I noticed that Marshall hasn’t been cross-posting new xBmt’s here as often, so I went over to Brulosophy to see if anything interesting was posted, when this result really caught my eye:
Summary - a split batch of Pils was fermented with 34/70 at either 50F or 70F. The results were that A) there weren’t enough correct tasters to achieve a significant result (although it was close) and B) of the 12 tasters who did identify the correct sample, 10 of them preferred the one that was brewed at warm temps.
I’ve been fermenting 34/70 at ambient temps in my basement in the winter, but I might be tempted to push that into the spring and fall now. I also feel validated in recommending 34/70 at warm temps over an ale yeast to all the brewers who keep asking about brewing a “Mocktoberfest” every September. This certainly removes several barriers for new brewers who want to brew lagers - you can use dry yeast, and you can ferment at ale temps. If someone can produce a good ale, there’s no reason they can’t produce a good lager.
I thought this one was very applicable to me. I have only used 34/70 for lagers up to this point and was cosidering doing some of the recipes with us05 in the summer just to do clean ale versions. Now I plan to push 34/70 a little higher with less worry. I do have limited temp control but no chest freezer.
Not a huge surprise for me, but 70F is definitely higher than I’d ever tried or recommended with this yeast. And I’ve always hedged my bets saying it would be passably close at those temps. The results here are more like “undetectable, if not better” rather than “passable” at ale temps.
Yeah, I’ve had good luck with it staying fairly clean up to 60F back when I used tubs and frozen bottles. Wouldn’t have wanted to go much warmer necessarily. Interesting.
I love the brulosophy temp experiments, but this one needs repeating. Marshall raised the temperature of the cold-fermented batch to same temp as the other batch when gravity had fallen from 1053 to 1032. Apparent attenuation 40%, actual attenuation 32%. The “cold-fermented” lager was actually mostly fermented warm, so of course it tasted just the same as the other. In the previous two lager temperature experiments the temp was also ramped up prematurely.
Yes, but it’s not a typical fermentation schedule for lager. Most people warm up at the end for a diacetyl rest, not halfway through. Both lagers were fermented mostly warm. Arguably what the experiment shows isn’t that temperature doesn’t matter but that the fast fermentation schedule doesn’t work.
Not so. Marshall is a proponent, as are many lager brewers now, of raising temp to ~ 65F after the beer has reached around 50-60% attenuation. By day 5 (for most lagers) the ester profile is set and you can raise temp to speed up fermentation and spur the yeast to get rid of diacetyl quicker. That’s what he did here.
Maybe so, but it doesn’t follow that lager brewed by Marshall’s fast method is indistinguishable from true cold fermented lager. The temperature experiment therefore isn’t valid. It simply shows that warm fermented lager tastes the same as lager brewed with the accelerated schedule.
Maybe cold fermented lager tastes the same too, but Marshall hasn’t shown that.
Perhaps the nearest one to the fast lager method is F (ferment at 9 Celsius to >80% attenuation then raise to 20Celsius to finish). The fast ferment method ferments at 10-13 Celsius to 50% attenuation and then raises. But in the lastest brulosophy temperature experiment, the temperature is raised to 20 Celsius at 32% attentuation. In no way does that resemble any of the profiles on the braukaiser link.
In any case the best evidence is a triangle taste test isn’t it? Otherwise we’re back to square one.