Last night I joined my Boss at DejaBrew, an on-premise brewing place in Shrewsbury MA, to watch him and his friends brew a few batches of beer. Like many on-premise brewing places the brewing process is largely extract with specialty grains.
First thing I noticed is that even starchy grains like Aromatic and Rauchmalz get “steeped” in the full water volume while the water heats to 180F. No “proper” mash here but the beers don’t seem to suffer from starch haze either. Looks like that even at the high water to grain ratio, that exist, the starches that make it into the water convert just fine.
They also pitch a single WL vial into 10 gal of cooled wort, even for lagers. The ales tasted fine and were enjoyable. The lagers were ok too, but did lack some of the flavors that I like in them. But none of the beers had off flavors that we commonly associate with under pitching.
Wort is aerated by shaking the heck out of the fermenters, which are plastic drums lined with plastic bags. I think that should be sufficient for the ales.
They used to have in-line aeration and propagated their own yeast, but got rid of it b/c they found that the additional work was not needed.
How the heck did they get away with pitching one vial in to 10G of lager wort? Do they have a diacetyl removing machine or something? How long is the lagering period?
Dan Listermann has said that malted barley wants to become beer. We all know there are many roads to the same destination. Some of them may be better or worse than others, but most will get you where you’re going.
Do they ferment lagers cold or at the same temp as ales? The reason I ask is this…for years I judged at local homebrew comps where BOS was always won by the same guy. He made fantastic lagers of all varieties, especially bock. No one who was judging had ever heard of him but year after year we were astounded at the quality of his lagers, including guys who had been brewing for 30 years. He eventually joined our club and one night I had a chance to talk to him about his beers. He pitched a single vial or smackpack into 5 gal. at room temp and fermented them at room temp. Seldom even did lagering after fermentation. Let me reiterate that these are some of the best homebrews I’ve ever tasted. Everyone in the club was in shock, although AFAIK no one has had the guts to try his methods. But it’s certainly food for thought.
for my 50th my wife got me a brew session at a place in chicago. kind of fun to do things a little differently and with someone elses stuff. made a kolsch. tried it the other night and almost undrinkable. medicine. i think they did not dechlorinate the water first as i struggled with this when i first started. i let it sit for a while in the glass. (forgot about it actually) and was tolerable. a friend who went with me tried one and he couldn’t pick it up beyond a tang flavor
I think the cold conditioning portion of lager brewing is less important that we think. I also think it makes a difference, but it’s easy to get away without it. Currently both my freezer chests are broken and I’ll have to get away w/o properly “lagering” my Schwarzbier. At least it’s winter and my basement is at ~60 F
Wonder if this means I could make lagers in my tub-of-water temp control system?
I would think so. However, I would also think it has a lot to do with the yeast strain. Some just plow out diacetyl and sulphur if underpitched and warm.
i ferment in a cooler surrounded by ice packs i change them every few days. try to keep near 50 but sometimes up and down 5-6 degrees. dont think this has ever mattered and the mass of the beer is a pretty good thermal resevoir to mediate changes
I do think that there is a lesson to be learned here.
I also think that ingredients are better quality (and fresher) than they ever have been…which makes our hobby a little more forgiving.
I don’t have temp control myself, but each year my brother and I do one lager, outdoors in the coldest weeks of the year…everything beyond the pitch is totally up to the weather gods. I have never failed (in three attempts) to medal that beer…even with 40 degree temp swings for a few consecutive days at a time.
It wasn’t NHC or anything (beer is usually gone before then), but two silvers and a gold, I will take.