[mabrungard]

This just in. On the AHA Forum there was a derailment causing injury to the feelings of several so called "newby brewers". Many of them were rushed to the hospital for hugs and warm milk. One gentleman was heard mumbling "Thats not why I bew IPAs. You dont know me, you dont know me"

Yep

[pete b]

All I know is that I have just read two long threads where Denny says nice things about "shaken, not stirred" starters and Mark says nice things about batch sparging.
Denny: "So far, there hasn't been a downside to this technique. The starter was simpler to make and tool less DME, so it was less expensive than my usual starter. Of course, the proof is in the glass. I'll report on the finished beer in a couple weeks or so."
Mark: "The technique that Denny is recommending [batch sparging]is simpler to execute correctly and more lauter tun design agnostic...  Depending on the size of the batch, batch sparging can be a much faster process than continuous sparging."
I think I bumped my head and woke up in an alternate universe.

[denny]

Mark, you know that I don't really care what the lit says except in the context of giving me something to think about and play with.

Anyway, kegged the beer just now and the results are in....http://www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/denny/old-dognew-tricksthe-followup

[Joe Sr.]

Stan Hieronymus called it flavor masking in highly hopped beers, said it was real, and hides defects that would be an issue in a more subtle style. In noise work, masking refers to a sound at one frequency making another frequency unintelligible. A setting with high amplitude low frequencies, some factories, will make speech recognition a problem.

Again, I'm not saying the flavor masking doesn't exist.  However, I don't think people are making IPAs and IIPAs because they're making bad beer and want to cover it up.  There may actually be flaws in the beer (even taint, though how that could be inadvertent, I don't know) that are covered up by the hops, but the two facts are not necessarily connected.

Denny has a good point about the certainty with which Mark makes some statements.  I think it can be off putting at times, particularly to newer brewers or people who don't spend as much time on here as some of us.

[pete b]

Stan Hieronymus called it flavor masking in highly hopped beers, said it was real, and hides defects that would be an issue in a more subtle style. In noise work, masking refers to a sound at one frequency making another frequency unintelligible. A setting with high amplitude low frequencies, some factories, will make speech recognition a problem.

Again, I'm not saying the flavor masking doesn't exist.  However, I don't think people are making IPAs and IIPAs because they're making bad beer and want to cover it up.  There may actually be flaws in the beer (even taint, though how that could be inadvertent, I don't know) that are covered up by the hops, but the two facts are not necessarily connected.

Denny has a good point about the certainty with which Mark makes some statements.  I think it can be off putting at times, particularly to newer brewers or people who don't spend as much time on here as some of us.

I agree that this effect exists but that it is a side effect. I just don't see people saying "rather than learn how to make good beer I'm going to just add a crazy amount of hops". OTOH I would be willing to bet that many new brewers who make hoppy (or really roasty beers) think they are great brewers until they start making more balanced or subtle styles.

[dilluh98]

Denny's findings, to me, indicate that having 5% of your wort come from that 1 L of ~1.030 DME in the starter really has no impact on the final flavor of the beer. This was one of my concerns when starting down the "shaken not stirred" path to the point where I was nipping off a liter of the main wort to make a native starter. But Denny's data point, among many others including Mark's statement about how good the shaken starter smells at high krausen, has me leaning toward just making the darn DME starter already and RDWHAHB.

[rabeb25]

WELL, if you really wanted to do it right.. you would take the first bit of your cooled wort, do this starter method, and pitch that into the beer with the rest of the wort...Kind of a hybrid between this method and Drauflassen. *Puts down the mic, and slowly backs away into the curtain. *

[blatz]

WELL, if you really wanted to do it right.. you would take the first bit of your cooled wort, do this starter method, and pitch that into the beer with the rest of the wort...Kind of a hybrid between this method and Drauflassen. *Puts down the mic, and slowly backs away into the curtain. *

thats my preferred method now - its easier, don't need to mess with DME and it doesn't take that long to hit HK.

[dilluh98]

WELL, if you really wanted to do it right.. you would take the first bit of your cooled wort, do this starter method, and pitch that into the beer with the rest of the wort...Kind of a hybrid between this method and Drauflassen. *Puts down the mic, and slowly backs away into the curtain. *

That's what I was doing. But, that got me thinking about the wisdom of pitching an old-ish WLP tube into 1.070 wort as a starter...

[dilluh98]

WELL, if you really wanted to do it right.. you would take the first bit of your cooled wort, do this starter method, and pitch that into the beer with the rest of the wort...Kind of a hybrid between this method and Drauflassen. *Puts down the mic, and slowly backs away into the curtain. *

thats my preferred method now - its easier, don't need to mess with DME and it doesn't take that long to hit HK.

I've noticed this as well. Not sure if it was because I was pitching a 3rd generation of a yeast or that it was starter from an actual beer wort (does this matter, Mark?) but I've hit high krausen in 6 hours using this method on 1.050 OG beers.

[rabeb25]

WELL, if you really wanted to do it right.. you would take the first bit of your cooled wort, do this starter method, and pitch that into the beer with the rest of the wort...Kind of a hybrid between this method and Drauflassen. *Puts down the mic, and slowly backs away into the curtain. *

thats my preferred method now - its easier, don't need to mess with DME and it doesn't take that long to hit HK.

I've noticed this as well. Not sure if it was because I was pitching a 3rd generation of a yeast or that it was starter from an actual beer wort (does this matter, Mark?) but I've hit high krausen in 6 hours using this method on 1.050 OG beers.

Correct, which gives you just enough time to crash cool the fermenter, dump the trub, oxygenate, and pitch.

[evil_morty]

see - you guys have me worried.  if I start my starter at night the day before the brew I don't to have missed the right time to pitch by the time my wort is chilled and ready to receive the yeast!

[dilluh98]

There's no perfect answer. Best advice is to keep excellent notes so that you can zero in on the timing aspect of it whether you use the native starter method or go with a DME-based starter. Eventually you should be able to get to a point where you can say: here's 'ABC' yeast that's in its Y generation of pitching. It should hit high krausen in 1.0x0 wort in ~Z hours based on past experience.

[brewday]

WELL, if you really wanted to do it right.. you would take the first bit of your cooled wort, do this starter method, and pitch that into the beer with the rest of the wort...Kind of a hybrid between this method and Drauflassen. *Puts down the mic, and slowly backs away into the curtain. *

thats my preferred method now - its easier, don't need to mess with DME and it doesn't take that long to hit HK.

+1

[brewinhard]

see - you guys have me worried.  if I start my starter at night the day before the brew I don't to have missed the right time to pitch by the time my wort is chilled and ready to receive the yeast!

Yes.  The timing would sure take some getting used to. I feel that if I make a starter at 8 pm the night before brew day (1 quart, shaken) that it would probably reach high krausen prior to 1-2 pm the next afternoon when I want to pitch my yeast.  I could be wrong though.  Guess I have to try it out for myself.