Tech Meeting Idea

[DrPaulsen]

I came across this interesting base malt comparison the other day and was inspired to try something similar for a Tech Meeting.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/Eng ... rison.html

The goal would be to brew a simple beer with a common recipe but different base malts to gain insight to their unique character. I would use a SMaSH APA base recipe since most of us routinely brew something at least a little hoppy. (Probably Amarillo or Centennial hops.)

Here are my thoughts on a set of base malts to compare. Let me know if there are any I'm missing that you'd like to see included.

2-Row
Pale Ale
Pilsner
Marris Otter
Golden Promise
Vienna
Munich

[tony b]

One of the first tech meetings, CJ did something similar. It was about a dozen malts, but only wort. Not fermented and no hops. One of the best tech meetings that we did. Great twist on a good idea. I'd support this one.

[Steven P]

I like this idea. Do you have any ideas on how to proceed with the experiment? Seems like a lot of work. Maybe we could set a standard and have participants make samples with each base malt and recipe?

[brownbeard]

One of the first tech meetings, CJ did something similar. It was about a dozen malts, but only wort. Not fermented and no hops. One of the best tech meetings that we did. Great twist on a good idea. I'd support this one.

That was a really good meeting. And I remember it being a ton of work for Jeremy.

[middleTspeer]

This is a great idea. The only a base malt I don't see that I use is 6-row.

Travis Speer

[DrPaulsen]

I've got a plan in place to do 1 gallon batches of each recipe. Shouldn't be too much work as I'll do them BIAB on my stovetop. My plan is to bottle condition 6-10 bottles of each type. 6-Row is a good idea. That's the only grain I'm missing from the pile - does anyone have some they could donate to the tech meeting?

Here's a link to my first draft of the recipe. I'm going to pick up a 2 gallon fermentor bucket & do a trial run to see how well it works. If all goes well, I can imagine holding the Tech Meeting in the summer.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... t-exp-2row

[middleTspeer]

As I'm the one that uses it. I'm more then wiling to donate some 6-Row. How much do you need?

Travis Speer

[DrPaulsen]

2 lbs.

[middleTspeer]

How soon do you need it by.

Travis Speer

[DrPaulsen]

Not soon.

[daryl]

I have not done all grain brewing yet, but plan to begin assembling the materials and give it try sometime this Spring or Summer. Until then I will practice and continue to sharpen my brewing procedures, fermenting, bottling, and sanitization techniques.

A Tech Meeting like this would be very useful for a novice like me and even others that have more experience. The proof is in the brew; to taste compare 7 or more malts at one time, uniformly used in one recipe, would be very useful in determining those malts I might prefer to use for my brews.

Are there ways others can help? Besides lining up to sample?

[DrPaulsen]

Thanks for the offer, but I don't think so. My preference is to have all of these brewed by the same person in a relatively tight window so that they can be as consistent as possible. I'll pull all the hops from the same batches and use the same water, aeration techniques, fermentation temps, etc, etc, etc. If we were to subdivide the brews between multiple people, for example, this would be much harder. If the brewing goes well, I can imagine trying something similar within even a single type of grain. For example, comparing various pilsner malts (American, Belgian, German).

[DrPaulsen]

For those of you that have inquired about my progress on this Tech Meeting - I've just finished bottling the first 1 gallon pilot batch. My goal with this was to develop, practice, & confirm an effective process for making 1 gallon, all-grain batches. I'll know in 2-3 weeks if the process worked. If it proves successful, I'll launch into the 8 or 9 base malt batches.

[DrPaulsen]

For those of you who are interested in this tech meeting, I'm making good progress working through the single malt experiment batches.

Finished: Pilsner, 2-Row
Bottle Conditioning: Marris Otter, Golden Promise
Lagering: Pale Ale, 6-Row
Up Next: Vienna, Munich, Wheat

Assuming I'm able to keep up the same pace, I would expect to be done with the final 3 batches by mid-June with a mid-July or early August Tech Meeting. Looks like I'll have 5 bottles of each variety available. In addition to providing an opportunity for folks to taste the differences between base malts, I'm interested in adding some data collection tools to this. For example, run some double-blind triangle tests to see if people can really distinguish between Pale Ale Malt & Marris Otter or 2-row and 6-row. Additionally, I'll probably ask folks to fill out tasting sheets, from which I'll build word clouds of the descriptors. I doubt we'll have enough data to draw strong conclusions, but it could provide the impetus for follow-up experiments. At the end of this, I will probably write it up in an article for Zymurgy or BYO to help our club's experiment benefit other folks.

If you have any ideas for meaningful, simple scenarios we could run to help capture the results of the experiment, please post them here. I'm no expert in Sensory Evaluation techniques so if any of you guys have experience in this area it would be appreciated.

[fargo41]

Looking good, I'll be interested in seeing the results and maybe helping in tasting. I recently saw someone do something similar, they used the same base malt, hops and yeast, but with different specialty malts to understand the flavors each adds. Might be something to try if this is successful.