bone marrow lipids

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10_degrees_play-doh

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Every once in a while I'm compelled to brew a beer around a name or concept. So a while back I came up with the name Blutlager (Blut being German for blood/gore). It was originally just going to be a deep red lager, but then I thought back to some earlier homebrewing days of doing weird, fun stuff like "stir with a bayonet" and "add a small stick," and thought "What if I stir it with a bone?"

So, if I was to try this, I figure the safe bet would be to pre boil said bone and get the marrow out. But I can't help but wonder if the marrow wouldn't actually ruin the beer if I tried to brew with it... My main concern if I did try would be the fats/lipids. Would lipase, say from a cheesemaking kit, break them down sufficiently to mitigate the negative impact they'd have?

I know it sounds like a good way to ruin a perfectly good beer but if anyone has any ideas to deal with the lipids, I may just feel crazy enough to give it a shot...
 
What's your goal? Is the bone supposed to be a proxy for blood/gore? I also like to come up with fun names for beers and then invent a recipe to suit but I dunno if calling it blood beer would make anyone want to drink it.
 
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Fair enough. It actually started with "I want to brew a red lager," then the name came to mind, then the bone gimmick. I don't know that I had much more of a goal than that. Now it's become a bit of a curiosity if there's any way it could work.
 
A local brewery has an Irish Red called "Blood Red Rye" and its fantastic. Probably their best seller.
 
Fair enough. It actually started with "I want to brew a red lager," then the name came to mind, then the bone gimmick. I don't know that I had much more of a goal than that. Now it's become a bit of a curiosity if there's any way it could work.
A red lager does sound really intriguing, have you looked at red x malt? A friend of mine used it to brew a red ale with philly sour yeast, apparently it turned out really well.
 
I haven't, I've always gone the small amount of roasted barley route. Even cold steeping I tend to get a fair amount of flavor carrying through, though, so a red base malt sounds interesting to play with... Thanks for the tip, I'll have to give that a try sometime!
 
I'm a bit wary of hibiscus as an ingredient after Magic Hat's hibiscus cucumber disaster "HiCu," which I thought tasted like pure shampoo. Did yours come out good? Was it just their process?

And I don't know about the botulism, I've always associated it with canned vegetables... What makes it a concern here?
 
I wonder if that Viking Red Active and the Red X are essentially the same, they look to have pretty similar descriptions.

And I should have known that cock ale would eventually rear its ugly head in this discussion (pun intended)... heh... I wonder if it suffers the head retention and stability issues associated with high lipids, or if the yeast actually metabolizes it.
 
I wonder if that Viking Red Active and the Red X are essentially the same, they look to have pretty similar descriptions.

And I should have known that cock ale would eventually rear its ugly head in this discussion (pun intended)... heh... I wonder if it suffers the head retention and stability issues associated with high lipids, or if the yeast actually metabolizes it.

I think the only difference is red active can be 100% of grainbill as where red x shouldn't. Unless I'm not remembering correctly.
 
I think the only difference is red active can be 100% of grainbill as where red x shouldn't. Unless I'm not remembering correctly.

Bestmalz Red X is designed to be used for the entire grain bill @ 1.048 to optimize the red color. For higher gravity beers they recommend using pilsner malt to avoid it tipping into brown. The red band on the EBC scale is very narrow, 28-32.

EBC-balken.png
 
canned veggies are usually safe from it, i've always heard canned meat is the concern for botulisim....
I haven't read anything on canned meats and would be interested but I have read that canned pumpkin is one of the bigger risks. In fact, USDA recommends against home canners even attempting it.

Edit: I've been wanting to can a batch of pork rilettes but might have to reconsider if there is a risk
 
I haven't read anything on canned meats and would be interested but I have read that canned pumpkin is one of the bigger risks. In fact, USDA recommends against home canners even attempting it.

Edit: I've been wanting to can a batch of pork rilettes but might have to reconsider if there is a risk


i think it's ph? let me google 1920's canning and botulisim real quick...

i might be wrong....it does say "all meats"...

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/home-canning-and-botulism.html
they deviled ham, vienna sausage and stuff in cans, so i'm sure it can be canned.....
 
After reading through that CDC site, I agree the pH seems to be the main factor making some foods more prone than others... Botulism spores are airborne and beer has a surprising number of risk factors:

"The conditions in which the spores can grow and make toxin are:
  • Low-oxygen or no oxygen (anaerobic) environment
  • Low acid
  • Low sugar
  • Low salt
  • A certain temperature range
  • A certain amount of water"
The canning section names 4.6 as a lower limit, though I'm not sure how firm that number is... I think a lot of finished beer is right around that number though. The sugar content might save beer too, though I don't know if complex polysaccharides count. Alcohol probably isn't good for the little buggars either.

So, my impression is that animal products don't make beer any more at risk for botulism than it otherwise is, but that's just my brief internet research.

I haven't read anything on canned meats and would be interested but I have read that canned pumpkin is one of the bigger risks. In fact, USDA recommends against home canners even attempting it.

Edit: I've been wanting to can a batch of pork rilettes but might have to reconsider if there is a risk

I would think a good long 15 psi canning ought to be safe, but again, that's just my limited knowledge speaking.
 
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So, my impression is that animal products don't make beer any more at risk for botulism than it otherwise is, but that's just my brief internet research.


i think i just remember alton brown saying it from an episode of good eats....


how long would you be comfortable drinking bone broth in the fridge?
 
As to the question about hibiscus, I made a "tea" from about 8 ounces of dried blooms and a half gallon of water and added it to finished beer.

I bought a bag of RedX malt, did what was recommended, and never got the colors that they claimed it could produced. Contacted the maltster, followed their advice, and still didn't get the desired result.
 
I suppose the stakes (steaks?) are a bit higher when dealing with an already pressurized product. I never check my dent-ridden kegs for bulging. I can see the headlines now...

"Homebrewing bonehead found dead; online forum-goers unsurprised"
"Should have made a cock ale"
 
I'm a bit wary of hibiscus as an ingredient after Magic Hat's hibiscus cucumber disaster "HiCu," which I thought tasted like pure shampoo. Did yours come out good? Was it just their process?

And I don't know about the botulism, I've always associated it with canned vegetables... What makes it a concern here?
I use hibiscus often in low abv meads fermented with beer yeast. If you use a lot and pull it out early, you won't get much/any floral flavor. Likely it was the cucumber that made that HiCu beer taste like shampoo. I just added 40g to an 8 gallon brew along with cin and vanilla, left it for 4 weeks and it still doesn't have the "poo" flavor. That was 4 weeks on the petals! It did add some tanin.
 
Bestmalz Red X is designed to be used for the entire grain bill @ 1.048 to optimize the red color. For higher gravity beers they recommend using pilsner malt to avoid it tipping into brown. The red band on the EBC scale is very narrow, 28-32.

View attachment 728690

"Ah, HA, said the (color) Blind Man!"

Now I can see why the Irish Red Ale I brewed last year with Red-X did not come out to my desired color. Lovibond does NOT equal to SRM. Close, but not a cigar. To get an accurate prediction of color inside BeerSmith I should have used the "SRM to Lovibond to EBC" converter tool on this website to accurately predict the finished SRM of my beer. When I altered the "color" numbers in my BeerSmith recipe to reflect the conversion from Lovibond of the Red-X (as well as all the other grains) to the true SRM, it clearly shows the brown color of my finished beer instead of the light mahogany red I was striving to get. Duh, Captain Obvious (me).

You learn somethin' every day, that you should have realized already!
 
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