Friday, February 15, 2019

Am I a Better Craft Brewer or Homebrewer?

We're doing pretty well at Sapwood Cellars so far. Our most recent batch of Snip Snap (Citra-Galaxy DIPA) only lasted 2.5 days on draft, about 200 gallons drained by the pour and growler fill. Ratings on Untappd were stellar. Is this how good Scott and I were at homebrewing or is our new 10 bbl brewhouse and temperature controlled fermentors making our beer better than it was?

I shot video of the big batch of Snip Snap and brewed a small batch at the brewery with my old pots and fermentor. We tried to keep them as identical as possible, using malt/hops/yeast from the same bags for both batches. I sampled both beers blind, and we served them to 49 customers in the tasting room to see which they preferred for this Video!




10 comments:

Michaƫl said...

What a splendid video! Thanks so much Mike, that was really informative and fun to watch. Quick question: did you check that the mash temperature was maintained in roughly the same way on both batches? —and by the way, how do you maintain the temperature on the smaller kit?

Cheers!
M.

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

With the smaller volume there was inherently less consistency with the small batch (I put the flame on low if it drops while recirculating). That said, mashing in takes so long on the big batch that there is variability until all the grain/water is in. Luckily the two beers were both within .001 of both OG and FG.

Grey Ghost said...

Great video.

Logan said...

That was awesome, thanks for making that happen. Strap down that O2 tank man! Seen some horror stories, they fall over and just happen to shear off the top valve, forget it. Really enjoyed the video, long time fan.
Cheers

Anonymous said...

Always such a bummer when content is only available as a video. I need to be able to skim...

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

There's content that works better for each media. This made more sense as a video. The short of it is that brewing with the same ingredients/recipe on my old homebrewing setup and the 10 bbl brewhouse yielded roughly similar results. The biggest differences were just that we didn't do a great job carbonating the small batch and didn't allow enough time for the hop burn to settle out.

Aaron said...

Love the video, this can be a go-to response when somebody says homebrewers can't make beer that is as good as commercially available beer.

I noticed in this and other Sapwood Cellars recipes you've written about your hop additional schedule changes with no/less boil hops and more whirlpool hops to compensate as you say for the longer time at whirlpool temps on a larger system. I was wondering if you've changed your dry hopping approach as well and no longer do the early fermentation dry hop? I've been reading/hearing that a lot of well-respected NEIPA brewers do not do the early fermentation dry hop on a lot of their beers so that they can harvest yeast, doing the first dry hop right at the tail end of fermentation. I've also heard a few brewers say that they get a clearer and more specific hop character with later dry hops, and that the early fermentation dry hops give more of a muddled, general "tropical fruit" kind of flavor. Have you changed your dry hopping approach at Sapwood Cellars and if so, have you noticed a big difference from your homebrew approach in terms of flavor/aroma?

Fabio said...

Very interesting, thanks! Is there any chance that you will release the recipe of Snip Snap? As a homebrewer living in Germany, I doubt that I will get to try your creations anytime soon... Please don't stop making videos like this!

Prost!

Unknown said...

Is there any benefit to doing an all galaxy hop for the first DH, then dryhopping with something like Citra/Nelson? What are your thoughts on splitting hop types between DH's, or just adding the same addition to each dryhop?

Cheers!

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

If you take a look at the other IPA recipes I've posted here, Snip Snap shares most of the same attributes. Plenty of pale, Pils, and malted wheat and oats. Balanced sulfate/chloride around 150 PPM. Big dose of Simcoe/Centennial at the end of the boil (maybe a small dose at 15 to up the bitterness). Fermentation with WY1318 or similar. Aggressive double-dry hopping with Citra and Galaxy.

Hop variety would only be really important if you were doing a late-fermentation compared to post. Different compounds would be preserved or volatilized. In this case both are after, so I might only save a variety if it was especially fleeting/delicate.