Do you really need to heat your sparge water?

[Gymrat]

http://brulosophy.com/2016/04/11/sparge ... t-results/

[Beer-lord]

I always enjoy reading his stuff. It's interesting that he couldn't tell the difference. But his mention of tannins when sparging too hot made me once again, shake my head. Tannins are rarely a problem at the homebrew level. You'd have to really go out of your way for it to be a problem IMHO.
Though I rarely need to sparge, I do think you would do better with heated water. After all, great beer has been made that way for ages so why mess with it?

[Gymrat]

I am always open to new ideas. I have learned that there is a lot of "dogma" in brewing. Stuff that we just do because it is the way we have always done it. Example the 1.25 qts per pound for mashing. When I played with that I found that I had less stuck sparges and better efficiency at 1.75 to 2 qts per pound of grain. Another example would be transfering to a secondary fermenter. In my opinion that is only necessary when doing extended fermentations, ie months before packaging.

At first when reading about this experiment I thought of this as a way to save on propane. But then I read the point that this makes you begin your boil from a lower temperature. So the propane savings is kind of a wash. I usually heat my sparge water while taking my first runnings. It takes a while to get that water up to 180F though. Next time I am just going to use it at whatever temperature it hits once I have all of my first runnings collected.

[John Sand]

I have done it both ways, without seeing a regular difference. My numbers are neither as carefully measured nor consistent as theirs. But I am pretty flexible about process. Hot sparge, cool if I need more. Low on gravity? Add extract, or wing it. High gravity? Add water in the fermenter, or the keg. Have it your way.

[mashani]

FWIW, I've gotten tannins before by being a dummy and made beer that tasted like sucking on a tea bag. And that was in a PM beer! So rarely a problem sure, but it is possible.

I "cold sparged" my cold steep the other day, but that was not really a mash, so it doesn't really count. But I'm willing to try it, its one less thing to mess with.

RE: dogma, I break so many "rules" it's not funny, and still end up liking my own beer better then most of what I can buy.

[HerbMeowing]

"Here are the results for the one time I did this" and qualitative evaluations are the blatant flaws in Brewsophistry's approach.

[mashani]

"Here are the results for the one time I did this" and qualitative evaluations are the blatant flaws in Brewsophistry's approach.

To be devils advocate here (I agree with your scientific method issue in theory), some of the things he tries are supposed to make "bad" beer, or not work based on "what we all know because we were told it by someone who was told it by someone a long time ago" - yet they didn't make bad beer and/or did work. So there is that. And trying things out of the box like that is how other techniques (BIAB, Aussie nochill, etc. - or my lid on at flameout techniques to keep out brett and/or capture aromas) that would have been though of as "crap that will make bad beer, give you DMS, blah de blah" in the past have been demonstrated to be just something someone said once that everyone now knows as "fact" even though it doesn't actually happen.

If nothing else, it is a stepping point for future experimentation. I'm willing to try out a cool sparge. It doesn't scare me.

[John Sand]

I think that too. And Brulosopher admits that it is one test, necessarily subjective. In fact, the guys that do the experiments often don't change their process based on the results. But when the results back up my own experience, it makes me more confidant in my relaxed brewing.

[The_Professor]

I've made a no boil beer, as in started fermentation after the mash. And it was fine, for about 10 days before it went sour.

While it's interesting for someone to write "Hey, I did this and it was fine", "now let's question everything we do", nah, I'm not on board even though I do any crazy thing I want to when I brew.

Although interesting the article mentions Kai (The Kaiser @ HBT) who I am familiar with in regards to decoction mashing.

[mashani]

I've made a no boil beer, as in started fermentation after the mash. And it was fine, for about 10 days before it went sour.

Authentic Berliner's are no boil beer. But they are supposed to be sour. But the fun thing is they also don't get DMS, where according to the DMS logic folks preach they should be DMS soup.

[The_Professor]

Authentic Berliner's are no boil beer...

That's interesting. I would be interested to see a write up if you have a link.

I am hoping to do my own version of a Berliner Weisse for this summer. About half the barley addition would be homemade "sour malt" (wet milled raw barley left in a ziplock for 5 days or so before drying) then fermented with some of the Safale K-97 I have. I've done the "sour malt" a couple times and it adds a nice tartness. The method is from a YouTube video about African Millet beer.

[mashani]

Authentic Berliner's are no boil beer...

That's interesting. I would be interested to see a write up if you have a link.

I am hoping to do my own version of a Berliner Weisse for this summer. About half the barley addition would be homemade "sour malt" (wet milled raw barley left in a ziplock for 5 days or so before drying) then fermented with some of the Safale K-97 I have. I've done the "sour malt" a couple times and it adds a nice tartness. The method is from a YouTube video about African Millet beer.

Your basically making the same thing that Germans call "saurmalt" (we call it acidulated malt) by doing what you describe. Which is cool and it will work. The only downside is that it tends to not be as complex an end result as a true bug fermentation. Which could be good or bad depending on what makes the beer more complex LOL.

To give you some examples of what I was talking about:

This beer, which you can find a Whole Foods sometimes is outstanding example of an authentic Berliner:

Professor Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse - http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/23495/36378/

It is not boiled. The bottle/label gives a lot of good information about the beer and it's history. He's done other old world beers too. And he's most certainly not a moron. "Dr. Fritz Briem is technology Director at Doemens Institute. He has a PhD from Weihenstephan, and was a member of the technical and research staff there. Fritz teaches at the Siebel Institute of Technology, primarily in the areas of brewing and fermenting technology."

Also, "Brewing with Wheat" by Stan Hieronymous and Kristen England has a good no boil Berliner recipe. That book was well researched. Variations on that recipe have won many first place awards. Variations tend to just mess with the OG and proportions a bit. But it's basically just a blend of Pilsner and Wheat that is mash hopped, and then racked directly to a carboy and pitched with lacto or a lacto blend. It uses a protein rest with a single decoction, because it's designed as a traditional German recipe. The only boil is that decoction, so the majority of the mash is never boiled. Wheat prortions can go all over the place, modern ones might be 20-30%, authentic old world ones 50+% (I think even up to 80% wheat is still authentic in an old school sense).

Here is one modified version of that recipe that I found looking to see if anyone published the book recipe on-line:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012 ... -beer.html

Mad Fermentationist did one too but with more pils and less wheat and as a triple decoction:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20 ... weiss.html

Yes, there is PILS in all of these and they not boiled except for the decoction steps. And they are not DMS soup. Cool.

Technically (and to be really old school) it would spontaneously ferment with lacto, since the grains contain lots of lacto (which is why you can make your sour malt of course), but pitching more lacto or a blend will give the lacto a big foothold and lower the PH to the point that all the other bugs die a horrible death. Which is a good thing if you want consistent and not-possibly-nasty results. If you were to spontaneously ferment with just the grains, best bet would be to let that go for maybe 12 hours or 1 day, and then add some German Ale yeast to help get things going and kill off other bugs you don't want before they do bad things. Otherwise you might end up with something kind of nasty instead of just sour.

Belgians would just toss that stuff they wanted to spontaneously ferment into a barrel that was used in a previous batch that turned out good as the barrel is then inoculated with goodly amounts of hungry and helpful bugs. But you probably don't have one of those. They would call it a type of Geuze, but it's a very similar style.

[The_Professor]

Alright, I've been threatening myself with a trip to Whole Foods lately. I'll look for Professor Fritz Briem's 1809 Berliner Weisse when I'm there.

[mashani]

@Professor, if you happen to see a bottle of the 13th Century Gruit or the Grodziskie that he made, grab those too. They are well worth the investment since I know you are into those types of things like me. That Grodziskie is the only smoked beer I've ever really liked. I'm going to get some of that smoked wheat and use it in some "holy roman empire" style abbey beers this summer to give them the "grains roasted over an open fire" vibe.

[mashani]

I think that too. And Brulosopher admits that it is one test, necessarily subjective. In fact, the guys that do the experiments often don't change their process based on the results. But when the results back up my own experience, it makes me more confidant in my relaxed brewing.

I think what I will do next time I mash, is split the grain into 2 pots and do 2 simultaneous mashes. I oven mash "BIAB" style as such, so conditions will be the same.

Then sparge one normally and one with cold water.

Check the OG of each before I combine for the boil.

That should be a good test I think.