned by less than 2% of judges. It’s a great recognition to receive regardless of age or time.
That is a hard one, since not all new homebrewers will have the same gaps in knowledge or experience. First one I would say is learn how to manage a fermentation properly; more problems come out of that than any other issue, and the problems are usually more serious. But it’s also a problem I don’t see as often as 10 or 15 years ago.
My personal favorite tip is to learn how to evaluate your own beer. If you can identify problems with your beer, you can correct them more quickly. If you know what you are trying to produce, you can more readily tell if you hit your goal. This speeds up the feedback loop incredibly, and lets you learn more from each batch. So I try to get people to learn how to assess their beer, how to identify specific flaws, and how to recognize beer styles – all things you need to be a credible beer judge. Better judges make better brewers, and vice versa.
Personally, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in my beer. I don’t know what measurements you’d take to confirm it (dissolved oxygen, perhaps, but few homebrewers are equipped to do that).
But just because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. I think you can avoid it through following a few fairly easy practices, obviously trying not to excessively aerate your beer during the brewing process (splashing and such). Any air you get in your beer has to get driven off when the boil starts, and that tends to increase the chance of boilovers, so why encourage it? However, I also know that the solubility of oxygen in a liquid decreases as the temperature increases, so I wonder how much of a problem it could be.
So I guess I would say don’t worry too much about it, but don’t do things that would encourage it. If you do splash here and there, don’t dump the batch…
Glad I was able to help. If my book helped you rethink and optimize your brewing, then mission accomplished.
Honestly, it sounds like you answered your own question. If you can hit your target mash pH without adding excessive minerals or chemicals, why would you want to add them? Spreadsheets are just models, and models can be wrong. They can also be based on assumptions that are not valid for how you brew. If you can directly measure your mash pH, then why would you need to have a spreadsheet tell you what to do? I think water spreadsheets are more valuable when you can’t hit your mash pH.
Mineral additions will have a flavor impact (as will using low mineral water). What you prefer is pretty much up to you. Personally, I detest the flavor of (bi)carbonates in my water and my beer, so I try to avoid them. Some like the flavor of chlorides or sulfates in some circumstances, but I like to taste the beer.
Think of it like cooking. If you add some salt to your food, it makes your food taste more like the ingredients. Unless you add too much, and then it tastes like salt. In brewing, if you start tasting the minerals more than you taste the beer, I think you’ve gone too far. The brewers in Pilsen seem to get away with making decent beer without a bunch of mineral additions, so I don’t understand the need to fiddle with your beer so much.
My water is awful for brewing since it has a high level of chalk in it. I tried to get rid of it several ways, but the easiest for me is to just buy RO water. I adopted my brewing techniques around that, and they seem to work pretty well for all styles.
If you’re trying to make an arbitrary style using an arbitrary water profile, then you’re likely to have to use a bunch of mineral or acid additions; a spreadsheet can be handy for that, if it models your brewing process correctly. But why play that game if you don’t have to?
I haven’t done experiments per se, but I have brewed hundreds of batches using different techniques and have my direct observations from those experiences. When I first read about FWH (late '90s, maybe?), I tried using the technique to confirm what was written. I kept getting much more flavor than the papers suggested, but no aroma. I’ve made batches with nothing but FWH, and I’ve seen the effects directly. But no, nothing measured in a lab.
It would be an interesting experiment, provided suitable equipment was available. I’d love to know how to balance the quantity of FWH vs. flavor hops to get the same output. My observation is that FWH gives you more flavor than an equal weight of flavor hops added at 10-15 minutes, but I don’t know how much more. That’s something I’d love to know. I think you’d be able to do that with just your own senses, not lab equipment.
I’m looking into whirlpool/steeping additions of hops in the same way now, trying to develop a better characterization for them. I’m most interested in knowing how my choices of ingredients and techniques influence the final beer so I have a better predictive understanding of the impact of changes before implementing them.
Yes, I expect the next edition of the style guidelines will address this directly. I share your concern with the structure of the specialty categories at present due to their popularity.
As a formal program of the BJCP? This isn’t something we’ve considered.
We are looking at ways to implement regional training events and other more local functions. Maybe that could be accomplished at that level.
The problem with the concept as stated is that there is no central BJCP location to send these to. It’s more of a professional association in that regard. So if you want to set up something with a BJCP judge directly, you might have more luck. Maybe post something to the BJCP Forum looking for a judging partner. Kind of like a pen pal, I guess.
I think the BJCP is probably best suited to trying to grow the judge population so that you are more able to find judges in your area to help you directly than to try to set up a centralized system.
(1) I love decoction mashing my German lagers, especially the dark ones. Yes, you can get similar flavors by playing around with your grist, but I generally like the mouthfeel of decocted beers better. However, I haven’t done any blind tastings or other experiments to see if that’s something that I believe to be the case, or that is actually true. I really like decocting my German wheat beers too; there’s a definite mouthfeel advantage that I perceive from those beers.
Your decoction technique sounds fairly similar to what I do, except that I can direct fire my mash tun so I don’t have to infuse to go from 131 to 145 (my choices for rests), or decoct to mash out. The main decoction I do is the same as you; while you are resting in the mid 140s, pulling a thick decoction to get to the high 150s. I think that gives you the most impact for the least time. It’s the basic hochkurz technique I describe in the book. I try to do a decoction for most German beers whenever I have the time.
(2) How long is too long for fermentation? When autolysis starts. That is more a function of temperature and time than just time alone. Higher temperatures force the yeast to try to be active, and they cannibalize themselves if given the chance. You can tell this happens when you start getting more of a glutamate flavor in your beer (like adding MSG). Generally, I don’t worry too much about leaving my beers on the yeast unless it’s hot. When the beer drops bright in the primary, fermentation is done and the yeast have flocculated. Time to rack. Some yeast take longer than others (some Belgian strains need the extra time to clean up after themselves), and other yeast will drop like a rock (I’m looking at you, 1968). I don’t transfer based on gravity unless I’m trying to do a secondary fermentation or lagering. I generally wait for it to finish, and then drop bright. That’s for ale yeast. I don’t expect lager yeast to drop bright until lagering is done, and even then they often need help. I’m more likely to transfer to a secondary when the yeast are still working since it reduces the chance of oxidation. However, most of my batches just go from primary to keg, so getting them bright is important to me.
(3) Regarding dry hopping, there is a big difference of opinion. I don’t use the technique too often since it tends to make a mess of clarity. However, when I do it, I try to limit the dry hop contact to 7 days. Some say that you can go 2 or 3 days; that’s probably fine too. You can also dry hop multiple times, if you want. I just worry about oxidizing my beer with all that cold side work. So I tend to go 7 days with all my dry hops. I think the best aroma comes from a combination of whirlpool hops (steeping at knockout) with dry hops later. They aren’t direct substitutes, but they each give a nice complementary character. If you want the best aroma, I’d use both techniques. I think the duration of dry hopping is of secondary importance, as long as you’re talking about keeping it under 2 weeks. Keeping oxygen out of your cold side is critical, so keep that in mind as you execute these techniques. You can ruin that great fresh hop aroma so quickly with oxygen.