Brewing Master

Question:

[Martin Lodahl wrote] was that they have a series of huge oaken tuns dating back to the days before Arthur Guinness bought the brewery, which they still use as fermentors for a fraction of the beer.  The tuns have an endemic population of Brettanomyces, lactic acid bacteria and Lord knows what else, and beer fermented in it sours emphatically.  They pasteurize this and blend small quantities of it with beer fermented in more modern vessels.  I too have read something like this, but never before had I heard about the wooden tuns.        - Martin

OK, so how do you replicate the effect at home? Obviously you don’t sour the entire mash. (As was suggested to me by a homebrew supplier yesterday.) Do you set aside a small quantity of wort and let it sit out overnight before fermenting it separately (say, a litre out of 5 US gallons)? (Would this then be added at bottling time, or to the secondary?) Do you spend an extra five bucks for a YeastLab brettanomyces culture to do the job? Or does a small addition of lactose have the desired effect; and if so, when should it be added? Sorry if this has been hashed out thoroughly on the HBD; I unsubscribed because of time considerations. Thanks in advance, Matt (Who now wishes he hadn’t used his antique huge oaken tuns for kindling.)

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [Martin Lodahl wrote] was that they have a series of huge oaken tuns dating back to the days before Arthur Guinness bought the brewery, which they still use as fermentors for a fraction of the beer.  The tuns have an endemic population of Brettanomyces, lactic acid bacteria and Lord knows what else, and beer fermented in it sours emphatically.  They pasteurize this and blend small quantities of it with beer fermented in more modern vessels.  I too have read something like this, but never before had I heard about the wooden tuns.        - Martin OK, so how do you replicate the effect at home? Obviously you don’t sour the entire mash. (As was suggested to me by a homebrew supplier yesterday.)

Well, you could, but you’d be taking quite a chance.  And unless you were willing to pasteurize the whole batch, the sourness would continue to develop as time went on. Do you set aside a small quantity of wort and let it sit out overnight before fermenting it separately (say, a litre out of 5 US gallons)?

Possible, but just as uncontrolled as the Papazian sour-mash method, and just as unlikely to produce anything palatable.  If things rotting in your area don’t smell half bad, it might work.  If they stink, however … (Would this then be added at bottling time, or to the secondary?)

You could do either.  But pasteurize it first, or you _will_ be souring the whole batch. Do you spend an extra five bucks for a YeastLab brettanomyces culture to do the job?

I’d say so, yes. Or does a small addition of lactose have the desired effect; and if so, when should it be added?

No, it will have the opposite effect, producing a sweet stout.  Adding food-grade lactic acid will provide some sourness, but it will have a somewhat mineral flavor without the pleasing complexity of the real thing, and it will take a long time to "marry" with the other flavors. Sorry if this has been hashed out thoroughly on the HBD; I unsubscribed because of time considerations. Thanks in advance, Matt (Who now wishes he hadn’t used his antique huge oaken tuns for kindling.)

Please!  I can’t handle these shocks like I once could …   ;^)         – Martin — = Martin Lodahl     Systems Analyst, Capacity Planning      Pacific*Bell = =    If it’s good for ancient Druids runnin’ nekkid through the wuids,   = =  Drinkin’ strange fermented fluids, it’s good enough for me!  (Unk.)   =

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HOMEBREW Digest #1662                        Mon 20 February 1995         FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES                 Rob Gardner, Digest Janitor Contents:   Extended Mashes ("Robert W. Mech")   Beer Recipes/Head Retention/down-scaling batches (Ray Robert)   RE: Infected Starter Wort ("Keith Royster")   Re: Fix Mash Schedule (Spencer.W.Thomas)   Steam infusion ("Michael Bonner")   Otter Creek quest, decoction/maltiness (Keith Frank)   Confederacy&Beer (Charlie Papazian/Boulder)   Chicago Beer Houses (Ed Holderman)   Brewpubs in San Diego (Walt Thode)   Dr. Lewis and Mashing (Jim Busch)   5l party Kegs, Is Aluminum a problem? ("Robert Bloodworth                            ZFBTO    - MT0054")   Canadian Lagers / Moosehead Replicas Sought ("Wood, Les")   Guinness sourness/sour first batch/IBUs/more IBUs (Ken Appleby)   Guiness (Steve Robinson)   Re:  IMMERSION, STIR OR NOT (Mel E. Martinez)   BJCP Judge-Rank Questions… (James Powell)   Recipe for Blackened Voodoo (Jill Martz)   Infected starter wort (John Keane)   Homebrew U – Seattle (GARY SINK 206-553-4687)   What Garetz says/Using pressure barrels (David Draper)   Info on Growing Hops (Blake Meyers)   Where’s the hops (daniel eugene gates)   Slant Explodes–No Injuries Reported (Kirk R Fleming)   single infusion mash ? ("Frederick L. Pauly")   hop garden ("Bummer, Paul")   Corrected IBU Post ("George A. Dietrich")   Re: AHA, IBU, DO RE ME . . . (PatrickM50) * NEW POLICY NOTE: Due to the incredible volume of bouncing mail, * I am going to have to start removing addresses from the list * that cause ongoing problems. In particular, if your mailbox * is full or your account over quota, and this results in bounced * mail, your address will be removed from the list after a few days. * * If you use a ‘vacation’ program, please be sure that it only * sends a automated reply to homebrew-request *once*. If I get * more than one, then I’ll delete your address from the list.   (Articles are published in the order they are received.) Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,   then you MUST unsubscribe the same way! If your account is being deleted, please be courteous and unsubscribe first. Please don’t send me requests for back issues – you will be silently ignored. ARCHIVES:   An archive of previous issues of this digest, as well as other beer   related information can be accessed via anonymous ftp at   ftp.stanford.edu.  Use ftp to log in as anonymous and give your full   e-mail address as the password, look under the directory   /pub/clubs/homebrew/beer directory.  AFS users can find it under   /afs/ir.stanford.edu/ftp/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer.  If you do not have   ftp capability you may access the files via e-mail using the ftpmail   service at gatekeeper.dec.com.  For information about this service,   "help" (without the quotes) in the body of the message. For a while now, ive been mashing, usuing a regular time schedule.   Meaning, such things as, "Protein Rest:30 Minutes" or "Sparge:45-90 Minutes" etc.  For the most part, they have very specific times, and my curiosity is why that these times are not sometimes longer.  I would think that if for instance the mash time at 154 for 1 hour, was extended to lets say 1.5 hours, you could increase your extract efficency.         Does this apply?  Is there some reason that it would not increase your efficency?  Is there some sort of saturation going on here?  Or am I on the ball here and should increase some of the times im allowing the grains to be subjected to the mash, before extracting the wort. Typicaly, I get about 70% efficency.  Its not fantastic, but id like to know if I can improve this simply by increasing my mash durations. And before you all start yelling "Do a decoction", I know I can raise my efficency that way.  Im looking for an alternative method. – — Robert W. Mech | All Grain HomeBrewer.  President, Fermentors At Large Elk Grove, IL. | Author Of "Frugal Brewers Guide To Brewing Aids" Greetings! I have a few questions for the collected wisdom of the digest. 1.  I went to a recent beer tasting festival and was impressed with a few of the beers from regional micros and was wondering if anyone might have recipes for the following (preferably extract):      JW Dundee’s Honey Brown      Saxer’s Lemon Lager      Dixie’s Blackened Voodoo      Samuel Adams’ Double Bock 2.  I know of several methods to get head retention prior to the ferment, but is there anything you can do at bottling time to increase head retention.  Will the type of priming sugar used affect the head retention? 3.  Is there a general rule of thumb for down-scaling say a 5 gallon batch to a 2.5 – 3 gallon batch? Thanks In HBD1660 Arthur McGregor is having problems with infected starter worts.  He states: I use 4 oz of light DME in 1 qt of water (SG~1.040, but no hops though) and boil for 5-7 minutes, cool the pot in cold bath, then bottle with previously sanitized bottles and caps with previously sanitized caps.  These starters are stored unrefrigerated in my basement, and within a week or two there is all kinds of critters growing in them.

All it takes is one viable ‘critter’ to fall in your wort and your pre-made starters will be ruined.  I don’t make my starters until I’m ready to pitch the yeast in them, so I won’t pretend to be an expert on making bottles of pre-made starters, but I do remember reading about them (Steve Miller’s book?).  From what I’ve read, I think the week point in your process is the cooling of the wort before you bottle it, which exposes the wort to the atmosphere (full of bacteria laden dust, etc..)  I beleive a better way is to follow a similar method to canning using mason jars.  The cooked wort would be poured into the mason jars which are then placed in a pot of boiling water (similar to a double boiler) and brought back to a boil for about 5 minutes.  This should kill everything in the wort and in the jars.   The lids should also be sanitized, either by boiling or other methods you are comfortable with.  Then, turn the heat off and screw the lids back on the mason jars.  As the jars cool down, the condensing steam will draw a vacuum on the lids for a perfect seal.  This method eliminates (almost?) all ways for your wort to become infected. *Note* Be careful with drastic temperature changes to glass (ie pouring boiling wort in cold mason jars) or you could easily break them.  I would either have the mason jars already in the boiling pot, (or at least warmed in hot tap water) or I would let the wort cool before pouring it in the jars.  I also have no idea if it is safe to use beer bottles instead of mason jars to do the same. | Keith Royster                |  NC-DEHNR / Air Qualtiy | | "I think I ran over my       |  Voice: (704) 663-1699  | |  Dogma with my Karma."       |  Fax:   (704) 663-6040  | This question has come up several times recently, so I went to the back issues and dug out the original articles (from HBDs 1506, 1511, and 1514).  They’re now available through the FAQ link on my "Web" beer page (http://guraldi.hgp.med.umich.edu/Beer/).  Look under the heading "Mashing Systems". =Spencer in Ann Arbor, MI                       Steam infusion Last weekend, I used my steam injection system for the first (and so far, the only) time. It is based on the one described in Brewing Techniques (July/Aug, ‘94) with a few differences dictated by the availability of materials. Basically, I mounted a gas valve directly on the lid of a pressure cooker. This leads to a ~6 foot length of 1/4 inch soft copper tubing which is pinched off at the far end. 1/16 inch holes are drilled about 1/2 inch apart in the last 12 inches of tube, which is coiled into a loop parallel to (and above) the false bottom of the 5 gallon Gott that I mash and lauter in. I purge the system of air while I dough-in, and make the first temperature adjustment with heated water to thin the mash to a consistency favorable for amylase activity. After that, all adjustments are made by opening the steam valve and stirring gently and almost constantly. At 1 or 2 degrees below the desired temp, the steam is turned off while the thermometer equilibrates. I can raise the temp about 2 degrees F per minute and reach mash-out temp very easily. I then give the mash a good stir, remove the copper … read more »

Response:

This was in the HBD, not even a month ago.  Memories sure are short around here! Posting 18: Extracted from file:  1659 Martin Lodahl recently sent me private email concerning my post about the sour taste in Guinness.  I thought it might be of general interest, especially to those trying to reproduce it.  Keith,  In HOMEBREW Digest #1655, you asked:   recipie to better achieve the authentic "sour" taste.     I vaguely remember reading somewhere that this sour taste is   achieved, not in the brewing process, but by actually blending the   stout beer with a little bit of "bad" / contaminated beer.  Other   than this, I don’t remember any details.  Does this sound familiar to   anyone else? Or am I completely confused?  I’ll try to find where I   read it this weekend.  For what it’s worth, just yesterday I was talking with Grant Johnston,  brewer at Marin Brewing in California, who’s just returned from two  weeks in Ireland.  While there he got a "backstage" private tour of  the principal Guinness brewery, and what they told (and showed) him  was that they have a series of huge oaken tuns dating back to the days  before Arthur Guinness bought the brewery, which they still use as  fermentors for a fraction of the beer.  The tuns have an endemic  population of Brettanomyces, lactic acid bacteria and Lord knows what  else, and beer fermented in it sours emphatically.  They pasteurize  this and blend small quantities of it with beer fermented in more  modern vessels.  I too have read something like this, but never before  had I heard about the wooden tuns.         – Martin  = Martin Lodahl     Systems Analyst, Capacity Planning      Pacific*Bell =  = Contributing Editor, Styles Column:        Brewing Techniques Magazine =  =    If it’s good for ancient Druids runnin’ nekkid through the wuids,   =  =  Drinkin’ strange fermented fluids, it’s good enough for me!  (Unk.)   = — =Spencer W. Thomas              |  Med Ctr Info Tech, B1911 CFOB, 0704    "Genome Informatician"     |  Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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Algis R Korzonas writes   No, Keith is right.  Guinness does set aside a certain portion of beer   (3% if memory serves) and intentionally sours it.  This soured beer is   pasteurized and then blended back into the main beer.  It is true, I’ve heard this stated a couple of times here, and it’s very plausible, but I’ve never seen any source quoted for the original information.  The Guinness FAQ at ftp.stanford.edu doesn’t mention this and neither do many recipes that I have seen.  My own experience with home-brewing Guinness clones suggests that it isn’t necessary. Can you remember where this information originates?

It’s from CP’s the _New complete Joy of Homebrewing_ in the section on stouts…I also think he mentions it in his new book _The Homebrewer’s Companion_(?). Aaron Vancouver, B.C.

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