Busy Episode this time! Crammed with like - additional feedback to last episode’s Staling results. Seems like some of you have been using scary old grain! In the pub we stop and talk a while about Denny’s Hop School experiences (more on those later), the law in California and the crushing “loss” of Bosteels Brewery to ABI. (Maybe they should be Boo-steels now?) and one brewery’s response to the recent PR campaign to try and make everyone feel better about the buyouts.
We swing by the brewery to talk about Drew’s recent Saison yeast tasting - which you can find online. In the library we visit a couple of papers on yeast genetics.
In the lab, we’re happy to announce our next great experiment - brought to you by our sponsors, the American Homebrewer’s Association and NikoBrew.com. We’re going to get a whole squad of homebrewers making up some hoppy beers and having them analyzed and tasted! See the recipe and experiment writeup for details. We’re super stoked for this!
Then Denny goes and talks to the folks out of Whirlpool’s W Labs about their soon to launch all in one fermenter, fridge, kegerator - the Vessi. Then he heads off to the posh environs of Bainbridge Island WA to talk with Russell Everett of Bainbridge Brewing. Listen and find out what stout and noodles have to do with each other.
Then in Something Other Than Beer - we lament 2016’s continuing losses - this time with Gene Wilder. Then Drew shares Sia’s new video for “The Greatest” which is a bit of a gut punch. Lastly, to leave on a happy note - Drew also mentions Comixology for all your comic enjoyment.
Finally Denny drops a tip about how best to dry your hops. The key - a little bit of heat, but not too much if you want to preserve all the good oils!
Yeah, and also I was interested to hear the results of using the ‘old’ malt. I’ve used malt with some age but not that much age. Airtight containers in a cool place definitely doesn’t hurt either.
Oh! haha, I saw this posted and thought it was the one out today. Didn’t even look at the original post date…oops. I see it’s posted, I’ll go check it out.
Listening to this one this morning. I could see that Vessi being a way to keep home brewing when we retire and go full time RVing. One vessel BIAB and the Vessi would make that happen.
Perhaps that would help prevent attenuation issues while using underpitched high gravity yeasts in high gravity worts without aeration. Off to the Lab! (Inside joke…)
Based on this episode I made a 1 gallon stovetop batch of the Cool Ranch Dorito beer. I went with about 1/3 Cool Ranch Doritos (by weight), 1/3 Pils and 1/3 Pale 2-Row with a little Cascade – fermented with WLP001. Here are my observations:
Flavor-wise this is WAY more appealing/compatible with beer than I would have imagined (though still totally weird).
Using some of the herbs/spices from the Cool Ranch Doritos without the chips themselves would probably be better (dealing with the oil is gross, though even at 1G you can manage to rack below the oil and minimize pickup).
At 33% of the grist (by weight) the Cool Ranch flavor is WAY too intense for my taste (e.g. it’s interesting a few ounces at a time, but I would never drink a full pint of this). That said, I agree that it has some nice flavors that are compatible with a summer/lawnmower type beer.
I’m curious to adjust this and try again based on those observations. Not sure when I’ll get around to it, but wanted to post this in case anyone else is moving along the same lines and too afraid to admit what they’ve done.
Also, thanks to Drew for the recommendation of the Anova sous-vide cooker. In addition to making some GREAT food over the past several months, it came in quite handy as a mash temp stabilizer for this 1G batch
That’s pretty close to my recipe, keep it simple. I’d pop a dash of carapils in there to help counteract any head loss from any oil residuals. It does taste way better than it has any right to.
Cool, thanks for playing go-between Denny! I did notice the issues with head retention, so that’s a good idea. I’m gonna try tweaking a few things and if I get around to doing this again I’ll let you guys know how it turned out.
I also brewed a 2.5 gallon batch of this beer. 3# 2 row and 1.5# of Cool Ranch Doritos with 15IBUs of Cascade and then fermented with 1056. I skimmed the oil off of the top of the wort prior to boiling and the resulting flavor after carbonation and a couple of weeks of conditioning is nice. A very good cream ale with just a hint of cool ranch in the aftertaste, no problem drinking a 12oz bottle. Head retention however is a problem with this one as expected.
