Challenge

A challenge was issued to us by the lhbs: Think you're a good brewer? Then take 3 lbs of this assorted, unknown bag of grain we scooped up from the bins in the back, blindfolded, pick two expired yeast packets (1 White Labs, 1 Wyeast) and use BOTH, and here's some old hops from the back of the fridge that the labels fell off. Choose your own base grain, and come back in 4 weeks with the beer.

We accepted.


Our rig: 5 gal igloo with grain bag liner and bottling bucket spigot, double 54k burners, 7 gal kettle and 3 gal HLT


The recipe. We chose 8 lbs Maris Otter as the base grain. We also ended up with one Wyeast Farmhouse ale strain and a White Labs Irish Ale. It turns out there was over 14 oz of hops there. We used all of them.


Bringing some water up to temp


Doughing in

First cigar of the year


Bringing up to boil


Chilling her down


Less volume than we were looking for. Ended up with 1.053 OG. All in all, not a bad brewday.

14 oz of hops in a 4 gallon batch? Sounds like a bitter to me.

Did you have to use all 14 ounces of hops??

Also 4 weeks is not all that much time.. Force Carbing I assume?

*subscribes to hear the results*

Could you tell what the hops were? Usually I can tell European from American at the very least.

Which HBS was this? Was it Maltose Express? I'd like to take that challenge too.

No, we didn't have to use all the hops...but we did

The bigger bag was, at one point a high alpha hop, that much we could tell. It had almost no aroma left. The smaller bag was more citrus and pine, but still just as old. We're thinking that one was lower in alpha, so we kept a lot of the #1 hops in the beginning of the boil and the #2 hops went in more at the end.

This little contest is only between a couple people and isn't open to the public, so I'll keep the lhbs name out of it for now. In a few weeks when we get together, we'll judge the beers using the BJCP guidelines, however since the style points are thrown out the window, we will instead put down "how many of these can you drink before vomiting."

Needless to say, our expectations aren't particularlly high. We will all have wildly different beers as well, seeing as how the yeasts and hops are chosen at random. One guy pulled two different lager yeasts, another one pulled one that had a brett culture in it. I'll keep everyone appraised of the progress, tasting notes, and results.

Cigars and brewing works well.

good idea to clear some old stock i guess, very interested to hear how it turns out. I can't believe you used 14oz of hops...wow!

So it is not about 4 months later......what were the results????

The results:

If the contest was to see who made the worst beer, we won

Honestly, had it not been for the hop bitterness, it wouldn't have been so bad. Lot of fruity esters and a nice medium mouthfeel, but the hops were just too damn much. It would have taken three years for all that bitterness to drop out.

So lesson learned kids! Don't be tempted by that big bag of hops sitting on your table. You're going to want to use them all...don't do it!

On the flip side of the coin, I'm glad it didn't turn out good. If it did, we would never be able to make it again The next contest is a bit more normal, BJCP catagory 11 English Brown ale. Maybe this time we'll be able to prove we actually do know how to brew.

Still sounds like a good time. I brewed last night with my roomates (we are still noobs) and they asked me if we can just buy ingredients instead of kits. Soon we will make that jump, until then, I am learning from all you guys.

You should start a thread on the next contest.

This next one isn't a big deal, the style is pretty laid out and the recipes aren't very difficult. The Farmer Brown recipe in my sig is the one we just did. Personally, when I first started all grain we simply brewed other peoples recipes, then made adjustments once we learned what those recipes tasted like. It's a good jumping off point.

I noticed you're in CT, what homebrew shop do you use? We use Brew and Wine Hobby in East Hartford. It's small but Dennis and Rich are great guys, very willing to answer questions and help.

I am in the Stamford area and I believe the closest shop is in Norwalk, but have been using Northern Brewer. I want to get up to Norwalk to check out the shop, but I have not found the time.

You know of any that are closer?

Maltose Express in Monroe is the only other one I know of, but that's a good drive. Another online shop to check out is Brewmasters Warehouse, they give discounts to HBT members and they have a great recipe software that you can use to build your recipe, then it automatically puts the recipe into your cart.

jeez, hijacked my own thread

I'm curious what they charged you for a sack of random crap they weren't able to sell.

Mike, thanks for the info, I will have to look into that. Monroe is not too bad, but a little further than Norwalk.

Is this competition through your LHBS?

ChshreCat said:

I'm curious what they charged you for a sack of random crap they weren't able to sell.

Click to expand...

Heheh, I got the entire grain bill, hops, and yeast for a song and a dance. The song was I Would Do Anything For Love, and the dance was the Running Man.

Yes, the comp is just a couple people getting together and trying some beers. We're trying to get better at using the BJCP judging sheets, so we figured brewing to a specific style would be a good way to learn how to use them.

Sounds fun.

We've all gotta brew some time.

I won't be back in CT till summer though :\