Messages

1

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: How's your LHBS doing?

« on: April 18, 2018, 08:57:14 PM »

There are 2 shops close-enough to me to call them my LHBS. Both seem to be doing really well (although admittedly I'm not familiar with the finances of either). One interesting point about both is that they have tap rooms where they serve beer they brew in-house. Boulder Fermentation Supply/Vision Quest brewing is one of the tap rooms I frequent most-often. Brewmented in Longmont has a lot of guest taps from breweries around town. I still go out of my way a bit to go to Vision Quest because the beer is awesome.

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All Grain Brewing / Re: Mash ph Delta Discrepancy

« on: March 15, 2018, 06:10:24 PM »

Also does your meter do ATC at all?

My limited understanding is that when folks say the pH differs by 0.35ish at room temp vs mash temp they mean the actual pH of the solution is different. It's also true that meters have to perform their own internal correction for temperture as well. That is, a meter with ATC will show the difference in the actual pH (~0.35) and a meter without it will have undefined behavior and just be unpredictably incorrect.

If your meter doesn't have ATC: might explain it. If it does: then TIL that ~0.35 might not be normal pH difference. I've never actually tried this with my ATC meter (as others have pointed out folk wisdom is it shortens probe life).

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Questions about the forum? / Re: When should threads end, when should they be moderated?

« on: March 09, 2018, 10:40:49 PM »

Is this a thread about a thread?

Sorry

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Questions about the forum? / Re: When should threads end, when should they be moderated?

« on: March 09, 2018, 10:40:10 PM »

Self-moderation is awesome. Mods are awesome. I suppose I just think there might be some benefit in explicitly democratizing the moderation process a bit, or updating the rules with some of the modern heuristics.

Here's a quote from an essay by Jo Freeman with a heavy-handed url: http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to everyone, and this can happen only if they are formalized.

The whole point of the essay is that if we don't codify structure and rules explicitly then we're taking power away from folks who aren't part of the current group of brewers i.e., new brewers or brewers who are new to the AHA or the AHA forum. And maybe we end up marginalizing some new voices not because of any malice just because: it happens.

Anyway, I posted this because I think that making the moderation process clearer might be an easy way to ensure that the brewing community keeps growing and stays healthy while it does so.

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Questions about the forum? / Re: When should threads end, when should they be moderated?

« on: March 09, 2018, 06:23:45 PM »

Thread drift happens and I don't consider it reason to close a thread.  That one came awfully close to getting shut down due to lack of civility, but it straightened itself out.  My theory is that the best moderation is the least moderation.  I'll do what I have to , but I try not to have a heavy hand.  In addition, all the mods discuss situations before any of us takes action.

It does seem like the hands-off approach worked in this instance -- the thread righted itself. I totally agree on the thread drift topic: up to individuals involved to determine when a thread has run it's course.

Are there any heuristics the mods used in this instance WRT to the discussion of civility that are worth talking about here? Could the discussion about this particular thread be opened up and talked about here?

I'm not sure that I believe that the inaction on that thread squares with the "will not tolerate" line:

We will not tolerate rudeness, insults, personal attacks, inflammatory remarks, threats, racial/ethnic slurs, trolling, flame baiting or similarly disruptive postings.

although everything squares with:

The mods reserve the right to take steps not addressed in these rules in order to maintain a friendly and helpful environment. The #1 thing to keep in mind is "DON'T BE A JERK!"

so maybe it's all fine.

Personal aside. I feel like I was moderately engaged here 2010-2012. I've dropped off to a few posts a year. I have a memory of being actively stressed during my participation on this forum. Which is goofy: it's a beer forum and I'm passionate about beer; but this thread definitely had a high stress level, too which made me think maybe there're more systemic things that can be done.

Also, another aside, thanks denny for replying to this and for doing all the hard moderator work!

Anyway, I'll be quiet for a bit and see if this topic has any legs or not.

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Questions about the forum? / Re: When should threads end, when should they be moderated?

« on: March 09, 2018, 03:56:50 PM »

So we don't lose where the discussion left off I'll just quote the last bit here:

This has gotten away from its purpose of brewing a traditional weissbier, imho

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

Does it matter? I’d say the resulting discussion is infinitely more engaging.

That may be true.  But this started with the OP proudly sharing a simple recipe he'd worked long and hard to develop, and before long it was almost as if he got jumped on and told he was washing his socks wrong if it didn't involve use of the Large Hadron Collider. Not quite but it probably seemed that way to him.  Maybe we should be a little more alert and when a derailment or side topic is far enough removed from the original,  move it to a new thread.

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Beer Recipes / Re: Ultimate Traditional Weizen Recipe - I finally figured it out

« on: March 09, 2018, 03:54:30 PM »

FWIW, and this is from what I feel is mostly a community outsider perspective as I haven't been active on this forum in quite a while: this thread took a necessary early detour to address remarks that were not intended to malicious, but could have have easily been perceived as such.

The thread, likely, should have ended after that was addressed. As moderators (seemingly since this forums inception) have taken a very light touch it was up to participants who were at the point in a somewhat heated state to end the thread and move discussion elsewhere, but that didn't happen.

At this point it seemed to me when I posted my questions, there would be too much lost context to switch to a new thread.

I will second Big Monk's statement that this thread is a good read.

I'd like to propose that *this* discussion be moved to https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=31324.0 so that we don't end up creating context that will be lost in an un-searchable topic.

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Questions about the forum? / When should threads end, when should they be moderated?

« on: March 09, 2018, 03:53:13 PM »

I haven't been very active on this forum in recent years, but I've been lurking and I reading throughout my absence. I recently stumbled across an awesome thread with some passionate discussion:

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=31132.0

This thread initially took a bad turn. I feel that the assumption of good faith was violated by the main participants; however, in spite of the initial rejection of what I feel are the norms of online discussion groups, the thread got *really* interesting. It also got pretty off-topic for a recipe post. OP was no longer involved for one reason or another.

The thread turned to anarchy, fortunately it was mostly positive anarchy, which we probably own to the rigor of the participants more than anything else.

Currently there is an assertion that the thread should close the discussion as it's gotten waaay too offtopic. That's fine (I'm honestly disappointed by that outcome, but would accept it); however, rather than repeat the same mistake and lose important context on that discussion I've decided (unilaterally) to open a topic here to talk about moderation, thread derailment, and the responsibilities of participants.

Mods: if this is not where this goes, or has already been discussed in detail, feel free to move or close as you see fit.

To kick off discussion, AFAICT these are the only rules or guidelines for discussions that are posted: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=32.0 and they have gotten this forum a long long way so kudos to all involved in making that happen.

Are there other guidelines needed?

Are participants generally acting in good faith with those guidelines?

Who decides when a thread should close?

Is this a beer forum and should I just rdwhahb and this discussion is waaay too heavy and unnecessary?

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Beer Recipes / Re: Ultimate Traditional Weizen Recipe - I finally figured it out

« on: March 08, 2018, 11:29:03 PM »

This has gotten away from its purpose of brewing a traditional weissbier, imho

Mea culpa. Sorry for threadjacking.

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Beer Recipes / Re: Ultimate Traditional Weizen Recipe - I finally figured it out

« on: March 08, 2018, 03:57:35 PM »

Beer is made in kettles and fermenters, not in computer models or spreadsheets. Just like weather is made in the atmosphere and not in the models that fail to predict it (my local forecast for yesterday was 12-18” snow, 12 hours before we got a little drizzling rain... stuff is complex, I’m not mad at em).

So what I'm hearing is: "supercomputer"

And finally, one factor that may muddy the science vs reality is the effect that pitch rate has on the length of the lag and log phases. Under pitching may simply lengthen these periods slightly, keeping the yeast in ester mode longer, thus resulting in more esters.

You also posted earlier about keeping yeast in log phase, but earlier referring to availability of O2:

Hmm... may want to revisit that hypothesis. Esters come from growth. The access to oxygen keeps a small pitch of yeast in the growth phase longer.

This gives me a bunch of questions that I didn't see the answers to in this thread or in Zymurgy:

Do you have a target pitch rate, or some proxy which approximates a target pitch rate (e.g., fresh vial in 1 qt starter at ~1.040)?
Do you add oxygen or air initially? Is there a target initial DO rate? Is there a nominal rate and then you count on availability of oxygen in headspace? Do you feel strongly about these things, or do you only feel strongly that it is the entire process that makes the difference (as seems to be what you're saying in the last post)?

I've been working on my hefe for years and I still fiddle with pitching rate and oxygen more than I fiddle with anything else, really. My experience has been: that's how I make wildly different beers from the same ingredients. I pitch low (~6E6/mL), and I do 90 seconds O2 at 1LPM. I used to do a mix-stir for O2 since some smart folks I respect pointed to low DO driving esters, but that hasn't worked for me.

Also, while I directed this a bit to hacksackr if anyone else has experience playing with any of these variables I'd love to hear about it.

Random aside:

I love this thread! I feel like a lot of dogma leaks into brewing which may help new folks climb the learning-curve faster initially, but I think it does a disservice to our shared community understanding. There's a lot of great brewing literature that amalgamates knowledge from thousands of years of trial and error. And there are so many paths to amazing beer that on paper don't seem like they'll ever work. The more I've tried those weird paths, the more I realize that I have no idea what's going to make a good beer, but I can try it and see if it works for me.

Great thread, thanks for still being passionate about this stuff folks <3

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Beer Recipes / Re: Ultimate Traditional Weizen Recipe - I finally figured it out

« on: March 08, 2018, 04:22:01 AM »

How bout some quotes out of it saying growth and esters are inversely related.

(heavily out of context quote. In my defense: there was soooo much context)

So there are a bunch, I'm mostly quoting myself from another thread on here:

While many authors tend to agree that increased biomass production (i.e. creation of cell walls) reduces the Acetyl CoA that is available for ester production and leads to reduced ester levels in the beer (Narziss 2005, Cone, Noonan 1996, Fix 1999) authors differ with respect to ester production and yeast growth. Fix (Fix 1999) writes that any, "increased activity on the acetyl CoA branch", whatever that means, will increase ester production while other authors (Narziss 2005, Cone) state that increased yeast growth leads to a decrease in esters since more of the acetyl CoA is used for sterol synthesis.

Sources:
--------
Cone - http://www.danstaryeast.com/library/yeast-growth
Fix - George J. Fix Ph.D, Principles of Brewing Science, Brewers Publications, Boulder CO, 1999
Narziss - Prof. Dr. agr. Ludwig Narziss, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Werner Back, Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Fakultaet fuer Brauwesen, Weihenstephan), Abriss der Bierbrauerei. WILEY-VCH Verlags GmbH Weinheim Germany, 2005
Noonan - Gregory J. Noonan, New Brewing Lager Beer, Brewers Publications, Boulder CO, 1996

HOWEVER, I wrote ^ because I was puzzled about seeing the exact opposite results in practice, that is, esters and growth seem to vary directly to me in *acutal* brewing. I was writing the above to Jess Caudill (who was at Wyeast at the time). My findings definitely jived with his and what you're seeing in practice hackrsackr. (link to thread: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=12789.msg162616#msg162616)

To paraphrase Jess (and maybe Yogi Berra): In theory practice and theory are the same, but in practice they're not.

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Other Fermentables / The Wildcrafting Brewer

« on: February 27, 2018, 06:15:04 PM »

I was browsing new beer books on amazon today and noticed a new one that seems to be all about "other fermentables" so I thought I'd drop a note about it here: https://www.chelseagreen.com/the-wildcrafting-brewer

Looks pretty cool, reminds me of Brewing Local but with an emphasis on 1 gallon at-home batches. I really like 1-gallon fermentation experiments, and I wish I saw more of this content.

Last fall I was able to get access to fresh local apple cider from the farmers market. My "recipe" was to pour it in a sanitized 1 gallon glass fermentor, shake it up, add 1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme, and a few grams of US-05 and let it sit on the kitchen counter. After a few weeks I racked to a 2 gallon corny-style keg. Those couple batches definitely had a very high enjoyment:effort ratio. Out of curiosity I entered it into Hoppy Halloween this past October and got a 31 from a grand master IV BJCP judge: definitely not too shabby for 15 minutes of work.

Anybody else have any low-effort 1 gallon country-wine-type favorites?

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Recommendation for RO system to use for homebrew

« on: August 31, 2017, 10:39:57 PM »

Most large grocery stores have RO water dispensers and charge between 35 and 40 cents a gallon.

Unfortunately, not universally true. Areas that have low or really low TDS are unlikely to have RO machines in any stores. In essence, if you can't find RO machines in stores in your area, there probably isn't a great need for RO treatment and the tap water is more likely to be usable for brewing (of course, you still have to adjust it for brewing).

FWIW, we definitely have RO machines at Kroger and Safeway in Longmont despite having water with a TDS ~50 coming out of the faucet. Form-factor of the 5 gallon jug has some appeal,  I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Interpretation of Beer Experiment Results

« on: August 23, 2017, 05:33:32 PM »

Statistical outcome: None. No statistical conclusions can be drawn.
Practically it means that you should ignore the results until further information is collected.

So much this ^^^!

Put another way ( from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing#Interpretation )

If the p-value is not less than the required significance level [...] then the test has no result. The evidence is insufficient to support a conclusion.

Great write-up and super important to keep in mind when reading the results (or non-results, as the case may be) from Brulosophy and Experimental Brewing, thanks for the literacy lesson!

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All Grain Brewing / Re: Water Quality

« on: August 18, 2017, 02:37:19 AM »

This is a link to the WHO report: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf

Doesn't seem like there are any real strong conclusions in the report.