Raw Ale / No Boil

[squaremile]

Are you able to do a whirlpool for your hop additions? That's what I'd planned to do for the no boil gose recipe I posted a while back (brew day Feb 14th).

Yeah all of the previous no boil beers did a hopstand/whirlpool thing from 15-30m. They came out well. This was the first time I skipped that step.

 

[Brewenstein]

I stumbled across this thread a few weeks and have wanted to try a no-boil since then. Well last night was the night. 8 lbs. pale malt, 0.5 lbs C-10, 4 oz. acidulated malt for pH control, 5gm CaCl. Full volume mash (shooting for 6 gallons wort), 30 minutes at 154-155 degrees. Heated to 175 on my stove and then took into the basement for a 25-30 minute hop stand with 8 oz. centennial hops. Chilled to 65, let sit for about a half hour to settle, transferred to an ale pail, pitched a rehydrated packet of US-05.

Based the IBUs on a 5 minute addition (saw that somewhere in this thread) and it calculated at 55ish IBUs. Was shooting for 1.035 OG, based on 65% efficiency because I did it no-sparge. Normally for a no-sparge brew I get 70-72%, but lowered that because of the no boil. I ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort at 1.043, so it will end up more like a 4% beer. I don't use whirfloc, but I have irish moss so I used that (tossed in with the hops for the 30 minute stand). It did not appear to do anything. The wort after the hop stand looked turbid and a lot like pineapple juice.

So now the anxious waiting period to see how it turns out. I will update when I check the FG and try a sample.

 

[agrazela]

I stumbled across this thread a few weeks and have wanted to try a no-boil since then. Well last night was the night. 8 lbs. pale malt, 0.5 lbs C-10, 4 oz. acidulated malt for pH control, 5gm CaCl. Full volume mash (shooting for 6 gallons wort), 30 minutes at 154-155 degrees. Heated to 175 on my stove and then took into the basement for a 25-30 minute hop stand with 8 oz. centennial hops. Chilled to 65, let sit for about a half hour to settle, transferred to an ale pail, pitched a rehydrated packet of US-05.

Based the IBUs on a 5 minute addition (saw that somewhere in this thread) and it calculated at 55ish IBUs. Was shooting for 1.035 OG, based on 65% efficiency because I did it no-sparge. Normally for a no-sparge brew I get 70-72%, but lowered that because of the no boil. I ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort at 1.043, so it will end up more like a 4% beer. I don't use whirfloc, but I have irish moss so I used that (tossed in with the hops for the 30 minute stand). It did not appear to do anything. The wort after the hop stand looked turbid and a lot like pineapple juice.

So now the anxious waiting period to see how it turns out. I will update when I check the FG and try a sample.

Yes please do. I'm very interested to know if:

• It turns sour (you're not trying to do a sour, right?)
• It clears up reasonably well (need photos!)
• The bitterness seems right against the IBU prediction, and it's character (harsh vs. smooth, lingering, etc.)
• Flavor and aroma come out huge from your big late hop additions in this process.

 

[ghohn]

I think this is an awesome method for sour beers.

I'm not so sure. Beyond kettle souring, I plan on sitting on sours for a long time. I'm not so sure how stable these beers would be on the long term but, then again, I'm no scientist.

 

[bovineblitz]

I'm not so sure. Beyond kettle souring, I plan on sitting on sours for a long time. I'm not so sure how stable these beers would be on the long term but, then again, I'm no scientist.

The risk is that proteins are going to degrade/go bad, right? In a sour, you're relying on 'spoilage' microbes that are going to feast on those proteins and clean them out.

I've heard from a commercial brewer that raw is as stable as boiled in a mixed culture fermentation. I imagine in 6 months or so we'll have a lot more information about this as homebrewers pick up the mantle and share their experiences.

 

[ghohn]

The risk is that proteins are going to degrade/go bad, right? In a sour, you're relying on 'spoilage' microbes that are going to feast on those proteins and clean them out.

I've heard from a commercial brewer that raw is as stable as boiled in a mixed culture fermentation. I imagine in 6 months or so we'll have a lot more information about this as homebrewers pick up the mantle and share their experiences.

That's good food for thought. I'm brewing up some soured ale tomorrow using Roeslare. I think highly enough of the raw ale process that I might be willing to jump on this long term aging grenade for the sake of science with a bit more reading if you had any links to offer up.

 

[squaremile]

Made a single hop 3% beer last night, forgot Whirlfloc but this time did a chill process. Will report back.

 

[bovineblitz]

That's good food for thought. I'm brewing up some soured ale tomorrow using Roeslare. I think highly enough of the raw ale process that I might be willing to jump on this long term aging grenade for the sake of science with a bit more reading if you had any links to offer up.

I don't have a lot, most of what I've picked up is conversation on Milk the Funk and this awesome blog post. I'll def post info about my raw semi-spontaneous sour when it's done, but I'm probably looking at 6 months minimum.

 

[user 204491]

Not exactly the spirit of this thread, but in another "no boil brew" attempt I am currently working on a "kombucha kriek"...

Basically I'm brewing up a 3 gallon batch of my normal kombucha (75% black tea/25% green tea), and fermenting that with my normal scoby.

Once that has fermented to the level of tartness I normally like in my kombucha I'm going to remove the scoby and rack it off to 3 lbs of sour cherries and enough cane sugar to get it up to about 1.04 or so.

Then I'm going to rehydrate some champagne yeast with some yeast nutrient to do a re-fermentation with the cherries and cane sugar which will produce alcohol to go with the lactic acid from the scoby.

If anyone is interested I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[David_Trucks]

Not exactly the spirit of this thread, but in another "no boil brew" attempt I am currently working on a "kombucha kriek"...

Basically I'm brewing up a 3 gallon batch of my normal kombucha (75% black tea/25% green tea), and fermenting that with my normal scoby.

Once that has fermented to the level of tartness I normally like in my kombucha I'm going to remove the scoby and rack it off to 3 lbs of sour cherries and enough cane sugar to get it up to about 1.04 or so.

Then I'm going to rehydrate some champagne yeast with some yeast nutrient to do a re-fermentation with the cherries and cane sugar which will produce alcohol to go with the lactic acid from the scoby.

If anyone is interested I'll let you know how it goes!

Bruh

 

[user 204491]

Bruh

Haha, is that good or bad?

 

[Brewenstein]

Yes please do. I'm very interested to know if:

• It turns sour (you're not trying to do a sour, right?)
• It clears up reasonably well (need photos!)
• The bitterness seems right against the IBU prediction, and it's character (harsh vs. smooth, lingering, etc.)
• Flavor and aroma come out huge from your big late hop additions in this process.

So even though it had only been 8 days from brewing this, I couldn't stand it any longer and had to check on it.

So here were my notes:

The OG was 1.043 and the SG now is 1.014. A little higher than I expected, but I did mash at 155-156 degrees. That puts it around 3.7% ABV.

Color - a nice pale straw color, but hazy - like a hefe. Also there is still hop debris floating around in it.

Aroma - can definitely tell that I used centennial hops. Smelled good, nothing sour (not that I thought it would).

Mouthfeel - maybe a little thin, but not off-putting in any way, especially for a low ABV beer.

Taste - light (not in a bad way), definitely get the hops coming through. I used 5 minutes for the boil additions as a way to guestimate the IBUs (based on a previous post), but that is definitely not correct. For the 8 ounces that I used, it would come out to about 55 IBUs, but it was nowhere near that. I would say closer to 30 IBUs. Or to put it another way, the bitterness seemed well balanced against the malt sweetness and right on the money. The beer was neither too sweet or too hoppy. I will say that the hop flavor seemed more "raw" than "cooked", or what hops taste like after being boiled. Not to say that they were bad tasting, just different. I also think that this flavor was heightened due to the amount in suspension. Otherwise I think this will turn out to be a good sessionable drinker.

The flavor seems stable to me, no "green" taste like most of my beers this early in, so I am going to keg it and put it on CO2 and let the cold help drop out the hop particles. I will report back in a week or so and let you know how it is going. So far I would say it has been a success. Not sure yet if I would keep a no boil beer in the rotation, but I will see after it has some time to settle and carb.

Pic to follow.

 

[Brewenstein]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1454078421.065031.jpg

I doesn't look as pale as it really was. I think it's because of the blue table cloth.

 

[agrazela]

Sounds potentially promising, please keep us posted. Di the hops seem at all "grassy" or "hay-like" being that there was no boil?

 

[Brewenstein]

Sounds potentially promising, please keep us posted. Di the hops seem at all "grassy" or "hay-like" being that there was no boil?

Grassy might be one way to describe them. But not in a bad way. They tasted like centennial hops, but more "raw" than "cooked". Sorry, but I am not the best a describing tastes sometimes . And again, it is not an unpleasant taste, just different. Any of you other no-boilers have any feedback about this?

 

[agrazela]

I do have a 4gal batch of 1.050 og Eureka (18.2% aa) / Ashburne mild SMaSH pale (156f mash temp) in fermenter 1 week now with S-04, just checked is at 1.012, so will likely be packaging soon. Was not no boil (5 min boil only), but all hop additions were split between 1oz at 180f and 3oz at 140f hopstands. Was targeting ~35 ibu; from tasting gravity sample I'm not sure it's quite that bitter, but it is a very smooth and clean bitterness, and the hop flavor is just outstanding.

If this flavor holds up, then I'm sold on no-boil (for the hops, at least! No boil wort as a personal experiment yet to come...)

 

[skw]

I'm not as brave as you are. I only committed to two liters of unboiled wort for a fist experiment. Using the CA lager strain, it's more of a raw lager than a raw ale.

 

[tagz]

Just curious, why do a raw ale? Benefits?

 

[Jwin]

Just curious, why do a raw ale? Benefits?

Time and energy I suppose.

 

[user 204491]

Speed of brewing is definitely a major factor - going no boil, depending on your usual brew session, could knock 1-2 hours off your day. Turns out there's a bit of history here too, for example in traditional farmhouse ales, where a boil was not always done on the wort prior to fermentation. Plus for me it's a bit of an experiment and chance to do something outside the norm that may/may not have interesting results. I've currently got two no-boil ales planned for upcoming brew sessions - a gose with lime and orange and a simple dry-hopped sour with Conan yeast.

 

[agrazela]

Time and energy I suppose.

These are my interests in the idea, yes. Especially the energy part.

 

[Owly055]

Not exactly the spirit of this thread, but in another "no boil brew" attempt I am currently working on a "kombucha kriek"...

Basically I'm brewing up a 3 gallon batch of my normal kombucha (75% black tea/25% green tea), and fermenting that with my normal scoby.

Once that has fermented to the level of tartness I normally like in my kombucha I'm going to remove the scoby and rack it off to 3 lbs of sour cherries and enough cane sugar to get it up to about 1.04 or so.

Then I'm going to rehydrate some champagne yeast with some yeast nutrient to do a re-fermentation with the cherries and cane sugar which will produce alcohol to go with the lactic acid from the scoby.

If anyone is interested I'll let you know how it goes!

For your information Kombucha involves primarily acetobacter, the bacteria family that produces vinegar. Also, speaking from personal experience, and contrary to the folk lore, the scoby has little or no significant role in the fermentation of kombucha. It is a pellicle, a byproduct of the action of the acetobacter, composed of micro cellulose. It is not a living organism, though no doubt it harbors microbes on it's wet underside. An active starter is really what does the fermentation. I do continuous brew, drawing out about 25%, and topping with sweet tea, which I simply pour over the scoby, sinking and tumbling it around. It refloats quickly. I have many times split brews in two simply decanting 50% from one container into the other, and topping both with fresh sweet tea. The one without the scoby is very slightly slower to reach the desired sourness the first time, and quickly generates a new scoby. The product is indistinguishable.
The kombucha fermentation process involves yeast fermenting the sugar, and the acetobacter consuming the alcohol and producing acetic acid.... and one or two other mild acids..... and cellulose that makes up the pellicle or scoby. The acidic environment of the kombucha facilitates the inversion of the sugar so the yeast can consume it, as ordinary table sugar is the typical sugar used.
I've tried merging kombucha and beer in various ways from simply mixing them in the glass to fermenting them side by side (unhopped beer), and as I drew finished kombucha out, 25% every 4 days or so, I would add the fermenting beer instead of sweet tea. The result was very interesting and tasty. I also used kombucha as my strike water (100%) on an all grain brew...... which didn't work very well. My mash conversion was poor, and I got almost no sour flavor in the finished beer. The best system by far is to mix at the tap, as you have total control, and a consistent, predictable outcome.

H.W.

 

[user 204491]

For your information Kombucha involves primarily acetobacter, the bacteria family that produces vinegar. Also, speaking from personal experience, and contrary to the folk lore, the scoby has little or no significant role in the fermentation of kombucha. It is a pellicle, a byproduct of the action of the acetobacter, composed of micro cellulose. It is not a living organism, though no doubt it harbors microbes on it's wet underside. An active starter is really what does the fermentation. I do continuous brew, drawing out about 25%, and topping with sweet tea, which I simply pour over the scoby, sinking and tumbling it around. It refloats quickly. I have many times split brews in two simply decanting 50% from one container into the other, and topping both with fresh sweet tea. The one without the scoby is very slightly slower to reach the desired sourness the first time, and quickly generates a new scoby. The product is indistinguishable.
The kombucha fermentation process involves yeast fermenting the sugar, and the acetobacter consuming the alcohol and producing acetic acid.... and one or two other mild acids..... and cellulose that makes up the pellicle or scoby. The acidic environment of the kombucha facilitates the inversion of the sugar so the yeast can consume it, as ordinary table sugar is the typical sugar used.
I've tried merging kombucha and beer in various ways from simply mixing them in the glass to fermenting them side by side (unhopped beer), and as I drew finished kombucha out, 25% every 4 days or so, I would add the fermenting beer instead of sweet tea. The result was very interesting and tasty. I also used kombucha as my strike water (100%) on an all grain brew...... which didn't work very well. My mash conversion was poor, and I got almost no sour flavor in the finished beer. The best system by far is to mix at the tap, as you have total control, and a consistent, predictable outcome.

H.W.

Hey, Owly, thanks for the info and feedback! You might be surprised to learn that some recent studies have actually identified that in some Kombucha microbial populations that Lactobacillus actually makes up to 30% of the population. Here is one such study, and the synopsis if you don't want to pay for the article or read the whole thing can be found here. So I think the two primary souring agents in fermenting Kombucha are Acetobacter, as you mentioned, and then Lactobacillus.

Agree with you though that the active participation of the scoby (or whether it's needed at all) is up for debate, but the darn thing looks cool floating in there, don't it? For my first batch I used just some natural, unfiltered kombucha as my starter tea, which quickly grew the scoby that I'm now using. I generally make 3 gallon batches of kombucha, and I use 16 oz pulled/saved from my last batch as my starter tea (so I add that to ~ 2 gallons, 7 pints of new sweet tea), and then toss in my scoby. In between batches (I don't continuous brew), I save the scoby in the fridge with about 1/2 gallon of fresh sweet tea.

So far this has worked really well for me. For example, in the starter batch I made for this "Kombucha Kriek" I went from a PH of ~4.5 to 3.2 in only 7 days.

Just yesterday I took that (after removing my scoby and 16 oz starter for next time), and I racked that off to 3 lbs. of sour cherries and a simple syrup I made from 2 lbs. of raw cane sugar and 500 ml of water. That resulted in an OG of 1.051 and a PH of 3.46. I added to that 7.5 grams of EC-1118 champagne yeast that I rehydrated with 10 grams of Go-ferm protect in 3/4 cup of water. I then added 1/4 tsp of Fermaid directly to the kombucha prior to pitching. Had fermentation signs in about 2 hours. The sample I took tasted really good, so I'm very interested to see how this turns out in 2 weeks.

 

[Owly055]

My experiment for later this week.

Pseudo Cream Ale (note I dislike the flavor of corn in cream ale)

2.5 gallon brew (BIAB)

OG 1.046 est
ABV 4.86
IBU 22
SRM 2.48

2.5 lbs 2 row
1.5 lb minute rice

1 ounce Willamette 15 minutes boil
.5 ounce Crystal (leaf) 5 minutes boil
.5 ounce Crystal (leaf) whirlpool 180 until pitch temp

Process:

Mash

30 minute "inline" BIAB Dough in with 130F tap water, rapid heat to 145, slow heat at about 2 min per deg to 155 shut off heat.

Lift bag out, into colander in second kettle, and adjust volume in first kettle to about 1 gallon, crank up heat, and toss in 1 ounce Willamette. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes, adding half ounce of crystal 5 min before the end of boil.

Meanwhile the bag is draining

Set grain bag aside, and pour 1 gallon decoction boiling hot into remaining 1.5 gallons of wort. Check temp. If temp is below 180, heat to 180, and shut off heat, then toss in .5 ounce of Crystal. Allow to cool to pitch temp naturally. Transfer to fermenter when convenient and pitch.

(note that I built this recipe on Brewer's Friend while writing this post)

H.W.

Note: I keep editing this post ;-) ............But lest someone call me on it, this is NOT a true decoction as I am decocting only wort, no mash is involved in the decoction.

 

[Owly055]

Hey, Owly, thanks for the info and feedback! You might be surprised to learn that some recent studies have actually identified that in some Kombucha microbial populations that Lactobacillus actually makes up to 30% of the population. Here is one such study, and the synopsis if you don't want to pay for the article or read the whole thing can be found here. So I think the two primary souring agents in fermenting Kombucha are Acetobacter, as you mentioned, and then Lactobacillus.

Agree with you though that the active participation of the scoby (or whether it's needed at all) is up for debate, but the darn thing looks cool floating in there, don't it? For my first batch I used just some natural, unfiltered kombucha as my starter tea, which quickly grew the scoby that I'm now using. I generally make 3 gallon batches of kombucha, and I use 16 oz pulled/saved from my last batch as my starter tea (so I add that to ~ 2 gallons, 7 pints of new sweet tea), and then toss in my scoby. In between batches (I don't continuous brew), I save the scoby in the fridge with about 1/2 gallon of fresh sweet tea.

So far this has worked really well for me. For example, in the starter batch I made for this "Kombucha Kriek" I went from a PH of ~4.5 to 3.2 in only 7 days.

Just yesterday I took that (after removing my scoby and 16 oz starter for next time), and I racked that off to 3 lbs. of sour cherries and a simply syrup I made from 2 lbs. of raw cane sugar and 500 ml of water. That resulted in an OG of 1.051 and a PH of 3.46. I added to that 7.5 grams of EC-1118 champagne yeast that I rehydrated with 10 grams of Go-ferm protect in 3/4 cup of water. I then added 1/4 tsp of Fermaid directly to the kombucha prior to pitching. Had fermentation signs in about 2 hours. The sample I took tasted really good, so I'm very interested to see how this turns out in 2 weeks.

Please keep us posted....... I love to experiment!! Keep it up!

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

Anybody have an opinion on how hot the wort needs to be to prevent infection? I'm thinking that my one gallon "decoction" of the total 2.5 will not raise the temp to 180, probably closer to the 160-170 range. I was planning to heat the entire kettle of wort to 180, but if I hit 165 or so, I'll probably toss in my whirlpool hops, cover and forget it........... Thoughts?

H.W.

 

[user 204491]

I think if you get it to 160 or so for a bit, coupled with the hops you're adding, you should be guarded against infection. Keep in mind though that you won't get a lot of hops utilization or bitterness at that temp. I really like this BYO article on whirlpool/hop stands, it's where I got a lot of the info I use.

Also, just noticed you said you put your recipe together in Brewer's Friend; that's where I make my no boil recipes too. I posted in the forum about better support for no boil and had some back and forth with one of the guys over there on how it works.

 

[squaremile]

Time and energy saving is what started me doing them. Please report back on all these experiments!

 

[Owly055]

I think if you get it to 160 or so for a bit, coupled with the hops you're adding, you should be guarded against infection. Keep in mind though that you won't get a lot of hops utilization or bitterness at that temp. I really like this BYO article on whirlpool/hop stands, it's where I got a lot of the info I use.

Also, just noticed you said you put your recipe together in Brewer's Friend; that's where I make my no boil recipes too. I posted in the forum about better support for no boil and had some back and forth with one of the guys over there on how it works.

You seem to have missed the original post that described my "hop decoction" where I will be pulling a percentage of the wort out and boiling it with hops for 15 minutes, then adding it back to the remainder of the wort boiling with the idea of hitting a temp that will disinfect... 160-180. The 15 minute boil of a gallon of wort with the hops will give me the bittering I desire. I should hit boil very rapidly with that amount of wort, and the energy consumption will be considerably less. This will add a net of less than 15 minutes to the process when you deduct the time it would take to raise the total amount of wort to that temp, and will result in a considerable savings of hops due to greater utilization.

H.W.

 

[user 204491]

You seem to have missed the original post that described my "hop decoction" where I will be pulling a percentage of the wort out and boiling it with hops for 15 minutes, then adding it back to the remainder of the wort boiling with the idea of hitting a temp that will disinfect... 160-180. The 15 minute boil of a gallon of wort with the hops will give me the bittering I desire. I should hit boil very rapidly with that amount of wort, and the energy consumption will be considerably less. This will add a net of less than 15 minutes to the process when you deduct the time it would take to raise the total amount of wort to that temp, and will result in a considerable savings of hops due to greater utilization.



H.W.

Oh, yeah, somehow I missed that info. Sounds like a great plan! Can't wait to hear how it turns out!