Anyone else listen to the Gordon Strong Podcast on Beersmith?

He made some interesting points and discussed his techniques with regard to specialty grains and hops. Basically:

1) Specialty grains are either steeped seperately or added to the mash at Vorlauf. He suggested having them in for the entire mash is equivalent to over-steeping tea and coffee...you get nothing from it and potentially bad flavors from the extended heating, especially with the darker grains.

2) He uses First Wort Hopping instead of long hop boils. Other than the FWH's all his additions are at 20 min or less. FHWing is approximately equal to a 65 min boil.

The entire podcast is here: http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/05/31/advanced-home-brewing-with-gordon-strong-beersmith-podcast-39/

EDIT: He also had some very good input on water and water additions.

I gotta check that out. Thanks for the heads up.

I just brewed my American brown ale and used a similar technique with the dark grains. I added them with only 15 min left in the mash. I batch sparged. This allowed me to go with all distillef water and minimal salts
In the mash. Just tasted the hydro sample as racked to secondary for dry hopping and it tastes a lot different than previous batches. Mutch smoother. I'll update once kegged and carbed.

bumstigedy said:

I just brewed my American brown ale and used a similar technique with the dark grains. I added them with only 15 min left in the mash. I batch sparged. This allowed me to go with all distillef water and minimal salts
In the mash. Just tasted the hydro sample as racked to secondary for dry hopping and it tastes a lot different than previous batches. Mutch smoother. I'll update once kegged and carbed.

Click to expand...

Yeah, another thing I found interesting was he said he never dry hops, the taste just doesn't appeal to him, he adds hops during his whirlpool instead.

I'm not going to stop dry hopping. I love the aroma and flavor it adds. I guess that is just his personal preference. I started the podcast last night and hope to finish it today.

Anyone else have insight on this? Seems like a lot of valuable information here. I plan on adding my specialty grains with 15 minutes left in the mash on my next beer, an Irish Red ale.

It sounds like a repeat of what he says in his book.

weirdboy said:

It sounds like a repeat of what he says in his book.

Click to expand...

Aye, it is a rehash, but worth repeating/getting the word out, eh?
I happen to be (re)reading the book now, as there is so much good info in it. Probably "Designing Great Beers" and Gordan's "Brewing Better Beer" have done as much to improve my brewing as all the great input I've gotten here on HBT.

Highly recommend!

For those who listened to this or have researched mashing without specialty grains and adjusting the ph.

My question is that if you either steep or put in at the end of the mash, your specialty grains aren't you going to then lower the pH to a level you don't want too since you already adjusted it with an acid?

He mentions that he usually targets the high end of the 5.2-5.6 pH range because he prefers the flavor. You'd be hard pressed to drop too low from 5.4 say, without a crazy amount of specialty grains. At this point the enzymes have done their work as well.

humann_brewing said:

For those who listened to this or have researched mashing without specialty grains and adjusting the ph.

My question is that if you either steep or put in at the end of the mash, your specialty grains aren't you going to then lower the pH to a level you don't want too since you already adjusted it with an acid?

Click to expand...

I add my specialty grain liquor at flameout. I steep seperately in the oven, keeping steep and mash seperate.

humann_brewing said:

For those who listened to this or have researched mashing without specialty grains and adjusting the ph.

My question is that if you either steep or put in at the end of the mash, your specialty grains aren't you going to then lower the pH to a level you don't want too since you already adjusted it with an acid?

Click to expand...

The point of adjusting the mash pH is to make sure you are getting the conversion you want. If you are vorlaufing/sparging you have already converted as much as you desire for that mash, so who cares if you lower the pH a bit by adding some roasted grains at the end? The other pH-related issue is that sparging at too *high* a pH can lead to astringency, so again, I don't see the cause for concern. After adding all that water and boiling for an hour or more, I still think you are going to be well within the correct range for fermentation after you boil it and rack to the fermenter.

Keep in mind that he also adjusts his sparge water with phosphoric to pH 5.5, a trick that he picked up at Sierra Nevada.

rockfish42 said:

Keep in mind that he also adjusts his sparge water with phosphoric to pH 5.5, a trick that he picked up at Sierra Nevada.

Click to expand...

Still doesn't make much difference, if any.

I heard the podcast a while back and agree, it's all the same stuff he talks about in his book in roughly the same format. Rambles a lot about himself and how awesome he is and mixes in some under-explained techniques.

rockfish42 said:

He mentions that he usually targets the high end of the 5.2-5.6 pH range because he prefers the flavor. You'd be hard pressed to drop too low from 5.4 say, without a crazy amount of specialty grains. At this point the enzymes have done their work as well.

Click to expand...

yeah, I know I so essentially the mash and resulting liquid is "buffered" so it will be harder to change the pH with say specialty malts after the mash?

weirdboy said:

The point of adjusting the mash pH is to make sure you are getting the conversion you want. If you are vorlaufing/sparging you have already converted as much as you desire for that mash, so who cares if you lower the pH a bit by adding some roasted grains at the end? The other pH-related issue is that sparging at too *high* a pH can lead to astringency, so again, I don't see the cause for concern. After adding all that water and boiling for an hour or more, I still think you are going to be well within the correct range for fermentation after you boil it and rack to the fermenter.

Click to expand...

I figured as much but just checking, I don't want to start a boil with pH 4.8 for example

rockfish42 said:

Keep in mind that he also adjusts his sparge water with phosphoric to pH 5.5, a trick that he picked up at Sierra Nevada.

Click to expand...

I saw this too and that is what brought me to this question, if you adjust your sparge and add specialty grains I thought that would be a double whammy of dropping the pH

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I heard the podcast a while back and agree, it's all the same stuff he talks about in his book in roughly the same format. Rambles a lot about himself and how awesome he is and mixes in some under-explained techniques.

Click to expand...

haha, so I guess your not a fan

rockfish42 said:

Keep in mind that he also adjusts his sparge water with phosphoric to pH 5.5, a trick that he picked up at Sierra Nevada.

Click to expand...

I believe the Dave Miller mentions doing this in his book "The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing: Equipment, Ingredients, Methods, 55 Recipes". One of the best books for beginner all grainers, btw.