[HoosierBrew]

Sure it wasn't the Philly Cheesesteak beer?  I went to Beer Camp with him!  He said the beer sucked.

Can't imagine why it would suck. It must've needed more cheese and steak.   

[Phil_M]

Working in some average time taken for these methods may be useful as well. That's going to be somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison, but I'd wager the time savings between some may not be what we'd expect.

It would be pretty difficult to find brewers set up to do all 3 in an optimal fashion.  And what would you be looking for?  We need a hypothesis, guys!

It's not really an experiment, more just data points that may prove interesting. Let your experimenters brew on whatever setup they have, and just have them record the amount of time required for setup, mashing and lautering, and cleanup.

Setup would be everything from adding/heating water through to doughing in.
Mashing/lautering would be the time from doughing till all wort has been collected in the brew kettle.
Cleanup is self explanatory.

I think a standard mash schedule would be important, but that would already be the case if your testers are using a standardized recipe. Then just run the mean/median/mode numbers for each activity for each mash method.

[charles1968]

Brulosophy fast lager fermentation vs traditional cold ferment

[Steve Ruch]

I did a pilsner (3 way split) sort of like that last year, but with WLP830 at 52f, WLP830 at 72, and Wyeast 1764 at 72f.
I queried Jill about it for a possible Last Drop piece. She said she could use it and I sent it to her back in September. I'm hoping it'll see print fairly soon.

Sounds interesting, was there a significant difference?
[/quote]

I came to some definite conclusions, but I probably shouldn't say too much at this point. When the piece appears I'll be glad to discuss it.

[Steve Ruch]

I did a pilsner (3 way split) sort of like that last year, but with WLP830 at 52f, WLP830 at 72, and Wyeast 1764 at 72f.
I queried Jill about it for a possible Last Drop piece. She said she could use it and I sent it to her back in September. I'm hoping it'll see print fairly soon.

I'd say that would work better becasue those yeasts are all cleaner. I've never found Notty to be particularly clean.  Could just be me, though.
[/quote]

I like Notty in a brown ale but is one of the last yeasts that I'd consider for a pseudo lager.

[charles1968]

I like Notty in a brown ale but is one of the last yeasts that I'd consider for a pseudo lager.

I think you'd be surprised. I use Nottingham more than any other strain and it ferments fine down to 54 Fahrenheit and gives superclean beer. I think it's perceived as a very British style yeast among US brewers, but over here it's regarded as very clean. It's also popular as a kolsch yeast on German homebrew sites such as http://maischemalzundmehr.de/

This is what Lallemand/Danstar says about it:
"It produces low concentrations of fruity and estery aromas and has been described as neutral for ale yeast, allowing the full natural flavor of malt & hops to develop.
 
The recommended fermentation temperature range of this strain is 14° to 21°C (57° to 70°F) with good tolerance to low fermentation temperatures (12°C/54°F) that allow this strain to be used in lager-style beer."

[kgs]

I've hesitated to share this idea because I keep thinking it MUST have been done already and I just missed the memo, but dry yeast: hydrate versus non-hydrate (perhaps US-05 w/10 gallons of a basic IPA split two ways, same temp control, etc.).  Data points would be limited to side-by-side blind taste testing with expert and non-expert tasters. In terms of design, I don't know enough about designing this type of experiment to say whether it's better to have the same brewer rebrew several times or have multiple brewers repeat the experiment on the same timeline.

Note: I just realized Basic Brewing did this experiment in 2011. It's interesting that the conclusion was to not hydrate, but the results were almost evenly split. (I am a non-hydrater but largely agnostic, since I brew smaller batches.)

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=basic-brewing-brew-your-own-experiments

[dbeechum]

Science always bears repeating!

[majorvices]

Head retention: Wheat Malt vs CaraFoam vs Flaked Barley vs Chit Malt vs All Pils.

vs. good brewing/fermentation process and none of those.

Well, that's what the only pils malt would be for.

[denny]

Head retention: Wheat Malt vs CaraFoam vs Flaked Barley vs Chit Malt vs All Pils.

vs. good brewing/fermentation process and none of those.

Well, that's what the only pils malt would be for.

Yep.  I always go back to the Duvel example.

[thelastdamnbatch]

Test if significant maillard reactions occur during a decoction.

[brewinhard]

Test if significant maillard reactions occur during a decoction.

That sounds pretty tricky.  How would one even do that?

[redzim]

Bittering lagers with noble varieties vs Magnum (or other neutral)

I like this idea, especially for the reasonably hopped lagers, like helles or O'fest

my choice, from all the ideas in this thread.

[klickitat jim]

How about identical excellent commercial samples with the question being "One of the three glasses contains craft beer. Which one is it, and why?"

[hopfenundmalz]

Bittering lagers with noble varieties vs Magnum (or other neutral)

I like this idea, especially for the reasonably hopped lagers, like helles or O'fest

my choice, from all the ideas in this thread.

Hey Red, long time no see aroun here.