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Evidence (via studies) behind step mashing

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One last thing... this is a message board about beer. This is a thread in the science forum requesting scientific studies to read over. How can you have a message board and attempt to not allow questions? Isn't that a contradiction?

For those who are flaming me, the fact of the matter is that YOU are trolling me.

The science guys provided great information. They knew exactly what I meant when I said that I wasn't looking for opinions like on every other thread.

It is obvious that only the beer brewing snobs are offended. Which I find a problem with you, the snob. Now stop trolling me.
 
One last thing... this is a message board about beer. This is a thread in the science forum requesting scientific studies to read over. How can you have a message board and attempt to not allow questions? Isn't that a contradiction?

For those who are flaming me, the fact of the matter is that YOU are trolling me.

The science guys provided great information. They knew exactly what I meant when I said that I wasn't looking for opinions like on every other thread.

It is obvious that only the beer brewing snobs are offended. Which I find a problem with you, the snob. Now stop trolling me.

I don't think the flames/anger was directed at your question. It seemed to be directed at the attitude that seemed evident in your post. You seemed to be showing a lack of respect for your fellow homebrewer (primarily with the "no opinions" comment...which I think could be taken as you saying that any non-study was just the persons opinion).

EDIT: Also, the way your worded the title of the thread could lead people to think you doubt the fact that temperature/steps affect the final product.
 
Rather than state that you don't want any opinions on the thread, it might help to state that you're primarily looking for studies, charts, results, etc. that support or refute conversion at certain temperatures or that one method is better than another. It's just a more positive way to state the request, rather than the negative of "no opinions!" (semantics, I know...) There will always be some opinion thrown in here or there, but data to back it up is certainly useful. I can see your point, and obviously you're looking for a more scientific approach, rather than just what someone tells you happens. But let's not let this turn into a flamewar.

As was mentioned previously, do some searching around for information around step-mashing versus single-infusion-mashing. This should yield some good results for you. I did a little search and actually ran across a guy that tried to do a reverse step-mash. Now, that wouldn't make sense to most of us, but he wanted to know what would happen. Good on him! You never know until you try, right? (He also did some work on testing yeast pitch rates.)
 
I agree 100% that we all benefit from questioning whether "common practices" are really "best practices." We all know that there is plenty of Homebrewing Lore that has passed from one brewer to another by the force of tradition alone. It's not uncommon for these to be found unncessary, or occasionally counterproductive.

However, I don't think this thread has the right tone for this questioning. Ideally, start by doing a little homework and reading the basic texts out there. If you can't get your hands on those, I'd suggest asking in a more constructive way, not implying that you're going to get junk opinion answers.

"Hey guys, I'm curious about the scientific basis for the effect of different mash temperatures on enzyme activity. Can someone point me to a useful article or book about this?" would have come off better.
 
One last thing... this is a message board about beer. This is a thread in the science forum requesting scientific studies to read over. How can you have a message board and attempt to not allow questions? Isn't that a contradiction?

For those who are flaming me, the fact of the matter is that YOU are trolling me.

The science guys provided great information. They knew exactly what I meant when I said that I wasn't looking for opinions like on every other thread.

It is obvious that only the beer brewing snobs are offended. Which I find a problem with you, the snob. Now stop trolling me.

OK man sounds good. Hope you find what you're looking for.
 
You that are offended need to take the approach from this gentlemen quoted. He has proven to be the smartest guy on this thread. And I respect him more than the rest who ONLY have opinions.

One last thing... this is a message board about beer. This is a thread in the science forum requesting scientific studies to read over. How can you have a message board and attempt to not allow questions? Isn't that a contradiction?

For those who are flaming me, the fact of the matter is that YOU are trolling me.

The science guys provided great information. They knew exactly what I meant when I said that I wasn't looking for opinions like on every other thread.

It is obvious that only the beer brewing snobs are offended. Which I find a problem with you, the snob. Now stop trolling me.

Well. I just saw these posts. I guess my point was missed- that in the 'brew science' forum, we talk about brewing science and it's a great place for discussion. But we normally go deeper than the super basic science principles. We have a Beginner's Forum for simple and basic questions.

In any case, I'm glad you found what you were looking for. I will refrain from offering further advice to you, as my "opinions" are not worthy.
 
First part yes. Second part... huh? :) I have no idea what isothermal mash is :D

Essentially... how important is steeping at lower temps and then changing temps. If there is a quick and dirty answer then I'm happy. I do like the material and I believe I get it now... but it never hurts to be lazy and have someone else tell me what they think.

temperature has little impact on steeping - steeping is done to extract color and sugars

mashing is done to convert starches to sugars via enzymatic activity which rely on specific temperature ranges

you don't need to worry much about your steeping temp when you are just doing extract

although, you stated you don't want opinions but then say you want to be lazy and just hear what others have to think...

people are happy to help here, happy to share our experiences and some posters have done significant scientific research but no one is here to hold your hand because you are too lazy to do some basic reading on your own
 
The way to ask technical questions is to precede with a short explanation of the basis for the question and a quick summary of your current understanding. For example, you might say something like,

"I've read XYZ books and noticed a trend in HBT post that suggest X, but no matter how many different rest temperatures I try, I get the same attenuation. This has me questioning the relevance of temperature in fermentability of wort. Can anyone provide me with some more in-depth studies or help me figure this out in some other way?"

I'm not telling you what to do but merely suggesting that you can word things in a less accusatory manner and establish the context of the question. Sometimes novices think they know what they don't know, but often times they know just enough to get in trouble. You have to be able to digest "how to brew" before you can actually handle the peer reviewed papers.
 
There is a got damn smilely face immediately after the no opinions comment.

Get a grip people.
 
Who cares. Sarcasm and humor can go hand in hand.

Buy a sense of humor you uptight snobs.
 
Who cares. Sarcasm and humor can go hand in hand.

Buy a sense of humor you uptight snobs.

Well, for one, I consider snarky different from sarcastic. If you look up the definition of snarky it's "Critical; cutting; testy." But, regardless, if someone doesn't think you're joking then a sense of humor is irrelevant.
 
Okay... I believe its time to just lock this thread... I got exactly the information I asked for.

Hopefully I can keep the thread in my history though for reference. Otherwise I will just save references.

Nevermind, I bookmarked tbe links provided.

I am not going to apologize for other people getting offended.
 
Okay... I believe its time to just lock this thread... I got exactly the information I asked for.

Hopefully I can keep the thread in my history though for reference. Otherwise I will just save references.

Nevermind, I bookmarked tbe links provided.

I am not going to apologize for other people getting offended.

Before you run off, you should know:

They are offended by your rude, disrespectful manner. Don't kid yourself that it's anything but that. Can you accept that as constructive criticism?
 
Okay... I believe its time to just lock this thread... I got exactly the information I asked for.

Hopefully I can keep the thread in my history though for reference. Otherwise I will just save references.

Nevermind, I bookmarked tbe links provided.

I am not going to apologize for other people getting offended.

We don't just lock threads because some one has the information they wanted and moved on. The point of a community is that it's a give and take, and many people who learn things are people that almost never post.

We do tend to remove posts when they go too far off-topic (OT) so that could be happening soon since we are far off of the original topic.

And you certainly don't have to apologize for others getting offended. Being offensive (but not breaking forum rules) has no repercussions at all, except that people who "know" those who annoy them can put them on their ignore list, or simply not answer questions or post to their threads, leaving them without any good advice, er, opinions. If someone thinks someone else is a dick, it's no problem at all. If they didn't actually call anybody a name, or insult them, then it's fine. People think what they think.

It's all good.
 
Disproportionate response. Truly disproportionate response. It's what's bad about online communications. Picture yourselves talking this way face to face, and reign it in.
 
"The scientific method is: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of*hypotheses.

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove*false.*"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

In this thread, I was not looking for an opinion initially.

I put a little happy face after the comment about that just so no one would get offended.

Yet, there was still a percentage who took offense.

I chalk that up as a tiny minority of hurt feelings as this has to be the highest traffic home brew website on the interwebs. All in all, the general population of visitors on this website doesn't really care about this thread.
 
I put a little happy face after the comment about that just so no one would get offended.

Yet, there was still a percentage who took offense.

I chalk that up as a tiny minority of hurt feelings as this has to be the highest traffic home brew website on the interwebs. All in all, the general population of visitors on this website doesn't really care about this thread.

I wouldn't say anyone took offense (at least not at first). Take my first response for example. There are certain aspects of this hobby where most people talking about them are totally relying on opinion: secondaries, autolysis, glass v. plastic, etc. On those topics if you started a thread and said 'no opinions', I for one would actually agree with you. But on this topic, there's really no opinions involved. It's accepted science, science that transcends brewing. Enzymes are not unique to our hobby obviously. So when you state 'no opinions' on a topic like this one, its plainly obvious that you didn't do any reading before asking the question.

There's plenty of great brewin literature out there, some of which has been pointed out in this thread.
 
"The scientific method is: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of*hypotheses.

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove*false.*"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

In this thread, I was not looking for an opinion initially.

I put a little happy face after the comment about that just so no one would get offended.

Yet, there was still a percentage who took offense.

I chalk that up as a tiny minority of hurt feelings as this has to be the highest traffic home brew website on the interwebs. All in all, the general population of visitors on this website doesn't really care about this thread.

You seem to consider anything other than posting a study to be the simple voicing of an opinion. Correct me if I'm wrong, though. Perhaps you mean you're not (or weren't) interested in anecdotal evidence of what a particular mash temperature does to a mash? Even if that were the case, you could have easily just ignored any posts you deemed to be the voicing of "opinion."
 
I'm not going to try and understand the direction this thread has taken. It has become so diluted with bickering that any factual points are nearly moot. Either discuss step mashing/mash temperatures or stop typing.

ryno1ryno, you are one more rude/argumentative/off topic comment away from a ban.
 

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