Advice from the SOBA NHC Champions

[Stu McKinlay]

Surprised nobody has asked this yet - or have they asked and I missed it?

Last year I was delighted to see a dry yeast user pick up "Brewer of the Year", I've always been a proponent of getting all your sh!t together before you start playing around with yeast (the most difficult part of brewing good beer).

This year the "Brewer of the Year" (and a couple of other major prizes) were swept away by another dry yeast user who - SHOCK HORROR - also uses malt extract.

This goes some way to proving that the 'liquid yeast, all-grain mecca' is not always what it is cracked up to be.


To everyone out there who picked up best in class awards, or one of the major awards - what is the secret to your brewing success? What are you still working on? And where are you headed next (soon, and further down the track)?

Cheers
Stu

ps. Well done everyone.

[Barry]

DMS, unless my understanding of it is incorrect, wouldn't occur due to an infection. Of course being a no-chiller I leave myself wide open to that particular fault. Just genuinely surprised to land it in a dark beer.

With your results in this years competition you don't need to feel bad about anything except wiping the floor with a good number of all-grain beers! It should be us feeling apologetic.
But you might have to send a few bottles my way, just so's I can be sure they're up to scratch ;)

Merry Christmas.

[Kempicus]

I've heard that it can be bacterial too....certainly my homebrewing for dummies book suggests that.

hahahaha i would do but i have bugger all left and i haven't brewed for a while, the problem with doing small batches i guess...

Merry xmas to you too!

[Greig McGill]

Yep, and you're not getting the impy stout either! It's so damned awesome I wished I hadn't drunk the other two!

[Kempicus]

I sent my old man one before the comp....didn't like it! ;0)

[Alasdair]

I thought a "bottom fermenter" should make a contribution. :) I picked up four bests in class for my lagers, with a gold medal for my Munich Dunkel and a bronze for my Vienna.

I'm an all-grain brewer. Liquid yeast for lagers; I use liquid and dried for my ales. I don't think all grain and liquid yeast are necessarily superior, but I think extract and/or dried yeast limits the lager styles that you can brew successfully.

Secrets of my success? Well, cleanliness and sanitation, pitching a lot of yeast, consistent and cool fermentation temperature, and hitting my numbers - i.e. making sure I achieve my desired bitterness/gravity ratio, and final gravity.

I don't do decoction or multi-rest mashes. Single infusion at 66 degrees, depending on the style.

I worship at the alter of Jamil, so my lager process (and brewing in general) follows his advice.

I use a four litre starter for 21 litres of 1050 wort - fermented out at room temperature for a week or so then pitch just the slurry. I repitch for two or three subsequent batches.

I chill my wort with an immersion chiller, then rack and chill overnight at about 4 degrees, then rack the wort off the break material into another carboy, aerate, pitch and put it in my fermentation fridge. I then let the beer temperature rise to 10 degrees.

I ferment the beer at 10 degrees for about five to six weeks - no secondary, no diacetyl rest. Then keg, and store at 8 degrees. It normally tastes best after a month in the keg. My vienna lager in the comp was bottle conditioned - this takes even longer to carbonate and peak.

And I whole-heartedly agree with Kempicus and Greig re beer education. Taste a lot. Taste critically, and try to identify flavours and their origins

What next? - currently brewing for my wedding in January. A tasty helles and APA are finished, just a summer/blonde ale to go. Then next year a pilsner or two, tasty session ales, and more malty lagers.

And what am I still working on?

Fermentation control for my ales. The only substantive difference between my lagers and ales is temp control - a fridge vs a cardboard box - and my ales are very inconsistent in quality. Five of the six ales I've entered in the NHC in the last two years have been flawed. So my ales now (as of two weeks ago) ferment in the fridge too.

My mashing and sparging - minimising hot-side aeration, ensuring wort clarity, and maintaining mash temperature.

And I'm reading up on water chemistry.

[Richee]

I got best in class and Gold for my Irish Red, which is a rather big improvement from the previous years entries that were all problematic and phenolic. Seems that my problem was trying to keep liquid yeasts alive for far too many generations and probably underpitching!!

I've since moved to stainless steel fermenters and mainly liquid yeasts. I've been buying liquid yeast from Craftbrewer lately.

No secrets really:

-Sanitation in the past for me was 'average', I think it pays to be really over the top in this department.
-Usually stepped mashs (often with specific style water treatments), hop pellets, and a bloody good boil.
-Primary fermenter only, no secondaries here either, (and ensuring that you let the ferment complete fully before crash chilling and getting a whole lot of diacetyl!).
-Temperature control is super important.
-Once out of the fermenter and into the keg I like to condition at 2C for as long as I can wait, I'm beginning to believe that this can make a real improvement to beer flavour complexity.
-Then force carbonate and it's time to think about the next brew.


Spending alot of time now looking at mash pH, sparge pH, finished beer pH, everything pH really!
Also need to try and reduce the wort cooling time, using an immersion chiller.
Tinkering with the idea of fining

Where am I headed next: out to the fridge for an Emerson's APA, and brewing wise just improving my processes, and understanding of brewing.

Cheers
Rich

[MrC]

Best in class for Light Hybrid Beer with my American Wheat Beer.
It was an all-grain beer with dried yeast (US-05). It was 60% wheat malt and 40% Maris Otter. You'd struggle to find an extract to match that wheat ratio.
Anyway, that mash was a complete balls up and the efficiency was approx 55%. I was swearing like a trooper on brew day. In the end though, it was a nicely balanced, light, refreshing, beer and the hops were probably highlighted by the lower than expected OG. It scored 38 points and picked up a silver medal.

Best kit beer and best in class for Kit Pale / Brown Ale.
This was an experiment with yeast harvested from a couple of bottles of Coopers Pale Ale. I used a Mac's pale kit with some steeped crystal & chocolate. I didn't like it due to it being too estery (bananas for China) and I wasn't going to enter it. I only entered it in the hope of getting some constructive feedback.
It also scored 38 points and also picked up a silver medal.

Best in class for Kit Lager. This was me simply wanting to get the most out of a liquid yeast. I threw a kit of Brewcraft Dutch lager and a can of muntons pale onto the yeast cake of an AG Pilsener that I had just bottled. The beer scored 22 points.

Where am I headed?
I am currently brewing lots of experiments with the 24 Macs kits that I won. Lots of different experiments with hops & malts I've yet to try. Then I'll work on some combos.
Also brewing beers that I've never even tasted. I have a barley brewing at the moment and I have no idea what to expect. Living, brewing, tasting and learning.

AG vs Extract?
I'm sticking with both AG and extract. I beleive in "Horses for Courses". I liked my American Wheat Beer and I don't think I could do with extract. I need to work on my Porters and I'll probably use an extract/kits base untill I figure out which specialty malts I like.

Liquid vs dry yeast?
Again "Horses for Courses". But I'll mainly be using dry untill I figure out all my other issues.

[Kempicus]

Nuno! good call, heard him do flight of the bumblebee once....amazing!!!!

[Mark]

that piece is not as difficult as it sounds - he uses a delay pedal so he's only playing half the notes you hear. very cool piece though, he's a freakish guitar player

[MrC]

Yeah Nunos on my top ten list too. Not to sure why he dressed up like a woman on the cover of Schizophonic.

I'm really into Mark Tremonti at the moment (ex Creed and now in Alter Bridge). You can't beat sitting down with a pint of homebrew and listening to some quality christian music.

[MrC]

That was a joke by the way. Although Mark Tremonti does rock.

[Kempicus]

i did notice no one said a word....it was like a tumbleweed rolled through a ghost town!
thank f*ck it was a joke he is good though, i love that he doesn't really solo :0)