Do you guys actually
research what you talk about or do you just speculate? You think this Hopless beer thread is the first rodeo on this topic? You think I make stuff up off the top of my head. Both our resident beer historian Bob and I provide a lot of references to hops being used as a presertavie in
THIS hopless thread...I Provide a whole bunch of links and quotes about it in
THIS post alone.
Yes, Revvy, I do plenty of research and I do think about these things in great detail. That's why I responded to the post with the information that I provided...after thinking about the OP's questions and formulating an educated response. And no, I don't think its the first "rodeo" on this topic. I do however think this is an online forum where people should come and discuss topics with quick back and forth and not have to exhaustively research previous threads to avoid exasperated responses from frequent posters. I know a lot of people really enjoy reading these types of responses, but I don't feel they're particularly productive.
Back to the topic...I'm not in any way shape or form denying any preservative qualities of hops, and I'm not in any denying that these anti-microbial properties played important roles in the historical developments of certain styles. I also know that IPAs originated in the early 1800s, whereas Louis Pasteur didn't pioneer the concept of pasteurization until 1860 or so, and that this concept of pasteurization to kill off unwanted bacteria that spoiled beer was not really utilized broadly until the late 1800s. The concept of pasteurization is simple - heat your "sugar-water" to a certain high temperature that will kill off unwanted bacteria and yeast for a certain amount of time before pitching your desired brewers yeast so that the brewers yeast has a firm control over the fermentation of your wort. Edit: I also know that the sanitation practices of the mid-to-early 1800s were not nearly as rigorous as they are today, and that storage vessels were much less than air-tight, so there were plenty of ways for unwanted, nasty things to get into beer and spoil beer, and that hops helped prevent that to some extent.
And I do believe Bob references the porter in that thread as well. Since Bob is an expert on beer history, especially historical porters.
Also the comments about hops not being used in wine/ciders/etc has been covered in
THIS post.
In the case of wines, they use different chemicals like camden tablets to kill off bacteria that would ruin wines. Just like we add hops to beer.
Your link points to this response from you within that thread:
"Grain is different from fruit, so different things cause harm to it, and different preservatives protect it...In wine making they don't iirc deal with lactobasilus for instance, which is on the surface of grains...".
If you recall, in the current thread we're in, after mentioning mead/wine, I posted this:
"And mead or cider may not have been the best analogies, b/c a lot of mead/cider makers do no-boil, which necessitates the use of sulfites (especially for cider starting from raw apples or unpasteurized juice, which may have wild yeast). Others (especially those who prefer non-sulfite end-products) do a boil so that they sterilize their must via pasteurization. This puts you in the exact same place you're in after boiling your wort, so that you don't have to add sulfites. These products do not use hops and do not spoil quickly."
This brings us back to the concept of pasteurization. Yes, many mead/wine/cider makers use sulfites, and if you do not do a boil to your must, this is a very good idea. Without a boil, you have not killed off unwanted bacteria/wild yeast that can ruin your beverage. With a full boil, however, you have successfully pasteurized your must/wort, and can avoid adding sulfites. The lacto you mention being on the surface of grains is correct, but again, this lacto is killed by the simple process of boiling your wort.
Whoever mentioned, ph and alcohol, and yeast, etc has forgotten that you need to get to the point where the ph is in the safe zone, where the alcohol becomes present and or where the yeast can take hold to begin with and the antisceptic nature of hops helps get to that point.
See above again for pasteurization. Pasteurization has already put you in this "safe zone". If you boiled your wort to a full rolling boil for an hour, as in most normal beer brewing, you have now pasteurized your wort. If you then transfer this wort via rigorously sanitized equipment to a rigorously sanitized, closed fermentation vessel, then pitched a healthy crop of brewers yeast, the yeast should not have anything to compete with.
Come on guys, use your brains, or at least do a little googling. It's not hard to do this....Make 2 starters in a hot house, 1 don't add any hops to it when you boil, in the other, do what many folks do for this very reason, and EVEN JOHN PALMER talks about in HTB and add a couple hop pellets to the boil. Let them sit in the heat of the day for a few days, and apply the sniff and taste test to the beer above.
Definitely using my brain here Revvy. Googling not so much, b/c using my brain was sufficient to convince me that a full one hour rolling boil will kill off unwanted bacteria and wild yeast that might otherwise spoil my beer in "a period of a few days"
Not too hard to understand...Seriously, denying hops preservative qualities in light of
just about every brewing book mentioning that fact is sort of like still believing the earth is flat....
Or if your'e so much smarter than all the source material, just make 5 gallons of beer with no hops...I dare you.
So, in response, I would just ask this. Without referring to old HBT threads, could you explain to me the chemistry of how an unhopped wort would spoil over the course of days if the OP is careful to:
1. take his unhopped wort to a nice rolling boil to pasteurize the wort.
2. cool the wort quickly to pitching temper
3. transfer the wort with utmost attention to sanitation (racking cane, carboy, etc.)
4. immediately pitch the recommended amount of healthy brewers yeast
5. ferment the wort in a sealed fermentation vessel
6. transfer the finished beer, again using rigorous sanitation, to a closed package (bottle, keg, etc.)
Again, I'm not denying in any way that hops have anti-microbial qualities. I'm just also fairly confident in the anti-microbial effects of good old pasteurization.
