Brew Masters on Discovery w/ Sam Calagione

[IrregularPulse]

Oh, I didn't realize they used magic sugar to carbonate instead of force carbing.

You realize fermentation produces CO2 right? Take your airlock off your next fermentation. As long as it's sealed, you'll have carbonated beer when it's done.

 

[juslod]

So, I was under the assumption that there were only 5 episodes this season. Last nights was the 5th show I've seen. Are there going to be anymore?

I do hope you're wrong, but there is no upcoming showing according to Discovery.com. Their time table only goes to December 31st, so hopefully we'll see more episodes at the start of 2011!

 

[Frodo]

Magic sugar? Seriously? Dude, it hadn't finished primary fermentation yet. They carbonated it using the sugar that was in the original wort.

I thought the "magic" sugar would come across as obvious sarcasm? Guess not. How the keg was carbed aside, I find it silly drama that they acted happy (if not surprised) it was carbed, as if they hadn't checked the gravity and knew that fermentation was occuring. That was my point, not how the keg was carbed.

Ya I know, it's a reality show, gotta have the drama, and ya I know, I imagine they were told to "act surprised" for the effect of it on TV.

 

[mojotele]

I thought the "magic" sugar would come across as obvious sarcasm? Guess not. How the keg was carbed aside, I find it silly drama that they acted happy (if not surprised) it was carbed, as if they hadn't checked the gravity and knew that fermentation was occuring. That was my point, not how the keg was carbed.

Ya I know, it's a reality show, gotta have the drama, and ya I know, I imagine they were told to "act surprised" for the effect of it on TV.

My apologies, then. I did detect sarcasm, but interpreted it as a much different kind of sarcasm.

Perhaps they were too busy doing bong hits and eating Doritos to check the gravity

 

[Frodo]

You realize fermentation produces CO2 right?

Holy smokes, no way! Is the sarcasm more obvious now?

 

[IrregularPulse]

Holy smokes, no way! Is the sarcasm more obvious now?

The beer wasn't done fermenting when they filled the keg, therefore the gravity would be different when they tapped it from when they transferred that small amount to the keg. The keg was a small sample from the whole batch. They didn't tap it until the unveiling. I don't see how this is difficult to believe.

 

[mojotele]

The beer wasn't done fermenting when they filled the keg, therefore the gravity would be different when they tapped it from when they transferred that small amount to the keg. The keg was a small sample from the whole batch. They didn't tap it until the unveiling. I don't see how this is difficult to believe.

He was kidding when he made the original "magic sugar" comment.

I know, I didn't get it either.

 

[Frodo]

I don't see how this is difficult to believe.

And it's easy to believe they would risk DFH's reputation by tapping a keg without knowing whether it was carbed? According to the googles, it takes a whole 4 hours to drive from Delaware to NYC, so of course there was plenty of time for the gravity to drop and more carbonation to build. I see your point.

 

[schweaty]

Sure! Let me grab my whip

If it was Yooper that said this I'd be in for sure. However, since you're saying it, count me out!

 

[MeatyPortion]

I like the show. Deal with it.

 

[mrbowenz]

I like the show a lot, but think there could be things done differently, but that's television. I will say that this is the first show dedicated to the brewing side/aspect of the subject and hope that it becomes a success, and other (shows) follow that might be more appealing to the homebrewer .

I am personally working on developing such a show, having recently completed my story :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/arctic-alchemy-153577/

www.arcticalchemy.com

or Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Arctic-Alchemy/197637538644

I have 4 or 5 other stories I am working on, and trying to get a producer to take this from the documentary film side to a syndicated series.

Be patient, Brew Masters is the first mainstream show of it's kind, some will enjoy, others will find the faults. Better than all of this , is it may become a catalyst for other shows.

 

[BeerBrian]

Ive just watched a couple clips from hulu
....Not impressed, I'm afraid what happened to choppers and motorcycles will happen to Micro Breweries... I worked as a Mechanic building custom bikes before, During, and After the shows were popular on TV (discovery channel) and it did nothing but hurt the Industry (In the long run) while it was all going on we were selling bikes like crazy to the Deuche bags that wanted to be cool and ride once a week. but now that the craze is over the industry is in a Slump...(Poor economy is to blame as well)

I just dont see this beeing a good thing in the long run... I dont want Dogfish head Brewery (which I like their beer) to be the next Orange county choppers...

I'm one example of the contrary. I used to work in the beer industry, in fact I worked as a rep for Dogfish in the early years. I was also an avid homebrewer. I moved on from beer, got involved in a different line of work and haven't done a ton of drinking since then (unless protein shakes count).

Watching Sam on TV has rekindled my love of a beer gut, I mean beer. I've spent more on beer since the first episode aired that I've spent in 5 years. I've found this site for the first time, made my first post (this one), have plans to purchase everything needed to make an all grain at home set-up, and am trying to get back into the industry.

So it would seem that while Sam played a role in my initial love of good beer, his show has inspired me again. While many fly by night fans will come to the foray, some people will have a rekindled interest, and others will become fans for life.

 

[BeerBrian]

p.s. Real life Sam is no different than on screen Sam. (from personal experience)

 

[Yambor44]

BeerBrian posts confirms what others have been saying here. It will bring new (and old) homebrewers to the hobby......

 

[TheGeek]

Yeah, whether you like the show or not, it's the old Hollywood mantra, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." While I do enjoy the show, I don't think any attention he would bring to the craft brew market or homebrewing would be bad for any of us.

 

[HItransplant]

Thanks to the haters, Sam's Brewing up a Business book is a permanently affixed ad on HBT.

Go on now. Tell us how Sam isn't Charles Bukowski.

well played sir. haha.

 

[bovineblitz]

Is it just me, or does the show kinda make DFH seem like it has poor quality control?

 

[mlyday]

Is it just me, or does the show kinda make DFH seem like it has poor quality control?

Why would you say that. They routinely show them checking and not letting any questionable beer out the door.

They have had yeast problems on some of the higher alcohol beer, but yeast is a living organism, its not like they put bad hops or grain in the batch.

Thier manufacturing process may have some process, but they show the quality people catching the problems as they should.

 

[mojotele]

Is it just me, or does the show kinda make DFH seem like it has poor quality control?

I have to agree with the previous poster on this. Quality control is about catching problems. It is not stopping them from happening entirely.

 

[sudsmcgee]

Not really. EFFECTIVE Quality Control/Quality Assurance is written with procedures implementing critical control points designed to prevent problems from happening in the first place. Sure, problems will still happen from time to time, but we've already seen two batches "dumped" (which I still doubt highly) in five episodes.

It seems a critical control point verifying yeast health is missing in their operation, or at least that's how the producers choose to portray it. Either way, it's a TV show and I don't believe any of the drama is real. For all we know they were just dumping the trub/yeast before bottling. It's not like we actually saw them dumping the whole batch. We just got a teaser shot of some brown liquid being dumped.

I still like the show and I'm still gonna watch it.

 

[rico567]

The problems with making the big, exotic beers they specialize in are explained several times in different episodes. The beer you see being tossed instead of bottled just represents the cost of doing business.

 

[sudsmcgee]

Correct. They acknowledge the problem, and therefore should have one or two layers of qc/qa to test whether the yeast are going to pull it off.

 

[mlyday]

If they were just making widgets or something I would say yes they have a problem, but the yeast being living oranism is the wildcard in the whole process. They can quality check the grains and hops, and somewhat even check the yeast, but when they are pushing the yeast to the high end of its limit, bad things may happen. If I was dumping half a million in yeast down the drain, I would be calling in a yeast expert or use some sort of yeast that had a wider alcohol tolerance range.

 

[bovineblitz]

Well IMO, if the yeast are this close to their limit, their recipe should account for that. Why not design the recipe so that at a certain point you pitch a hardier yeast you know will finish the job every time. Or, why not come up with a generally less risky recipe in the first place that's still true to the intent?

Perhaps it's the editing, but it's starting to look like a poorly thought out operation to me.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Well IMO, if the yeast are this close to their limit, their recipe should account for that. Why not design the recipe so that at a certain point you pitch a hardier yeast you know will finish the job every time. Or, why not come up with a generally less risky recipe in the first place that's still true to the intent?

Weeeell then they couldn't call it 120 Minute because it wouldn't be the same beer.

Perhaps it's the editing, but it's starting to look like a poorly thought out operation to me.

Television producer-added (or emphasized) drama/hecticness. It's "reality" tv after all.

 

[wildwest450]

Perhaps it's the editing, but it's starting to look like a poorly thought out operation to me.

Yes, most poorly run operations pump out 75,000 barrels of beer in a year, grow 400% in a 3 year span, and are currently expanding despite a crap economy.

Most businesses should be run so poorly.

 

[mlyday]

Yeah, Im sure if you put a camera in every company and you would see 99% have waste, inefficency, and production problems. You just care more because its beer in this case.

 

[bovineblitz]

Weeeell then they couldn't call it 120 Minute because it wouldn't be the same beer.

Yeah they could, they just needed to forsee this being an issue when they formulated the recipe. Seems like something they should expect to see.

It's too late now to change it though.

Don't get me wrong I like the show and I like Dogfish, and I know successful brewdays don't make good TV. It just comes off poorly, from my perspective at least.

 

[HItransplant]

They carbonated it using the sugar that was in the original wort. That's what most professional brewers do. They seal off the fermenters at a certain point to let natural fermentation carbonate it. It's cheap and efficient.

thats something i didnt know.. see, you do learn something new every day. .

How the keg was carbed aside, I find it silly drama that they acted happy (if not surprised) it was carbed, as if they hadn't checked the gravity and knew that fermentation was occuring.

It made me laugh, and I thought it seemed like a truly honest moment. Being that they had never brewed a batch with this wild yeast, I dont think it too presumptuous that there might be a bit of a mystery in the ultimate outcome.

Yeah, Im sure if you put a camera in every company and you would see 99% have waste, inefficency, and production problems. You just care more because its beer in this case.

I was thinking it odd that they seem to be dumping a lot of beer.. but youre probably right, I bet this happens. I also bet it happens more in places doing experimental stuff, or pushing the envelope... something that the DFH guys talk about on just about every show. Its just the price of making a crazy product and having high standards for their product.

 

[mojotele]

It seems a critical control point verifying yeast health is missing in their operation, or at least that's how the producers choose to portray it. Either way, it's a TV show and I don't believe any of the drama is real. For all we know they were just dumping the trub/yeast before bottling. It's not like we actually saw them dumping the whole batch. We just got a teaser shot of some brown liquid being dumped.

So, if I'm reading your post correctly, you are alleging that they possibly didn't dump anything at all? That they are completely lying about it?

I did find evidence of them having problems with 120 minute over the summer via Google. Hard to say whether or not it was the same batch. In one post on their website Floris mentions that they were using two separate yeast strains and the whole thing was rather experimental for them. I can't find anything on Chateau Jiahu, but I only looked rather quickly.

I don't know, it just seems like outright lying about such a thing would be monumentally stupid. I'm sure a lot of people out there could easily out them on such shenanigans - distributors and retailers for instance. I'm wondering if people are jumping from one logical fallacy to another - from assuming everything on TV is true to assuming everything on TV is false.