I've been a homebrewer for over 5 years now. I'm still using a Lidl electric pot, which isn't capable to properly boil 23 liters of wort, and so I'm "boiling" at 95 °C maximum, then top it off to my batch size. I'm also doing the no-chill method, I have no temperature controll, I'm using simple filtered tapwater... and I'm still making really good beers. I've just made an amazing West Coast IPA (I'm not biassed, if someone complains about my beer it's me) So, while I understand these details should give you better results in general, I definitely don't think they are the reason someone keeps making "bad beer". Know your equipment and perfect your method, and you'll make great beer! Cheers! :)
Great Video, Would also be nice to see some 'errors' on the fermentation/cold side side of things in another video, like allowing oxogen in, fluctuating temperature, slowly chilled or overnight chill.
This is a fun exercise. So many of these exBeeriments yield no discernable differences, but it has often been asked, "how many of these can you combine before it starts impacting the beer". Thanks for finally trying to find out.
It would be cool if you guys made a video with the participants doing some sort of sensory trainning. Being able to distinguish off flavors would definitely add to the content you guys create
best check with the maltster if 30min is ok with their malts. I asked Crisp and they told me 60min is required for their malts and sure enough I could taste DMS (creamed corn or cabbage) when I tried a few 30min boils,
I think RO is better as it objectively has no minerals whereas tap water will have a varying quantity of minerals depending on the area and is not repeatable for every setup.
The RO water could also be the reason for the haze. As I understand, you need at least 40ppm of calcium to help yeast floc out. Unless you dry hopped it off camera, it’s probably not hop haze.
@@Marshall_Brulosophy Something like that sounds great! I tend to think that several small "non-significant" changes are what can move a beer from so-so to great. I would note that there is often very little that is "shoddy" about the S&S beers. Hopefully some of the variables will be what the typical new brewer might encounter, like fermenting in a bucket in a cool bathroom.
It was the untreated RO water, for sure, Martin! At first I thought it could be the low boil combined with the use of the hop spider, but I see lots of folks use the 120v All-in-one systems with hop spiders and just a bare minimum boil, and they don't seem to produce many flawed beers. So I say it's the water.
That finished beer looks pretty dark in colour. Much darker than you'd expect that malt bill to produce. The main contributor to the flawed beer is probably a lot of oxygen pickup post fermentation, perhaps during a transfer. Early oxidiation will produce a beer that looks and tastes just like you've described. It darkens the beer, creates haze and strips flavour. Paper/cardboard and dried fruit fruit flavours will develope more as the beer ages.
Perhaps you should do two rounds of tasting with your participants one where they are blinded and one not. I feel like the mash temp study should not have yielded a "not significant" result. Perhaps when participants are blinded to the variable, some latch on to a tasting note they think is the variable and end up choosing incorrectly. I would be interested in both results: "can you tell me which one is different" and "can you tell me which one is different in terms of sweetness". I do appreciate that you often attempt to do this yourself over 5 attempts, and I think that's very useful too!
One possible way to test out your theory of lack of water salts would have been to have added them post-fermentation and, of course, post taste test. I have had good success "fixing" a few beers by adding salts post-fermentation. As you point out in the video, the salts can have an impact during the brew day, but they also have an impact with perception. Admittedly, in my case, the impact was small but I have turned a mediocre beer into a "pretty good" beer doing this. At the very least, it might have provided a little evidence to your theory. Since I suspect that you donated the beer to the local waste water treatment plant shortly after tasting it, you will have to test that next time. Post-fermentation doctoring of a beer is not something I see a lot of mention about but I have had lots of fun playing around with finished beers that just missed the mark.
After years of brulosophy I’m so glad to (finally) see combination variables like this. It brings brewing science back to the real world where there are always many factors at play. Admittedly it makes the comparisons complicated. Congratulations, you made a crappy beer! But Curious no triangle test here? The problem is if you did the triangle test, tasters probably still wouldn’t be able to tell a difference BECAUSE TRIANGLE TESTS ARE JUST REALLY HARD!! This would of course rattle the entire brulosophy methodology. Maybe it’s not the brewing variables that are meaningless as you often conclude, but the methods. Anyways thanks for the good content as always.
Great video! You probably have a lot of content lined up, but a suggestion would be making video forms of many of the "methods". The pictures on the webpage help, but some video might be more of a visual aid
I use tap water to brew, just add a campden tablet to remove chlorine and chloramine. My hops mostly aren't fresh but are kept vacuum sealed in a freezer. I exclusively use dry yeast, all refrigerated and well within their use-by dates and I pitch dry. I no-chill and I also cold crash most beers fast. Are my beers bad? I don't care TBH. I'm a home brewer, not a scientist. I brew for myself, not for others. If I like a beer, it is a good beer. If others like it, that's a bonus. If they don't, their problem 😀 The point I am making is, does it really matter whether the beers we brew please others? Does it matter if they're 100% to style? If there are flaws in the brewing process, then there are flaws. If the beer I made isn't what I wanted, I figure out why and then make it again until I either decide it really is rubbish or got it where I want it to be.
It's interesting how compounding negligences yield a beer that's hard to even describe. Were there any off flavors detected once the beer warmed up? Also, give Will at least one good beer before he heads out the door 😆 go TBC!
It's the lack of water additions. Before I learned about water additions, I made 2 batches of Pale Ale that came out just like this. Did everything else correctly, though.
I guess it's the water. No salts in RO sounds bland - maybe untreated tap water or a "wrong" water profile for the style would've been more interesting. Also it would have been super interesting to see the one without these "flaws" in comparison. A pale ale with Amarillo and Cascade sounds quite delicious and classic - though maybe with less munich/caramalt. ;) Still love to see all these videos - keep it up!
This was a neat idea, but would have had much more meaning had you brewed the comparison beer w/o the built-in flaws. As it stands it sadly doesn't really mean much. Could be e.g. That the malt was off, or the hops (2020 & 2022, sold older) were off, or that the recipe isn't great. You always need a control group for any experiment to have any meaning.
Sorry for the double comment but one more thought…what was the beer’s finishing PH? One issue with a stressed fermentation is that the yeast won’t drop the ph as aggressively. Given you pitched an expired pack you likely had some yeast stress. Just a thought but perhaps a high finishing ph could be causing the perceived lack of flavor in this beer…
Did you let it clear to see if the character changed over time? I've had some beers in years past that something about the suspended particulate seemed to mute or muddle the flavor and it came to life once cleared.
Where are you getting Epiphany malts?!?!? A local brewery uses it, but at quantities no homebrewer would ever try. (The brewery actually did offer to sell me some, lol.) But I have not found a homebrew supply that offers it....anyone else find it?
I like this channel but sometimes it is a little over the top. I always do a low intensity boil and a full pack of Imperial for a 1.054 3 gallon batch? Kind of feels like click bait. Why not do some real flaws? :)
I would imagine a combination of the water and yeast. Even tap water contains something, and i think is more realistic to your average homebrewer's flawed process.
I've been a homebrewer for over 5 years now. I'm still using a Lidl electric pot, which isn't capable to properly boil 23 liters of wort, and so I'm "boiling" at 95 °C maximum, then top it off to my batch size. I'm also doing the no-chill method, I have no temperature controll, I'm using simple filtered tapwater... and I'm still making really good beers. I've just made an amazing West Coast IPA (I'm not biassed, if someone complains about my beer it's me) So, while I understand these details should give you better results in general, I definitely don't think they are the reason someone keeps making "bad beer". Know your equipment and perfect your method, and you'll make great beer! Cheers! :)
Great Video, Would also be nice to see some 'errors' on the fermentation/cold side side of things in another video, like allowing oxogen in, fluctuating temperature, slowly chilled or overnight chill.
I only wish you had made a properly brewed version alongside of this so you could do a blind tasting. It would have really emphasized the difference.
Agreed
This is a fun exercise. So many of these exBeeriments yield no discernable differences, but it has often been asked, "how many of these can you combine before it starts impacting the beer". Thanks for finally trying to find out.
It would be cool if you guys made a video with the participants doing some sort of sensory trainning. Being able to distinguish off flavors would definitely add to the content you guys create
More excellent content from the Spencer Kelly of home brewing. Really enjoying the channel, Martin!
best check with the maltster if 30min is ok with their malts. I asked Crisp and they told me 60min is required for their malts and sure enough I could taste DMS (creamed corn or cabbage) when I tried a few 30min boils,
Instead of just RO water, you should have used straight tap as the water "flaw"
I have used distilled water with no salts added and it came out amazing.
I think RO is better as it objectively has no minerals whereas tap water will have a varying quantity of minerals depending on the area and is not repeatable for every setup.
No
The RO water could also be the reason for the haze. As I understand, you need at least 40ppm of calcium to help yeast floc out. Unless you dry hopped it off camera, it’s probably not hop haze.
The beer you made sounds like what a Budweiser pale ale would taste like
I would love to have seen it compared to the same recipe with water salts, correct mash temp, fresh yeast and standard boil vigour.
We've got plans to start doing more Short & Shoddy vs. Traditional process xBmts!
@@Marshall_Brulosophy Something like that sounds great! I tend to think that several small "non-significant" changes are what can move a beer from so-so to great. I would note that there is often very little that is "shoddy" about the S&S beers. Hopefully some of the variables will be what the typical new brewer might encounter, like fermenting in a bucket in a cool bathroom.
It was the untreated RO water, for sure, Martin! At first I thought it could be the low boil combined with the use of the hop spider, but I see lots of folks use the 120v All-in-one systems with hop spiders and just a bare minimum boil, and they don't seem to produce many flawed beers. So I say it's the water.
You could try adding back a small dose of minerals to a pint and see how that changes things
That finished beer looks pretty dark in colour. Much darker than you'd expect that malt bill to produce. The main contributor to the flawed beer is probably a lot of oxygen pickup post fermentation, perhaps during a transfer.
Early oxidiation will produce a beer that looks and tastes just like you've described. It darkens the beer, creates haze and strips flavour. Paper/cardboard and dried fruit fruit flavours will develope more as the beer ages.
As always you do a phenomenal job. How much time goes into planning and discussing with the other Brulosophy contributors for each video?
Perhaps you should do two rounds of tasting with your participants one where they are blinded and one not. I feel like the mash temp study should not have yielded a "not significant" result. Perhaps when participants are blinded to the variable, some latch on to a tasting note they think is the variable and end up choosing incorrectly. I would be interested in both results: "can you tell me which one is different" and "can you tell me which one is different in terms of sweetness". I do appreciate that you often attempt to do this yourself over 5 attempts, and I think that's very useful too!
Nice premise
" On the quest to brew a bad beer" - LOL, great.
One possible way to test out your theory of lack of water salts would have been to have added them post-fermentation and, of course, post taste test. I have had good success "fixing" a few beers by adding salts post-fermentation. As you point out in the video, the salts can have an impact during the brew day, but they also have an impact with perception. Admittedly, in my case, the impact was small but I have turned a mediocre beer into a "pretty good" beer doing this. At the very least, it might have provided a little evidence to your theory. Since I suspect that you donated the beer to the local waste water treatment plant shortly after tasting it, you will have to test that next time. Post-fermentation doctoring of a beer is not something I see a lot of mention about but I have had lots of fun playing around with finished beers that just missed the mark.
After years of brulosophy I’m so glad to (finally) see combination variables like this. It brings brewing science back to the real world where there are always many factors at play. Admittedly it makes the comparisons complicated.
Congratulations, you made a crappy beer! But Curious no triangle test here? The problem is if you did the triangle test, tasters probably still wouldn’t be able to tell a difference BECAUSE TRIANGLE TESTS ARE JUST REALLY HARD!! This would of course rattle the entire brulosophy methodology. Maybe it’s not the brewing variables that are meaningless as you often conclude, but the methods.
Anyways thanks for the good content as always.
Great video! You probably have a lot of content lined up, but a suggestion would be making video forms of many of the "methods". The pictures on the webpage help, but some video might be more of a visual aid
I use tap water to brew, just add a campden tablet to remove chlorine and chloramine. My hops mostly aren't fresh but are kept vacuum sealed in a freezer. I exclusively use dry yeast, all refrigerated and well within their use-by dates and I pitch dry. I no-chill and I also cold crash most beers fast. Are my beers bad? I don't care TBH. I'm a home brewer, not a scientist. I brew for myself, not for others. If I like a beer, it is a good beer. If others like it, that's a bonus. If they don't, their problem 😀 The point I am making is, does it really matter whether the beers we brew please others? Does it matter if they're 100% to style? If there are flaws in the brewing process, then there are flaws. If the beer I made isn't what I wanted, I figure out why and then make it again until I either decide it really is rubbish or got it where I want it to be.
It's interesting how compounding negligences yield a beer that's hard to even describe. Were there any off flavors detected once the beer warmed up? Also, give Will at least one good beer before he heads out the door 😆 go TBC!
Always told people it's very easy to brew good beer. Even when purposely not trying to be exact with everything.
It's the lack of water additions. Before I learned about water additions, I made 2 batches of Pale Ale that came out just like this. Did everything else correctly, though.
I guess it's the water. No salts in RO sounds bland - maybe untreated tap water or a "wrong" water profile for the style would've been more interesting.
Also it would have been super interesting to see the one without these "flaws" in comparison. A pale ale with Amarillo and Cascade sounds quite delicious and classic - though maybe with less munich/caramalt. ;)
Still love to see all these videos - keep it up!
This was a neat idea, but would have had much more meaning had you brewed the comparison beer w/o the built-in flaws. As it stands it sadly doesn't really mean much. Could be e.g. That the malt was off, or the hops (2020 & 2022, sold older) were off, or that the recipe isn't great. You always need a control group for any experiment to have any meaning.
great video
Sorry for the double comment but one more thought…what was the beer’s finishing PH? One issue with a stressed fermentation is that the yeast won’t drop the ph as aggressively. Given you pitched an expired pack you likely had some yeast stress. Just a thought but perhaps a high finishing ph could be causing the perceived lack of flavor in this beer…
I wonder if you could save this beer by dry hopping it quickly after the first taste.
Clawhammer, Imperial, YVH and
Epiphany will want you to remove mention from this video! Would be interesting to repeat the brew with treated water.
Did you let it clear to see if the character changed over time? I've had some beers in years past that something about the suspended particulate seemed to mute or muddle the flavor and it came to life once cleared.
That is a dark pale ale. Flaw number five :)
I would also agree that the biggest impact on this beer would be the untreated reverse osmosis water.
Where are you getting Epiphany malts?!?!? A local brewery uses it, but at quantities no homebrewer would ever try. (The brewery actually did offer to sell me some, lol.) But I have not found a homebrew supply that offers it....anyone else find it?
Atlantic Brew Supply carry them.
So... "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew"? :)
Probably the bad boil left too much protein in the beer that flocculated after the fermentation. And protein adsorbs a lot of stuff
I don't think it matters that much. I've been doing 95°C boils max and had no problems.
Does it remind you of non-alcoholic beer?
I like this channel but sometimes it is a little over the top. I always do a low intensity boil and a full pack of Imperial for a 1.054 3 gallon batch? Kind of feels like click bait. Why not do some real flaws? :)
Bad control
I would imagine a combination of the water and yeast. Even tap water contains something, and i think is more realistic to your average homebrewer's flawed process.