Be a HOMEbrewer - Denny Conn

[Ladd]

Saw this on Brulosophy (http://brulosophy.com/2015/09/24/be-a-h ... enny-conn/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and thought it was a great read. Even if you disagree with some of the opinions the message is the important part. Don't always believe what you read/hear. Try it yourself and make your decision based on your own experience. This is an important life message, not one that is just applicable to homebrewing...

Dear readers,

Marshall and I talked about me writing this a few months ago and I’ve been procrastinating, trying to figure how to start off without insulting anyone. I’ve given up and I claim the privilege of old age, so I just want to say…
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH SOME HOMEBREWERS THAT THEY DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THINGS THAT CHALLENGE THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM?????

Marshall has told me a few times about people accusing him of ruining homebrewing by doing experiments that challenge or contradict the “information” that’s been printed in books or circulated by word of mouth for so many years. Really? Ruining homebrewing? Says who? Who made the rules and who’s keeping score? Homebrewing is a fucking hobby and it’s up to you how you want to do it. People like Marshall, Drew Beechum, me, and a lot of others are only concerned with giving homebrewers accurate information based on our own experience in the hope that they will find the information useful and employ it to make their own homebrewing hobby more fun and rewarding. Because that’s what it’s all about– fun. If you’re stressing over homebrewing, you’re doing something wrong.

This is not a new phenomenon. Around 2000, I began experimenting with the technique of batch sparging. There were almost no homebrewers doing it back then and I was continually told that it wouldn’t work, it would lead to low efficiency. One homebrew shop owner even reportedly told a guy asking about it that it would make “dirty beer,” whatever that is! But you know what? Not one of the people who dissed batch sparging had ever actually tried it! Once people did, they saw it was a valid way to homebrew, every bit as efficient as other all grain methods and it produced beer equally as great. I’ve judged a lot of beer and never once have I said, “Damn, this beer tastes like it was fly (or batch) sparged.” According to some surveys, batch sparging is now the most popular way to conduct an all grain homebrew. I even know of a small commercial brewery that batch sparges and achieves efficiency in the mid to upper 90% range. What happened? People actually tried it for themselves and found that the conventional wisdom was wrong.

Another amusing and frustrating example was when I conducted an experiment to determine the effect decoction has on beer. I enlisted homebrewers from around the world to brew two batches of the same beer, one using an infusion mash and the other a decoction mash. There were 5 beers brewed and a total of 42 tasters from around the world. When the findings came out that there was not a preference for decocted beers, people went crazy. The general reaction was disbelief, people felt like if they put so much effort into something, it must make a difference! Then there were the chemistry people– since chemical changes are definitely happening, it must make a difference! There was even a well known BJCP Master judge who claimed that the tasters must have “muddled palates.” Right. Why not just accept the conclusion? Because reality differed from your beliefs?

So, where did all of this conventional wisdom come from? Much of it originates from homebrew authors basing their ideas on commercial brewing practices. While some of the things commercial brewers do, and the reasons they do them, apply to us as homebrewers, much more does not. Commercial brewers have very different equipment and goals than we do, and the scale they brew on often dictates their practices. Just because a commercial brewery does something a particular way doesn’t necessarily mean homebrewers would be advised to emulate that. As HOMEbrewers, we should revel in the differences, take advantage of the things that we can do that commercial brewers can’t do. Not slavishly emulate them because some guy who wrote a book told us that’s what we should do. Too often those people are just repeating what they read in some other book without actually testing it on their own. When I began brewing, one of the most popular homebrew books stated emphatically that if you had pets you would always brew infected beer and that if you wanted to be a good brewer you needed to get rid of your pets! The same guy also said not to brew if you had a cold because the beer could get infected! To this day, remnants of that myth persist and I often see questions about it in beer and homebrew discussion forums.

One of Marshall’s latest experiments concerned the need to do a 90 minute boil when using pils malt. His results, which mirrored mine and many others, is that it’s not necessary. Yet when I discuss these results with people, most of them are resistant to trying it. Why? Because they’ve been told by books and the conventional wisdom that you have to do it! With all due respect to the people who wrote these books, many of them my friends, I emphatically say, “horse puckey!” I have never seen any indication that any of these people who advocate for long boils have actually tried a shorter one to see what happens. They are simply repeating what they have always heard or been told by commercial brewers. The fact that homebrew conditions are very different from commercial conditions gives us the freedom to use a different procedure. Why should we limit ourselves the way commercial brewers have to?

Okay, so after all this ranting, what’s the takeaway? It comes down to pretty much one thing: be critical of what you’re told. The best way to do this is to try things for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Don’t automatically believe things you’re told, whether it’s from Marshall, Drew, me, John Palmer, Charlie Papazian, or whoever.

But now many of you might be saying, “I only get to brew occasionally. I don’t want to use my precious brew time experimenting. I want someone to tell me what to do.” Fair enough, that’s understandable. If this is the case, it’s important to look for advice from people who have a track record, people who have actually tried things for themselves, evaluated them objectively, and openly share their results with the brewing community. That’s the way I approached learning about homebrewing and it’s served me well. I collected a lot of information from various sources, then evaluated the validity of those sources. When one of them seemed experienced and knowledgeable, I tried their methods. Then I decided what worked for me and what didn’t, but I was starting from a base of a trusted source. That’s what I advise all of you to do too… and experiments like those Marshall does are some of the best sources you can find. Don’t be afraid to try something that’s not in a book or that’s different from what you’ve heard. Those sources may never have tried what the contrary methods are and have no basis for their recommendations. Always look for personal experience and objective evaluation… always! Don’t proclaim that someone is “ruining the hobby” until you have personal experience with what they say. And always remember the mantra: The best beer possible with the least effort possible while having the most fun possible.

Be a HOMEbrewer!

Denny Conn

Feel free to toss out your thoughts or things that you do/don't do that flies in the face of brewing lore. I for one don't ever boil longer than 60 minutes for wort made from pilsner malt and I never have DMS issues.

[dean2k]

... Homebrewing is a fucking hobby and it’s up to you how you want to do it. ... If you’re stressing over homebrewing, you’re doing something wrong.

[LiverDance]

My brewing philosophy has always been "there's only one way to find out"

[GuingesRock]

A lot of that stuff comes from books like "How to Brew" by Palmer. Many such books say you must do this and you must do that. It's never backed up with research references. I used to love proving Palmer wrong. Now I don't care any more. Those books are all the same, yeast book etc. The best education I got was looking around real breweries in the UK. Brewed that way for centuries. I'd imagine would learn a lot in other old countries.

[mckay75]

Great read! I love the Brulosophy site! Looking forward to trying out his lagering method here in the next few weeks. I believe Woody is following it now for a dark lager...looking forward to tasting the results.

[GAM]

A-fucking-men.

S