Sounds like you should do experiments and publish your results.
spicy aroma with a strong note of bitterness
I don’t think I’ve ever read a better description of Denny!
lol “couldnt tell the difference between the samples / 6 liked one 6 liked the other”
“Both shared an enjoyable bold coffee and dark chocolate roast character that was balanced by a restrained bitterness and a creamy mouthfeel. Definitely a keeper!”
how are those yeast focused results descriptions. who is this guy?
this comment is based on my memories of nottingham. i mean its frustrating because exbeeriments seem like such a potentially good concept, but really not. they rarely follow up, they frequently make super dubious choices of recipe ie.
dude the gravity excluding the sugar additions is 1.062. lol 2lbs of sugar makes it like an 8% beer. give me a break.
i was curious about something and just perused that page, thinking “maybe theres something interesting or at least fun there”. nope, completely irrelevant results.
what is with their recipes, yeah i know you brew stuff to consume, but if you want to keep calling it an experiment, id rather see smaller batch sizes but something like all pale malt, 20 IBU of hops at 60 mins or something to test X variable. i dont care about your dry hopping or funky new malts you found.
20% wheat and you couldnt tell a difference. hmm maybe if you didnt cover it up with hops you could have focused on actually getting RESULTS.
also how does an “american IPA” finish at 1.004?? lol what? is that normal these days?
You’re taking these entirely wrong. They are not scientific experiments, nor are they claimed to be. They are simply data points from a single brew. Your own data points are equally valid.
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;D ;D ;D
What would I do without Drew… ;D
Homebrewers are MUCH better off gleaning information from their own homebrews and experiences than using any information dished out from that particular blog. They do a disservice to homebrewers and the entire homebrewing community. The sooner they disappear the better. Cheers!
The quickest way to f*ck up your beer and screw up your brewing process is to utilize brewing process changes gleaned from their webpages.
IMO the issue is the homebrewers who take those experiments as gospel rather than as a data point for further investigation.
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^^ This.
I listen to their podcast and read the blog (and enjoy both).
I do agree they don’t always do the best job explaining what a triangle test is actually testing & what their results actually mean. If 50% of the people in a test can detect a difference, that may be statistically significantly different from guessing (depending on sample size, alpha, etc… (let’s not degenerate into arguing about what p-value we should be testing to)).
But if I’m one of the 50% that can’t detect that difference then it may not be practically significant for me.
Which is my overly long way of saying that, at least in part, it does come down to “Who are you brewing for?” If your target drinker can’t detect a difference, then there’s no point expending energy controlling that variable. If they can, then there is. Take the exBeeriments for what they are (one test yielding one result for one variable in one recipe against one set of tasters), and if you find the results strain your credulity, run a test and see for yourself.
yup, if i were a brand new homebrewer, i would be swayed by the sleekness and size of their website into believing what they say.
there were lots of people claiming X and Y on early 2000s homebrew forums, but I would simply try to find as many additional opinions on the particular query i was asking, and see which people seemed most competent in their reasoning.
i feel like it could be a somewhat better if it was just marshall schott doing it. but the ones that really make me cringe are the exbeeriments done by all the new people. i simply don’t think theyre very perceptive or bright. i think the triangle test is a dumb thing to hang on to. if you’ve been doing this thing for so many years now, just trust your tastebuds to be truthful.
i dont take them for that, i think they fail in that regard due to poor recipe choice which can obscure the results.
i dont brew for people who have very poor taste in beer, they might incidentally taste it and i dont care. my beer is 100% for me and i do have good senses, though i know some people have better than i.
this endlessly repeated “well why dont you do this then if you think youre so smart”
- i admit i dont have the time/setup or even ability to drink that much beer making tests like this
- i have tested variables as best as i can and recorded perceived results since i started. im pretty sure the vast majority of homebrewers have done so.
- if this site wants to show something more than no.2, which they apparently do (its not just some “this is my personal brew log, take it or leave it”) then they need to step up the quality of their experiment designs and better qualify the results. they want fame? then they can take criticism.
when i want answers on ingredients or processes i search forums like this for answers. exbeeriments are not usable except for a laugh.
That is how a lot of dogma has crept into brewing at the amateur level. What originally started out as an objective test that produced one set of data points becomes the gold standard and only way to do something. I know that I am starting to sound like a broken record, but stir plates are a prime example of this type of behavior. One person with a lot of clout posted data demonstrating that stiring a culture was better than periodic swirling/rocking (it had to be swirling or rocking because it is difficult to shake a culture in an Erlenmeyer flask with any kind of force). After those data points were released, all research directed at making starters focused on different ways to stir a culture. However, the original research was flawed because it did not truly test aeration. It mostly tested agitation because periodic swirling and rocking do not lead to much in the way of O2 pickup, especially in an Erlenmeyer flask. If the goal was to actually test the effect of aeration on a culture, it would have included shaking as is in done in SNS, direct aeration with a pump, filter, and diffusion stone, and direct O2 injection with a diffusion stone. That is a valid test. The result of the blind acceptance of the original set of data is the reason why we now have an entire generation of amateur brewers who believe that a stir plate is the only way to make a starter when nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who stands up and claims that the emperor has no clothes is asking for serious beat down in the amateur brewing community because people do not want to feel like they have been misled. One of the reasons why I asked people who have used stir plates to try my method is because it demonstrates repeatability. Nothing in science is real until the results are repeatable. As I have mentioned, my method is not the do all, be all method for making a starter, but it works and is cheap, simple, an easily repeatable. It also demonstrates that the stir plate myth is just that, a myth. We need more repeatable experiments for experienced brewers to conduct. A method should not be adopted by the community until it has shown what is known in the pharmaceutical world as “efficacy.” Efficacy requires the collection of a large set of data points.
lol
as i post this now i realize the exbeeriment title includes “English Porter”
-wheat malt
-20 crystal
-cashmere hops
lol
and of course “i was able to discern no difference at all between the two”
hey rocket scientists, if you repeatedly are finding no difference, MAYBE GET RID OF THE FUNKY HIP WEST COAST HOPS and just do pale malt + RB/BP with 20IBU of magnum??? sorry, dont want to get in the way of your cool, outdoors brew day with multiple plastic cups for holding hops. i know you want to have your cake and eat it to by doing an “experiment” and making a beer you want as well.
"In thinking about possible explanations for these results, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact the tincture beer had nearly 8 oz/235 g of Everclear added to it. Considering that’s just 1.3% of a 5 gallon/19 liter batch, it’s hard to believe it’d have much of a flavor impact, but perhaps it did. "
i did the math, that everclear increases the alcohol content by 1.3%, making the beer go from 7% to 8.3%
what a joke. just so tiresome. also bizarre kitchen sink recipe for a dubbel
Do you post your concerns on their website as well? Maybe they can explain the choices they made or maybe they might take some of your criticisms forward to future experiments.
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Or maybe they won’t! ;D
But seriously, though… if I were making a zillion dollars selling a website like this one, I wouldn’t much care what the naysayers had to say either.
I do read the posts and experiments and I don’t take them them too seriously and find them mildly entertaining. But I don’t question the panels as much as the brewers. You can give 3 different brewers the same ingredients for a certain beer and come up with 3 very different beers. How is it determined that the beer was brewed and fermented well enough to pick up small differences in the beer?
I guess that’s why there are homebrew competitions.
I can’t understand why you’re posting this here instead of on their website. What good does it do here? I mean, you’re free to do it, but to me it seems kinda pointless.
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