BeerBorg

MadBrewer wrote:Poodie da man. Just ask Mr.Bill's Mom.

I was going say similar to Olly, these guys are trained to taste and pick up on what we can't or do not know about.

But since we got an old thread going, what is your lager and D-rest technique Dave? Dry Yeast or Liquid, what kind of starter, what size pitch...etc. Pitching warm for a lager and then crashing it down to lager temps is a good ticket to diacytel or however it's spelled.

I also applaud Poodie's post. It's great to hear from a judge, and we who enter comps need to understand that, yes, the judges are human, the judging is, by its very nature, somewhat subjective, and, let's face it, if you've been sampling beers all day, you're going to experience palate fatigue, even if it's not an IPA. How many stouts can you sample before you hit the wall?

So, on to MadBrewer's questions directed specifically at The Hat:

My lager technique is to set my lager fridge temp at around 52 or so well prior to brew day. I usually use White Labs yeast for my lagers, as I find them more specific to style than many dry yeasts. I use a 2 liter flask for my starter, using Light DME. I brew on Sundays, so I try to make the starter on Thursday night or Friday night at the latest. If I'm able, I cold crash the starter just as the krausen starts to fall. I decant as much as I can before pitching, and I try to get the wort chilled to as close to 60 degrees or under as I can. It isn't always easy, but in the fall and winter, I can usually manage.

For the D rest, I take a gravity reading after five days or so. If I'm around 75% progress in reaching my FG, I bring the beer out of the fridge and into the basement, where the temperature is usually in the mid-high 60s, depending on the season. After a week of that, I put it back in the lager fridge for the remainder of the fermentation process. I usually wait at least 3 weeks before bottling, but with lagers, I know it can take a little longer, so there's no hard and fast rule for me.

Right now, I'm waiting on an Oktoberfest that I brewed back in April, and the secondary has been in the fridge, with me lowering the temp by about 5 degrees, for about three months. It's been sitting at 32 degrees for a long time, now, and I'm almost ready to keg it. Probably either right before Labor Day, or right after. Since my daughter is getting married that weekend, I'm kind of up in the air. But I want it to have proper carbonation and keg conditioning so I can begin tapping it in October and enjoy all that malty goodness when the seasons change!

I might also mention that my entry in the Dark Lager category in Homebrew Alley IX got my highest score ever; a 36.5, with the BJCP certified judge telling me that if I went a little lighter on the bittering hops, it would be "a great Dark American Lager."

And I didn't win anything. And the time I did win a ribbon, also for a Dark American Lager, my score was a good 3 points lower.

Competitions are funny things, and I really love entering Homebrew Alley! I just need to decide what I'm going to enter in next year's comp.

That's great Dave! I'm really happy with any of my beers that score over 35.

Me too. Getting as close to 40 as I did was a real positive experience for me. Apparently, I make good American Dark Lagers. Thing is, I limit my lager brewing because it takes so damn long.

Great posts, Oly and Poodie.

I try to save a bottle or two of a beer I've sent in to a comp. You can then sit down with that very beer and see if you can find what they did as you go over your scoresheets. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.

While I don't enter competitions myself, if I did I would do what Pudge mentioned and save a bottle to drink while reviewing the sheets.
As it is, when I send off a beer to somebody here I try to drink one while reading their thoughts on it so I can compare what I taste to what they taste - judge or not.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Yeah, traditionally, I've been reserving a bottle to drink during the day of the comp, mostly out of superstition. But it makes a buttload more sense to save a bottle for the judges' sheets, and then actually TASTE THE BEER while you read the comments.

Sometimes I'm so dense, I scare myself.