first batch tested

[asciibaron]

ok. here's the history of this amber ale beverage.

10 days into the fermentation i realized i only had 4 gallons in fermenter and not 5. i boiled, cooled, and added another 1/2 gallon after the fermentation stopped and let that sit for a few more days.

the FG was 1.010, which is the right number. i racked it to the bottling bucket and then bottled it.

it has been in the bottle for 8 days. i figured i'd crack one and see how it is looking - cracking 44 bottles to dump is what i was concerned about.

the yeast hasn't finished carbonating the beer yet, but it seems decent. not much body, but it still has a "not colored water' taste that is close to beer.

i'm going to let it go another week in the bottle before the next taste test. the next batch will be racked to a glass carboy after the first week - this is just too cloudy for me

anyway - there ya go. the first batch is almost beer ;)

[paul84043]

The path to clear beer has undoubtedly driven many a homebrewer to the brink of insanity.....
It's really looking for an elegant solution to a non-existent problem.
Hazy beer is purely aesthetic, it has no impact on the flavor or the quality of the beer.
In fact the opposite could be said. When you go through all the clarifying steps, you actually remove pretty much all of the stuff that makes homebrew so good for you, and even gives it some of it's great flavor.
Crystal clear beer, granted, is a very nice thing to behold, but it is a mass marketing Superfizzy yellow beer stereotype that we have been programmed to beileve. That clear beer is good beer.
You can get it "pretty clear" by being careful and letting it settle out, but some beers are supposed to be hazy.
If your flavor is only "not colored water" then your batch was probably somewhat affected by the late addition of the water.

It should be pretty damn good beer right now, and it really should be carbonated as well, though some take longer...
Have patience grasshopper. If you really want "great beer" beer that stands alone and tastes far superior to anything that you can buy at the store aside from the true micro brews, then you are on the correct path. If you want to make Superfizzy yellow stuff that's crystal clear, well...you can do it, but it's alot easier to buy it at the gas station.

[Richard English]

Hear, hear!

No really great beer is crystal clear and shiny. That's the preserve of A-B chemical fizz and its clones.

There's one very easy solution that I recommend to those who are concerned about comments about lack of clarity - serve the beer in pewter tankards!

[asciibaron]

the "beer" lacks a malty taste and there is no, that i could detect, hop aroma or bitter flavor.

i'll run it by the homebrew club next weekend.

-steve

[paul84043]

Dude, that sucks....
I can't think of why it would have affected it, the only thing that comes to mind is the oxygen in the water (that's very difficult to get out...) may have oxidized the alcohol..but that really shouldn't have affected your malt and hop flavor and aroma...
Typically a run of the mill ale should actually be a little harsh at this point with flaovrs that you hope will smooth out with a bit of aging, at least that's what I have seen in my own beers.

[Richard English]

I think I'd be inclined to check the recipe and my adherence to it were I in your situation. Nothing should be able to disguise hop flavour, no matter what.

[shughes600]

Originally posted by Richard English
Hear, hear!

No really great beer is crystal clear and shiny. That's the preserve of A-B chemical fizz and its clones.

Are you denying the great Pilsner Urquell. Or is it a clone of A/B?

[Richard English]

I confess I don't know much about this beer. So far as I know it it not supplied as a BCA and those are the bottled beers I drink.

I might try a bottle out of interest. The OBBD rates it as 6.5 for taste; Fuller's 1845 it rates at 7.5; A-B Budweiser it rates at 2.5.
Interestingly there are some beers it rates even more lowly than A-B - Carling, for one!

[shughes600]

Well Pilsner Urquell is definatley not a bottle conditioned ale. But it is definately a reel beer that is golden colored. Maybe even lighter than A/B.

[mountain beer]

I think when you added the additional 1/2 gal, it could have messed things up. Of coudrse there are a lot of things that could happen for it to not taste like beer.


on to the other subject---Richard I have been trying some English beers lately and they are all clear. They have been in the nitro cans though and maybe the reason for the clearness. I tried Ye old Speckled Hen and Abbot Ale. They were both clear. My store said that he can not get fullers 1845 anymore. He does have fullers londen pride though.---i have not tried it yet.---I just got a german beer Der Hirschbrau---Doppel Hirsch--It is in a bottle and is clear also.

I would say that there are some good beers out there that are clear.

[asciibaron]

took a bottle to the local homebrew shop - they said it had a sour taste and a distinct aftertaste. the sourness is a sanitation issue and the aftertaste is from squeezing the grain bag after steeping.

they know their stuff at this shop. she told how i made the brew before i even told how i did it. that alone is worth shopping there.

the advice was to let it sit for a few weeks and hope the sour flavor minimizes with age.

next batch will be done in a more controlled manner.

-steve

[shughes600]

I wonder why squeezing the grain bag would add tannins (atringency)? I could only understand this if you squeezed it after you exceeded 175F or if your squeezing allowed husks to escape the mesh. Did they explain why it was bad to do this?

[Richard English]

Don't let me confuse you with my statements.

Beers should be clear - murkiness is not usually a good thing. However the iridescent sparkle and brightness of chemical fizz is not what you're seeking. Proper draught beers and BCAs will have a small amount of yeast residue which will mean that they are not perfectly clear. True clarity can only be obtain by pasteurisation and filtration.

Speckled Hen (bottle-conditioned in the UK) has a sediment which will affect the clarity of the beer, especially if it's poured into the glass. It will still look reasonably clear - it just won't sparkle like a chemical fizz beer.

Try it for yourself. Pour a good quality bottle-conditioned beer and a chemical fizz beer and hold them up to the light. The chemical fizz will be the brighter and clearer.

Beers supplied in cans are not real. So far as I'm aware they are all pasteurised and artificially pressurised (sometimes with a nitrogen-filled widget). Don't take my word for it. Try a BCA against a can and let your taste buds do the job for you.

[shughes600]

Richard - I have a hard time seeing the difference in using a machine to carbonate a can and the use of extract. If you go back 200 years you would find neither of these practices. An aluminum can will actually impart less flavor to the beer than the bottle and is closer to the beer you get on draught than what you get out of a bottle (unless you are comparing it to something in a wood cask).

I believe that clarity can also be obtained through lagering, although filtering and pasteurization will do it better. The germans have filtered their lagers in the cask nearly as long as they have made them.

BTW those chemical fizz beers you keep comparing to your BCAs are predominantly lagers as opposed to ales.

[Richard English]

Thank you for your observations. In response:

"I have a hard time seeing the difference in using a machine to carbonate a can and the use of extract"


I fear I don't understand your point here. Real Ale, whether it be in cask or bottle, is carbonated only by a secondary fermentation. Beer in cans is given an artificial sparkle by the addition of carbon dioxide or nitrogen. I suspect that it's not possible to have secondary fermentation in cans as the pressure would be too high. Bottle-conditioned beer has a tradition that extends back well over 200 years - canning technology is, by comparison, new.


"An aluminum can will actually impart less flavor to the beer than the bottle and is closer to the beer you get on draught than what you get out of a bottle (unless you are comparing it to something in a wood cask)."


I do not accept that glass is less likely to flavour beer than is aluminium. Glass is effectively insoluble in a water and alcohol mixture; most metals are slightly soluble. Only if you are comparing canned beer with the kinds of draught beers made by the fizz-beer manufacturers and served by means of extraneous carbon dioxide, could it be said that the drink is closer to the draught version. Real draught beer is different - and it matters not whether it is served from a metal or a wooden cask.

Bottle-conditioned beers are not the same as draught beers, but they are excellent in their own way and are always better than any canned equivalent. There is no comparison whatsoever between the bottled products of A-B and proper BCAs.

"I believe that clarity can also be obtained through lagering, although filtering and pasteurization will do it better"

Indeed it will. sadly the filtering and pasteurisation also removes the flavour of the beer, as well as its carbonisation. The additives used to restore sparkle and head are those that make the whole business of drinking fizz-beer so unpleasant - especially in the morning when the body has to cope with all the junk that's been poured into it!

"The germans have filtered their lagers in the cask nearly as long as they have made them"

Not those who have stuck to their traditions, I suspect. And under the Bavarian purity laws pasteurisation would be illegal.


"BTW those chemical fizz beers you keep comparing to your BCAs are predominantly lagers as opposed to ales"

This is now common but is not an invariable fact. There are many ale-type beers produced by the fizz factories - some of them sold to unsuspecting Americans as Real English Ales! John Smiths and Teltley, to name just two. When CAMRA was founded the world was beginning to sink under a tide of so-called keg beers - all chemical fizz - that looked slightly like bitter. Lagers such as those made by A-B are the spiritual successors of keg beers.

Incidentally, the expression "Lager" as a beer type has no meaning outside of the USA and the UK. Lager is simply the German word for "store" and their better beers are lagered until they are mature. The new "Bud Extra" from the Czech brewery, Budvar, is lagered for 400 days. Real Budwesier, also from Budvar, is lagered for 100 days. A-B's imitation is lagered, I would guess, for about ten minutes!

[shughes600]

Originally posted by Richard English
"The germans have filtered their lagers in the cask nearly as long as they have made them"

Not those who have stuck to their traditions, I suspect. And under the Bavarian purity laws pasteurisation would be illegal.
[/B]

Who said anything about pasteurization? The germans used beechwood to filter their beer during secondary fermentation and/or lagering. They placed beechwood in the bottom of the fermenter, transfered the beer in and then krausemed the beer. The increased fermentation from krausening caused a circulation of the beer from top to bottom which filtered the beer. I see no conflict witht he purity laws here.

If compressed gas and variuos other means of using technology to improve beer had been avaialble 200 years ago i am sure they would have been used. I can see that sticking to purity regulations would have a very good reason, but what is the reason to condition beers as they did in the past? Because that is the way technologically lacking individuals chose to do it. It seems senseless to mimick their practices when they would have used the things available today had they been given the chance.

I have a source for the opinion on aluminum and glass imparting taste which i will share with you when i can find it.

[Richard English]

You did, actually. You said, "...I believe that clarity can also be obtained through lagering, although filtering and pasteurization will do it better..." I simply commented that I do not believe that pasteurisation would be allowed under the Bavarian purity laws.

And I do not believe, either, that technology should be used simply for the sake of it. As many as well as I have said on the board, the products of the fizz-factories are - now what's the word I'm seeking...? Ah yes, foul beyond belief.

Manufacturers of chemical fizz use the processes they do because thay make profitable beer, not because they make good beer. Those whose motive is simply profit will use technological shortcuts; those who are interested in quality products will use methods that provide quality.

The same thing applies in many other fields; there is rubbish and there is quality. You choose what you want; I'll choose what I want. And I want beer that is made without the addition of extraneous gases and dubious chemicals.

[shughes600]

I'd like to know how using compressed CO2 is the addition of an extraneous gas. We do the same thing with fermentation by capping the vessel. Am i missing something?

[Richard English]

This matter was subject to much heated discussion some years ago when some CAMRA members wanted to allow extraneous carbon dioxide as an addition to cask Real Ale - usually as a blanket.

Many people made the point, as do you, that it is only the same chemical as is produced in fermentation. However, although I don't know the reason, there is a difference in the taste of the final product. I assume that it is a physical, not a chemical reaction that is the cause. Some people have suggested that it is a product of the pressure differences involved - but I wouldn't stand on a soap-box and claim that this is the answer. Any physicists out there?

Naturally carbonated drinks taste quite different from artificially carbonated drinks and it is easy to test this for yourself. Buy a bottle of cheap sparkling wine and a bottle of champagne. Pour them both and taste. The cheap wine will fizz like crazy and, when drinking, it will burn the roof of your mouth with its carbonic acid bite. And after just a few minutes it will be flat and virtually undrinkable. The champagne, on the other hand, will fizz far less and will drink easily and comfortably. What's more, it will remain fizzy for far longer.

Although beers will exhibit similar characteristics, I suggest that it's better to try this with wine since the ingredients of different white sparking wines will be far more similar than those of different types of beer.

However, try it with beer in any case. Sample a glass of bottle-conditioned beer (my favourite is Fuller's 1845 - which I know is available in the USA) and compare it with another strong ale that is filtered and artificially carbonated. Then see whether there's a difference!

Artificial carbonation is only half the story, of course. It is the other additives that the chemical fizz manufacturers include that's the other half. Artificial preservatives, heading compounds - the list is a long one and we are still hoping that one of our contributors will publish the list he has in his attic (when he tracks it down!)

[shughes600]

Well, my point was emulating the way one did things 200 years ago for the sake of emulating them is foolish. Emulating them because it makes a better product is a different story. I fear that if our ancestors had had some of the advances we have that things would be quite different in their methods. Some of this would be good and some would be bad.

[Richard English]

I agree with you completely. After all, if we were communicating now in the way that our ancestors were doing it 200 years ago, your first posting would not even have arrived in England yet!

I have no problem with new technology if it gives better results - as it often does. But to assume that everything new is invariably better than everything old would be as foolish as assuming the converse to be true!

[paul84043]

Good point Richard..
can you imagine us sitting here talking about the virtues of using a plastic garbage can versus a galvanized garbage can or even a really large clay pot?

Did any of you see the article where some archaeologists re...uh...hydrated? or maybe re-animated would be a better word for it....some yeast from a 4000 year old egyptian vessel, and actually made beer as closely to the egyptians recipe as they could?

I wish I could remember where I saw it, I think it was Discovery, or TLC or something like that....it was very interesting in any event.

We have the wonderful ability to look back across almost 5000 years of beer making history and pick and choose the best of all of man's acheivements in that area to make pretty much anything we want!

I have heard that even the Germans are caving in to A-B Chemical Fizz beer sub-standards and making fizzy yellow equine exudous in the name of larger profits.
There are only a few people left on our little spinning globe of wonders that still care about quality, and slowly the balance is shifting to the Craft home brewer and the true Micro brewer in Britain and the U.S.
One day, we will be reminding the Germans how to make great beer again.

[Richard English]

I have a feeling that it was in a newspaper article where I saw it.

Sadly you are right about the influx of A-B chemical fizz. "Bud" is now the most popular bottled beer in the UK - in spite of being probably the worst and one of the most expensive! Can you imagine it, there are those who will go into a Fuller's pub and pay more for a bottle of yellow chemical fizz than for a bottle of heavenly 1845! I actually saw this happen last night and found it quite hard not to show my absolute contempt. I can understand (even if I do not agree) with those in the USA who eschew 1845 in preference to A-B, when the 1845 is maybe three times the price. But over here, when it's actually cheaper...

Sometimes I despair of my fellow mortals who are clearly so easily manipulated by the cynical machinations of the likes of A-B.

As I said, just persuade as many as possible to join CAMRA and fight them on the Real Ale ramparts.

Tonight I am having a few pints of Mild at the Garland - the only pub I know around here where the Landlord refuses to have A-B in the place. If you ask for Budweiser you get the real Czech drink. You can see it for yourself at http://www.harveys.org.uk/t3pubs2.htm.

[Richard English]

PS. If the link doesn't work, just go to the Harveys site and follow the link to Pictures of our Pubs.

[shughes600]

Originally posted by Richard English
Tonight I am having a few pints of Mild at the Garland - the only pub I know around here where the Landlord refuses to have A-B in the place. If you ask for Budweiser you get the real Czech drink. You can see it for yourself at http://www.harveys.org.uk/t3pubs2.htm.

Sounds like a nice pub.

I noticed on my bottle from a local micro that they comply witht he bavarian purity law of 1516. Kind of cool.

Richard, what is the English equivalent of the bavarian purity law?

[danno]

[i] Buy a bottle of cheap sparkling wine and a bottle of champagne. [/B]

Richard, here is where you lose the arguments to us skeptics. You're comparing apples, to well, horseapples... If you do the same thing with beer, well, obviously the better beer will win out. What I remain to be convinced of, is that in a blind test, anyone would be able to tell the difference between a properly force carbed beer, and a naturally carbed one.

Here is what I would like to see, and if I can be proven wrong, I'll wholeheartedly apologise. I bet that one 10 gallon batch of beer, half put in two cornies, one carbed by addition of more sugar, and one carbed by co2, there will not be a statistical significance of correct guesses as to which is which.

I also assert that cask conditioning and hand pouring, because you are introducing oxygen to your system, is a different animal entirely.

Don't get me wrong, I love hand poured, cask conditioned beer. I just feel that you're goign overboard in your denounciation of "fizzy beer"...

danno...

[Tweek]

Im with Danno on this one. I think the "problem" with force carbonation is that the tendancy is to overdue it. I think if it is done right you should not be able to tell the diference.

[Richard English]

There is no English equivalent. Brewers in England can put any old rubbish into their beers and may do. There's a well-known brewer in Mortlake, London, called Anheuser Busch who do exactly that...

In the Isle of Man (one of the British islands but not part of the UK) they have a similar set of purity laws as do the Bavarians.

[Richard English]

Your arguments here are the self-same ones that the pro-added carbon dioxide lobby trotted out when CAMRA was debaiting this point.

As I said, I am no physicist but I do have my suspicions as to why there is a difference in taste - and there is. My suspicion is this:

In order to get carbon dioxide to dissolve in water (and it's not a very soluble gas) pressure needs to be applied - quite a lot of pressure. Once the pressure is released then the gas will bubble out of solution as we all know. However, when the gas is being produced slowly at a molecular level, I believe it goes into solution at lower pressures than those which are used for forced carbonation.

The reason I suggested the sparkling wine test was simply to see the difference in the way in which the two types of carbonic acid give off their gas. Drinks that are artificially carbonated tend to be very fizzy as soon as the pressure is released but to go flat quickly. Again, you can easily see this when you uncork a bottle of soft drink (soda).

The double-blind test you suggest would be a good one but, as I said in my posting, the greater variations in types of beer will make the result less clear-cut. Mind you, you home-brewers can easily do this for yourselves. Split a batch into four parts. Keg one with applied carbon dioxide. Put another into an unpressured cask and serve it in the traditional English pub manner. Put the third into bottles that you prime and allow to carbonate naturally and put the final one into bottles that you inject with carbon dioxide. If they all end up tasting the same, then I'm obviously prepared to reconsider my beliefs. Somehow I don't think I'll be called on so to do!

[Tweek]

Richard, the test you suggest would not work. Of course there will be a diference between those serving styles, for reasons other than the way they were carbonated.

A good way to run this test would be to have two containers of the same kind and split the batch between them. Force carbonate half and allow natural carbonation to take place in the other. Two corny kegs would work very nicely for this.

I would be willing to give this a whirl however it will take me some time to get to a spot where I can do this. I will have a group of people from a local brew club blindly taste the two beers and try to identify which one has been force carbonated and which one underwent natural carbonation. I will brew this batch in about 3 weeks. I will then need another month to a month and a half to allow the beer time to finish. I will post full results to everyone on this board when the results are in.

Cheers

[shughes600]

Originally posted by Richard English
As I said, I am no physicist but I do have my suspicions as to why there is a difference in taste - and there is. My suspicion is this:

In order to get carbon dioxide to dissolve in water (and it's not a very soluble gas) pressure needs to be applied - quite a lot of pressure. Once the pressure is released then the gas will bubble out of solution as we all know. However, when the gas is being produced slowly at a molecular level, I believe it goes into solution at lower pressures than those which are used for forced carbonation.

Richard - You are right and wrong. No matter what pressure you put on top of the beer the CO2 will dissolve into solution. They (headspace and beer) will reach equilibrium. The higher the pressure the more CO2 will be dissolved when equilibrium is reached. Also the more time you give this process the closer you get to equilibrium (sort of goes without saying though). So if beer is carbonated just enough for a long time you can get a wonderful level of carbonation as compared to over carbonated for a short time.

The natural carbonation will leave CO2 more dissolved. This is why someone who wants to really nail their carbonation needs to pay attention to what temperature the beer was fermented at and translate this into the equation when it comes time to add further carbonation. The lower the temperature the more soluble the gas is.

From a non asthetic point of vew it is easier to force carbonate. If you get it wrong you can fix it. In bottles you are stuck.

[Richard English]

Thank you. That does seem more or less to confirm my suspicions. Natural carbonation must be fairly slow and thus , in your words, "...you can get a wonderful level of carbonation..."

Obviously the problem is that time is inevitably money and, with many atmospheres of carbon dioxide pressure at their disposal, many commercial brewers (and impatient home brewers) will bang the gas in at a high pressure simply to achieve the desired level of carbonation as quickly as possible.

I'm not quite sure, though, why this does not simply sort itself out over time - but it doesn't. Cheap sparkling wine never develops the same "fizz" characteristics as bottle-fermented sparkling wine - so there must be other factors in play here.

[Richard English]

Tweek.

That is an excellent idea and I look forward to your findings. I would still like to hear of comparisons of bottled beers as well, though.

[shughes600]

Originally posted by Richard English
Thank you. That does seem more or less to confirm my suspicions. Natural carbonation must be fairly slow and thus , in your words, "...you can get a wonderful level of carbonation..."


While those were my words, you are taking them out of context. If you take the same time to carbonate artifically with less pressure you get wonderful results.

[Richard English]

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I simply made the point that most who use artificial carbonation do not take the time.

I still can't work out why, though, this doesn't in the end sort itself out - but it never does. A bottled drink that has been artificially carbonated remains fizzy and flatulent, no matter how long it's kept.

[shughes600]

The only way in which I can nail carbonation is in a keg. I tried a counterpressure filler and made a huge mess. I could not get a consistent fill level in the bottles, thus excess headspace caused my beer to flatten. Dissolved CO2 escaped to the headspace as the CO2 and beer reached equilibrium.

[Tweek]

Yeah, counter pressure fillers will work but it is far too much work for me and this experiment. I also dont see how there would be any diference unless you planned on opening the bottle and drinking it right from the bottle.