Just curious as to what sparge method you used to reach the NHC second round. It might interesting to note what style you brewed. If you used some “hybrid” method, how about giving a brief description.
I have a smoked beer and a bock in the finals this year. Both were fly-sparged.
You may want to add the choice of extract (vs. all-grain).
Do you hope to find more of one method than the other? I think that would only show which is more popular, not which one makes better beer.
I don’t “hope to find” anything. Just curious. I doubt anything can be determined conclusively from this. Also, I posted this in the All Grain subforum since that’s how I brew, and I have zero interest in extract beer making (I can’t bring myself to call it “brewing”…sorry).
you can’t really call it brewing unless you malted the grain yourself. so much of the flavour is developed in that step. come to think of it you can’t really call it brewing unless you GREW the grain youself, that’s where the terroir develops. Course, to be really hands on you gotta capture your own yeast, grow, malt, and kiln your own grain, grow, and dry your own hops. manufacture your own equipment from raw materials…
extract is brewing, it’s just not mashing. Now that I have all that snark out of my system I can sort of agree that when I brew extract it feels like cheating a little. and I don’t like that I didn’t have any control over the mashing process. luckily I feel like very talented experts did the mash for me.
Brewing is the act of extracting, though, isn’t it? You don’t brew instant coffee or tea, do you? The act of brewing coffee is the part where you run the water over the ground coffee beans. I guess the same thing can be said about water over grain.
You don’t brew a batrch of soup or stew, you cook it. So I guess by that line of thinking extract isn’t really brewing.
i brew all grain, but i am not so sure that extract is easier to make winning bears. the extracts are limited and make up a large percentage of the fermentable sugars, that means specialty grains have to be selected and managed well. just my .ought 2.
oh, i like snarkiness., i didn’t make it past the first round with the one brew (all grain 8) i entered. batch sparged.
Thing is, I don’t have any qualms making extract beer. Fermentation is more important than how you make your wort (for the most part) IMO. But my only point is someone else brewed your extract for you. Obviously you can make great beer with extract, so no argument from me there. And I agree, it can be tricky. But so can dialing in pH.
Just an FYI, in French brewing is ‘brassage’ which actually means more or less ‘to mix,’ i.e., stirring grain with a paddle. So it really depends on the language. You could be a brasseur if you moved some extract with a paddle
I’m mildly offended by this. ;) I’ve had extract BREWS win gold medals, qualify for MCAB, and take second best in show, beating out hundreds, and in the case of two competitions, thousands of entries. I’ve since made the transition to AG, but I still enjoy making extract if time is short. Brewing isn’t just about the recipe, it’s the techniques, fermentation temperatures, and other skills developed.
Combo batch and fly sparging while staying at a Holiday Inn Express did NOT get me into the second round…but if DID get me kicked out of the Holiday Inn Express.
