What brewing experiment(s) would you like to see?

[Silver_Is_Money]

From the likes of Brulosophy or Experimental Brewing and others.

I would like to see a triangle test done for exclusively whole leaf hops vs. exclusively pellet hops to see if there is a noticeable impact upon the flavor and aroma characteristics of a noble hopped and generally lighter colored ale or lager, to the extent by which I initially "believe" there would be. I would also like to see the measured IBU difference between whole and pellet hops, weight for weight, boil time for boil time, with weight compensation only allowed by which to match the packages listed percent AA's.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

How about a lager or Pilsner recipe fermented with Nottingham dry ale yeast side by side with the same recipe fermented with W-34/70 dry lager yeast. With Fermentation at 54 degrees F. for both, followed by a diacetyl rest at 64 degrees F. for both, and lastly by identical lagering.

This might prove once and for all if Nottingham actually can make a decent lager yeast.

 

[foam_top]

I've actually been reluctant to share my recent experiment here because I was worried I'd be crucified. But since experimenting is generally encouraged in homebrewing, I will share... I've been separating a gallon of my last 3 batches and using baker's yeast. So far, I have not found anything negative or undesirable in those batches.

However, I'm not arguing that baker's yeast is a replacement. Especially for beers where the yeast contributes a certain flavor. Also, unlike beer yeast, baker's yeast may vary from different distributors. There's no guaranty that it's healthy, not contaminated, or consistent with any other yeast. But when fermented at optimal ale temperatures and cold crashed (baker's yeast is less flocculant) I have had great results. The FG and flavors are comparable to the ale strains that were used. I will share more if anyone is interested but with only 3 batches I feel that results are still very inconclusive.

AGAIN - Experiment for the sake of experimenting - but don't risk an important batch! Dry yeast is almost just as cheap as baker's yeast, and any healthy yeast can be washed and re-pitched.

 

[GPP33]

What I really want to know is impossible to test, but you could get close. I vacuum seal and freeze extra hops, some are 3 weeks old, some are 2 years old, the rest are somewhere in between. At what point should I just toss em? Does a freezer with auto defrost make a difference, what about just storing them in a clear bag vs a dark container? Then of course I'd want to know not only how do the beers differ after a few weeks but also after a few months?

Another one would be how can I replicate one grain with a mix of others? Say MO with 2 row and mix of golden promise or victory. Crystal 60 with some crystal 40 and crystal 80. Can it be done or will they always differ?

 

[GPP33]

I've actually been reluctant to share my recent experiment here because I was worried I'd be crucified. But since experimenting is generally encouraged in homebrewing, I will share... I've been separating a gallon of my last 3 batches and using baker's yeast. So far, I have not found anything negative or undesirable in those batches.

However, I'm not arguing that baker's yeast is a replacement. Especially for beers where the yeast contributes a certain flavor. Also, unlike beer yeast, baker's yeast may vary from different distributors. There's no guaranty that it's healthy, not contaminated, or consistent with any other yeast. But when fermented at optimal ale temperatures and cold crashed (baker's yeast is less flocculant) I have had great results. The FG and flavors are comparable to the ale strains that were used. I will share more if anyone is interested but with only 3 batches I feel that results are still very inconclusive.

AGAIN - Experiment for the sake of experimenting - but don't risk an important batch! Dry yeast is almost just as cheap as baker's yeast, and any healthy yeast can be washed and re-pitched.

I've always thought it'd be cool to mix up a 5% Pale Ale using the chepest grain I can find (American 2 row?), some home grown or wild hops and the cheapest bakers yeast I can find. I bet I can make 5 gallons for less than $10. The question is will it occupy a tap for two weeks or two years.

 

[Sadu]

I've always thought it'd be cool to mix up a 5% Pale Ale using the chepest grain I can find (American 2 row?), some home grown or wild hops and the cheapest bakers yeast I can find. I bet I can make 5 gallons for less than $10. The question is will it occupy a tap for two weeks or two years.

I did a 5% peach season for NZD$16 which is about USD$10. Used harvested yeast, hardly any hops, peaches off the tree, mostly pilsner malt and sugar for fermentables. Ended up with 6 gallons packaged.

 

[thehaze]

I am planning of brewing some batches which will be fermented with more than one yeast per batch. My next brew will be a 6% hazy belgian, with fruitty hops.

Yeast blending experiments would be something I would like to see and read about. These could turn out to be extensive experiments, but I am actually excited at the thought.

 

[radwizard]

I've always thought it would be cool to do a tasters test of fruit beer and color. For example if adding a food coloring would increase the flavor of a fruit beer to the mind of a taster. I would be curious to see which beer the taster thought was fruitier, a beer that was bombed with fruit in secondary vs. a beer with half the amount added yet adjusted for deeper fruit color.

 

[jbsg02]

Dry yeast in aerated wort vs no oxygen. I read that dry yeast is prepared in a way that it doesn't need oxygen (or as much oxygen)

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Dry yeast in aerated wort vs no oxygen. I read that dry yeast is prepared in a way that it doesn't need oxygen (or as much oxygen)

I'm only aware of this being true for Lallemand (Danstar) dry brewing yeasts, wherein they confirm it on their 'Technical Data Sheet' for each of them.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

What I really want to know is impossible to test, but you could get close. I vacuum seal and freeze extra hops, some are 3 weeks old, some are 2 years old, the rest are somewhere in between. At what point should I just toss em? Does a freezer with auto defrost make a difference, what about just storing them in a clear bag vs a dark container? Then of course I'd want to know not only how do the beers differ after a few weeks but also after a few months?

Another one would be how can I replicate one grain with a mix of others? Say MO with 2 row and mix of golden promise or victory. Crystal 60 with some crystal 40 and crystal 80. Can it be done or will they always differ?

For 60 versus 20+100, see http://brulosophy.com/2017/09/18/gr...0-vs-crystal-10020-blend-exbeeriment-results/ - they've also done one on UK crystal vs US caramel.

There's been a lot of work published on hop storage if you poke around the brewing journals, see eg http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jib.40/full None of them quite replicate home storage conditions but it gives you some pointers of what matters. Storage stability does vary hugely though between varieties, something like Cascade is notoriously bad. General rule is to trust your senses - if they're actively cheesy then bin them, if they're merely dull then perhaps save them for things like lambic which are meant to be made with old hops.

I've actually suggested an xBmt to Marshall off-board, so I'll leave that one for him to pursue or not. But of things I could do myself (if I had access to a whole lot of kit that I no longer do) it would be doing a BeerDeCoded on homebrew yeast, ITS sequencing strains from different companies to try and settle once and for all which ones were equivalent to which, and then hopefully try and match them to Brewlab/NCYC named cultures (in the case of British yeast), and try and tie down where eg Conan came from originally and so on. I'm sure most of the information is lurking in the labs of the yeast companies, but it would be nice to have it open-sourced, I hate the coulda-woulda-shoulda thing with yeast strains.

 

[Denny]

From the likes of Brulosophy or Experimental Brewing and others.

I would like to see a triangle test done for exclusively whole leaf hops vs. exclusively pellet hops to see if there is a noticeable impact upon the flavor and aroma characteristics of a noble hopped and generally lighter colored ale or lager, to the extent by which I initially "believe" there would be. I would also like to see the measured IBU difference between whole and pellet hops, weight for weight, boil time for boil time, with weight compensation only allowed by which to match the packages listed percent AA's.

I did that years ago for an article in NW Brewing News, but it warrants revisiting with tighter controls. We'll work on getting it together.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I did that years ago for an article in NW Brewing News, but it warrants revisiting with tighter controls. We'll work on getting it together.

Thank you Denny!!!

 

[Denny]

Thank you Denny!!!

Thanks for the suggestion! We're always open to ideas. Keep in mind, though, that there's no way to confirm that pellets and whole hops come from the same lot of hops, and there could be differences other than AA.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Thanks for the suggestion! We're always open to ideas. Keep in mind, though, that there's no way to confirm that pellets and whole hops come from the same lot of hops, and there could be differences other than AA.

I wouldn't expect any effort in trying to assure that they came from the same lot. It would be best to allow for the same hops randomness here as for any brewers trip to their LHBS.

And as to differences other than AA's, that is where your multiple IGOR's program has an advantage. Multiple tests are better at ferreting out a trend than a single test.

 

[cmac62]

I'm sure it has been done, but mashing at 148 to 158, is supposed to make a significant difference in the finished beer. I really love Scottish Ales and the first few I brewed turned out great with a regular mash (153) and fermented in my dining room (around 70F). I have since made 80 shilling ales with a high mash (156-158) and really didn't notice much of a difference. I also boiled for 60 instead of longer. So I guess the questions I am asking #1, does a 10 deg F mash difference make a difference, #2 does using WL Edinburgh change the flavor with fermentation temps (60 - 70 f), #3 finally, in a malt forward style will the average person notice any difference between a 60 and 90 min boil? I'm sure some of this has been done, but I was just thinking.

 

[Br3w4u]

I would like to see an experiment done on light exposure. Beer not exposed to light vs beer exposed to average indoor lighting vs beer exposed to excessive lighting all during fermentation.

 

[Denny]

I wouldn't expect any effort in trying to assure that they came from the same lot. It would be best to allow for the same hops randomness here as for any brewers trip to their LHBS.

And as to differences other than AA's, that is where your multiple IGOR's program has an advantage. Multiple tests are better at ferreting out a trend than a single test.

We'll get the hops directly from YCH and have them analyzed before use, like we did for our IBU experiment.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I think one of the Big Problems at the moment is the stability of NEIPAs. It would be useful to compare ways to improve this, whether through process or additives such as Brewtan B. I know EB have a Brewtan B experiment ongoing, I'm intrigued by things like this http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2007.tb00252.x/pdf which suggests 4mg/l Vitamin E can have a big impact on hydroxyl generation, but doesn't really go on to see what happens in real beer. My guess would be that you need more than that to have an effect on the scale we'd need, but that's just a guess.

Yeah, I know - LODO - but it's not terribly suited to these kinds of beers where you're doing a lot of post-pitch "fiddling" with multiple dry hoppings etc. If a simple addition can get a few weeks extra stability, then that seems worth having.

 

[Denny]

I think one of the Big Problems at the moment is the stability of NEIPAs. It would be useful to compare ways to improve this, whether through process or additives such as Brewtan B. I know EB have a Brewtan B experiment ongoing, I'm intrigued by things like this http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2007.tb00252.x/pdf which suggests 4mg/l Vitamin E can have a big impact on hydroxyl generation, but doesn't really go on to see what happens in real beer. My guess would be that you need more than that to have an effect on the scale we'd need, but that's just a guess.

Yeah, I know - LODO - but it's not terribly suited to these kinds of beers where you're doing a lot of post-pitch "fiddling" with multiple dry hoppings etc. If a simple addition can get a few weeks extra stability, then that seems worth having.

BtB is also a clarifier. Isn't that a no no for NEIPA?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

BtB is also a clarifier. Isn't that a no no for NEIPA?

The murkiness thing is far from canonical for NEIPA, it's more a side-effect than a core part of the style. Yes they are generally not clear, but it gets kinda crazy when people are adding flour to them.

And even if BtB did drop out some of the hoppiness - I'd rather have an 80% beer on day 1 if it lasts 2 months, rather than a 100% beer that is dead in 2 weeks. I just don't drink that fast.

 

[Denny]

The murkiness thing is far from canonical for NEIPA, it's more a side-effect than a core part of the style. Yes they are generally not clear, but it gets kinda crazy when people are adding flour to them.

And even if BtB did drop out some of the hoppiness - I'd rather have an 80% beer on day 1 if it lasts 2 months, rather than a 100% beer that is dead in 2 weeks. I just don't drink that fast.

It doesn't drop out hoppiness in my experience.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Wasn't saying that it would, but the dropping-out-hoppiness is the only legitimate reason to worry about murk in a NEIPA. But people have this weird idea that murk is somehow a thing in its own right.

 

[d3track]

We'll get the hops directly from YCH and have them analyzed before use, like we did for our IBU experiment.

I liked doing that experiment since we actually got to send to a lab. I have a curiosity about the Cryo hops too.

 

[Denny]

I liked doing that experiment since we actually got to send to a lab. I have a curiosity about the Cryo hops too.

I've been brewing with cryo a lot lately. Getting ready to write a blog post for YCH about them.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'd like to see an experiment wherein a light colored Pilsner type lager is brewed and split, with one half hopped using Hallertau Mittelfrüh, and the other half hopped using Liberty, to see if anyone can statistically tell them apart.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I would like to see an experiment wherein identical batches are brewed and transferred to a clear (glass or plastic) carboy fermenter (but preferably glass), with the only difference being that one batch is to be brewed/transferred under continual direct sunlight on a clear day, and the other is to be brewed in an enclosed space, and kept away from any direct sunlight exposure.

After transfer to the fermenter all effort must be maintained for both batches to protect them from sunlight exposure during fermentation and beyond. Such that sunlight exposure is assured to have only occurred throughout the early brewing process for one of the batches.

This experiment would be to see if brewing under direct sunlight skunks or otherwise oxidizes or off-flavors a beer, vs. avoiding sunlight during brewing.