My W34/70 wants to keep swimming

[joolbag]

Sounds a little to scary to have a sour/wild yeast infext my brewery!  If I go down this path, I will dedicate a fermenter + bottles + bottling wand + bucket just for the sour stuff to keep it separate from my regular brewery.  Still sounds too hard/too risky for the reward.  I don't have a lot of space to store the brewing equipment that I already have!

 

John, a fellow brewer from the Inner West did exactly that and innoculated starters from around his yard in Marrickville.  Covered in muslin then left under fruit trees, flowering bushes, etc.  From there he was able to taste the wort/beer that resulted and then culture up the winning strain(s).  I think out of four, one was good, another was OK and two were terrible and tipped.

 

Result was a Marrickville Sour Ale that is very interesting, complex, slightly sour, fruity esters.  Reminds me of some of those Belgian examples I have tried over the years. 

[headmaster]

Very interesting stuff guys. Lusty yeah that is one of my main concerns, contaminating my gear with robust hard to kill bugs!

By the way, on the topic of this thread, I have now bottled the Marzen with the stubborn W34/70, sitting at -1.5c for quite some time did drop a lot out of suspension but still a tad hazy. 

Also, when tasting while bottling, there is a definite clove ester there which should not be produced by that strain as far as I know. 

It actually tasted really good, I love clove in wheats etc, and this seems to go very well with the munich and vienna in this marzen, but this one won't get submitted to the state comp if it stall tastes like that once carbonated. 

So that yeast that I had harvested that remained cloudy in the passatta jar for weeks (the beer above the compacted yeast I mean) clearly has mutated to have something dominate that is something like a wheatbeer yeast. 

I did have issues with the previous use of this yeast, where I pitched it (without checking viability in a starter) after probably too much time had passed after harvesting, from memory may have been 2 months, but I didn't include the lagering time where the yeast sat in the cake for another couple of weeks. So when I used it that time, it took a long time to start, maybe 36 to 48 hours, would have to check my records. 

 

 

[Beerlust]

1 hour ago, headmaster said:

...It actually tasted really good, I love clove in wheats etc,

Me too. I brewed a very simple Redback Wheat beer clone using some Wyeast 3056 about 4 years ago that turned out terrific. Fermented it lower at approx. 18-19°C & that nice clove-like phenolic was produced as a result. 

Cheers & good luck with your submissions in the homebrew comp.

Lusty.

[headmaster]

cheers Lusty, 

This flavour may also be amplified in my case, as my habit is to run a 'Glucanase' rest at 44c, then ramp to protein rest at 55c then sac rest with my system, as I have learnt that the wort flows a million times better after the glucan gums have been broken down with that rest, and chill haze a non issue with the protein rest. 

The 44c one is also known as you may well know, an acid rest where phytic acid can be produced and will lower ph, takes ages and not really used anymore as you just use acid malt or acid additions but at this same temp range there is also ferulic acid produced which from memory is a precursor for 4VG or the clove phenol. So in theory if you want to bias your wheatbeer towards clove you would rest at this temp. 

Regardless of being able to put in a comp or not, I think I'm going to enjoy drinking it in any case, which is the main thing  

[joolbag]

Headmaster my head is spinning after your last post!  Keep us posted how it presents in the glass and if you enter it!

 

My smoked porter is fermenting away alongside the IPA.  haven't taken a gravity or taste sample yet.  May do tonight as it will be 5 days in.  May just wait until 6 days and test again at 8 days or so as it should be well and truly done.  dry hop 1 of the IPA soon, then that comes out for a 2nd dry hop.  True IPA style!

[Beerlust]

27 minutes ago, headmaster said:

cheers Lusty, 

This flavour may also be amplified in my case, as my habit is to run a 'Glucanase' rest at 44c, then ramp to protein rest at 55c then sac rest with my system, as I have learnt that the wort flows a million times better after the glucan gums have been broken down with that rest, and chill haze a non issue with the protein rest. 

The 44c one is also known as you may well know, an acid rest where phytic acid can be produced and will lower ph, takes ages and not really used anymore as you just use acid malt or acid additions but at this same temp range there is also ferulic acid produced which from memory is a precursor for 4VG or the clove phenol. So in theory if you want to bias your wheatbeer towards clove you would rest at this temp. 

Interesting. 

Cheers,

Lusty.

[headmaster]

45 minutes ago, joolbag said:

My smoked porter is fermenting away alongside the IPA.  haven't taken a gravity or taste sample yet.  May do tonight as it will be 5 days in.  May just wait until 6 days and test again at 8 days or so as it should be well and truly done.  dry hop 1 of the IPA soon, then that comes out for a 2nd dry hop.  True IPA style!

I have never really double dry hopped but will do so in my inevitable no doubt soon to debut maiden NEIPA. Have also never made a smoked anything, you are really mixing it up there Jools.

I'd say if you are submitting this to the NSW state comp it may do very well if it ticks all the boxes. I guess you have a kegging setup? We are running out of time for bottle conditioning!

To give you an idea, I submitted an IPA to the ISB comp last year, and was stewarding at that comp, and was serving IPA’s. As a steward you can taste all of these entries if you like, or just the good ones if you like etc. I tasted quite a few of these IPA’s and many were not really worth writing home to mum about, and were scoring in the low to mid 20-s.

My one then came through, which I thought would not do so well as it was about 90 days old since bottling, and I knew it was running low on aroma. It actually appeared to have no hop aroma at all when on the judges table in the jug.  

I submitted in a PET bottle, which may have scavenged what hop aroma was left, as the samples at home I had out of glass after this still had noticeable hop aroma. I think I have written about this before on a thread here. Maybe it was from the pouring into the jug as they do at these comps, that let whatever aroma was there break free and head for the exits, rather than the PET being to blame.

In any case that IPA despite having no hop aromas still scored I think a 34 and 32, which resulted in a third place for the IPA category and picked up a beerco voucher!

What I am saying is, if you think you’ve brewed a good beer, think about putting it in a comp, the results may surprise you

[joolbag]

Hey headmaster I don;t keg, I am just cutting it fine and will be submitting beers that haven't had many weeks to bottle condition.  The IPA should be fine but the smoked porter may be all over the shop with flavours that haven't yet melded together.  Worth entering nonetheless in Classic Smoked category.

 

I hear what you mean re: entering the beers.  The Oatmeal XPA that I entered as a Session NEIPA I did not think that much of and it was 90 days in the bottle at time of judging.  The judges noted how the hops exploded from the sample in aroma and followed by flavour.  90 days after bottling!  Go figure.  These were Grolsch swingtops which I reluctantly let go.  Worth it though, good return on investment!

 

All I hope this year is to get good feedback and to place higher than my solo entry did in last year's NSW state comp.  12th in the American Pale Ale category for my Citra/Cascade/Centennial take on a Feral Hop Hog.  I don't think I'm even entering an American Pale Ale this year.  American Wheat, American Amber, Kolsch, American Porter, Blonde Ale, Classic Smoked Beer and American IPA

[Hairy]

I presume Smoked beers are hard to judge. I entered a smoked beer into the NSW State comp a number of years ago; one judge said the smokiness was just right and the other judge said there was way too much smokiness.

[headmaster]

On 8/23/2018 at 12:35 PM, headmaster said:

 

Regardless of being able to put in a comp or not, I think I'm going to enjoy drinking it in any case, which is the main thing  

To update this story, I did stupidly enter this marzen into the NSW comp, and received a disastrously bad score of 33/100, so that's average of 16.5 per judge /50. 

I'd say it's been marked waaay down on the clove ester.  If anything I should have submitted as a Dunkelweizen.  I will know soon enough when the scoresheets are sent. 

It still tastes so good I finish one in three sips! But that score is I think the lowest in  the whole competition out of approx 500 beers. 

So a major fail there.. Have since learnt that many brewers, when competing in these comps, set out to brew a particular style, but make the final decision on which catergory/style to actually enter it, after tasting the stuff.