Recent content by lagermanted

One of my old beer club members was on the end of a city line, all his beers lacked in all aspects. Flavors were dulled down and muddied, not distinct. We narrowed it down to iron in the water. To us, it did not taste like coin or bloody as you normally see for descriptors, but is was bad. A...

This is why scientist do not brew world class beer, a brewers with a background in science can. Data can be interrupted many ways and miss the most important part. In the late 60's dad rented our house to a Boeing engineer and we moved. It had an irrigation system and he explained the "how...

Both, fresh and older have merit. Start by smelling your hops. Look close for body odor, stale old cheese or gym socks. Noble hops will not have these characters unless they are getting past prime condition and moving into the lambic hop territory. It can be helpful to have a jug of parmesan...

That is interesting, my first reaction is to rebel on the tett/fug but like most things in brewing, there are a lot of misinformation, and info that got left out. I had forgotten about the posts way back where German Tett and US Tett were considered the same. My suspicion is that you are...

While it is "Almost sterile" as stated, sugar water does not grow any bacterial, close enough to sterile. As soon as I see an issue with my controls growing bacteria, I will get the pressure cooker out, till then why work harder?

I started making priming sugar and almost sterile water for rinsing in advance. It is great, time saver and convenient on brew days Priming sugar I use beer bottles with 8 oz filtered water, 3/4 cup table sugar, 1/4 tea lime or lemon juice and fill bottles, cap, shake to blend in the sugar...

The big problems with hops in Pilsners is thinking like an IPA brewer, especially when trying to make a perfect German or Bo pils. Go back to the 80's with the traditional 60 minute hops, add some 15-30 and when we wanted it overly hoppy 5 minutes additions. It is still OK to add zero minute...

When you get gym socks, they are old and past prime condition. With most hops they follow a progression of fresh bright aromatics, these fade and spicy notes come out. Next is the cheese, body odor and gym socks, last comes hay/straw mixed in with body odor (lambic stage). You will find the...

From a traditional German perspective, the Saaz flavor is very floral compared to Hallertauer Mittelfruh, which is the traditional German Pils with its Herbal and floral character. From a traditional point I would go Hallertauer Mittelfruh. I am brewing one tomorrow and am going to use...

I had a chance to sit down and talk to the Sierra Nevada guys when I wrote an article on crown caps for Zymurgy, some brands of oxygen scavenging caps scavenge hop flavors. That shocked the heck out of me, last thing I expected. Their taste panels could taste the difference. They were more...

From taste tests, I fear any sediment from starsan. My preferred sanitizer but my water causes it to cloud and precipitate. The sediment is very harsh. Yes oxygen is sticky and will mix in with the co². I purge to 10 psi, vent and repeat 10 times. This significantly reduces the oxygen in...

I prefer to let my sanitizer drain from the keg. Too many times the nuance of the sanitizer steals the greatness of the beer. If you purge your kegs from the bottom, (out tube) you can get good oxyagen removal. During racking , again fill from the bottom. A visual check on oxygen is if you...

I add my boiled sugar to my keg, purge and then rack beer into the keg. The sugar solutions are pre-made and canned for stability and convenience.

I have to weigh in with qhrumphf, there is o2 in co2. Once I confirmed this from my co² supplier years ago, I switched to carbing with sugar. Stopped the major o2 contamination. Most important on beers I keep for months/years. I still use bottles to purge and and transfer most beers. I am...

Pretty much my path, lots of beers that are not IPA, sorta strange when I have 70 tons I can go use. An old hop that never saw much light in the US that you should try is Savinjski Golding. It is a Slovenian hops and works wonderful in English style beers. I use it in my dark mild, it...