Looking for some technical talk topics for our club. We’ve done some sensory analysis for off flavors and such, but am looking for any successful topics that are interactive if possible.
Mash PH, water chemistry, pitching the proper amount of yeast. That should get you going.
Styles are always good. You could designate a style for each meeting and encourage people to brew an example. Start out by talking about the style and its characteristics. Taste commercial examples. If there is a pro-brewer around they might be willing to talk about the style (or anything else).
Take a look at some of the topics covered on Brew Strong:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/Page-11
Lately it has been mostly Q&A and Pro-Brewing stuff, but in the earlier episodes, Jamil and John covered a wide range of topics.
We’ve done what we call parallel brews.
- Pick a style and brew it extract, partial mash, and all grain.
- Pick the same exact recipe and give it to three or four different brewers.
- Pick the same exact all grain recipe and mash it three different ways.
- Make 15 gallons of the same base beer and use three different yeasts or age with 3 different wood types. See Zymurgy September/October 2012 issue.
Also the September 2012 issue of BYO has a great article on open air fermentation.
Basically take good notes during these experiments, discuss/compare/contrast the results, and dig deeper into the findings. Can be as super technical or high level as you want.
Should’ve mentioned that we are already doing a style of the month with commercials and encourage homebrewed examples than compare to commercial one.
Awesome! thanks for the ideas, these should keep us plenty busy for the upcoming year.