What if you could have your own library full of successful homebrew experiments?
It would have detailed notes, research, and your findings. You could use it as a powerful reference when crafting new recipes.
“Hmm..what yeast strain should I go with in this sweet stout?”
Off to your files you go. You find the answer in one of your many side-by-side yeast experiments.
A Notebook Full of Experiments Gives you an Unfair Advantage in Brewing
And I’ll show you how you can get started. Not only that – I’ll show you how to get quick wins.
Quick wins are very important because nothing is more discouraging than a homebrewing experiment gone wrong. You get your idea…you eagerly wait for brew day…and then it comes. And everything falls apart….
Maybe you weren’t prepared. Or maybe the experiment went smoothly but you didn’t really learn anything from it.
Here are some ways you can make the most of your experiments, especially if you’re new to them.
Wait Until You Enjoy the Beer You’re Brewing
If you don’t like your “normal” beer, you won’t like your experiments. You can’t experiment your way from bad beer to good beer. You should be brewing good beer already. Get the fundamentals down. Make sure you’re not making one of the biggest mistakes new brewers make.
No, the beer doesn’t need to be great. That’s often where experimentation comes in. But you should be happy with it.
Why is that important? Because of my next tip:
Have a Consistent Process in Place
According to the scientific method, a good experiment only has one independent variable – the thing you’re changing.
Everything in your brewing process is a variable: your water, your boil length, your ingredients, your equipment, your fermentation temperature, etc. So when you go to taste your experimental beer, you want to be sure the difference you taste came from your independent variable and not something else in your process.
That’s why a consistent process is critical to good experimenting.
Use a checklist. Keep good notes. And most of all, get some batches under your belt before you jump into experimenting.
Start macro, then go micro
Make big changes first. That’s really the key to quick wins. Your goal is to taste your finished beer and say, “Whoa! That’s a huge difference! I’m using [malt type] for all my [beer style] recipes now.”
Let me give you an example.
Say you want to experiment with Munch malt. You really don’t know it that well. Well, Munich and Vienna malt are pretty similar. They are swapped out for each other in recipes all the time.
A great experiment is to brew one batch with Vienna and another one with Munich. Make an Oktoberfest-style of beer with these two variations. You’ll learn a ton about Munich and Vienna malt.
This is an example of going wide. Going narrow – which I don’t recommend at first – would be to start off by testing two different, but similar types of Munich malt. Maybe you test Munich I vs. Munich II. Or maybe you’re using Munich II, but from two different brands. Or it’s the same brand but a priest blessed one lot and not the other.
You get the idea.
Start macro. Learn the difference between Munich and Vienna. Once you’ve done that, then get more micro.
Start Further Downstream
The further downstream in the process you conduct your experiment the easier it will be. I like my Munich malt example, but there is a problem with it. Do you see it?
You need to perform TWO mashes. Ugh….
That means you need to perform two different boils, two different fermentations, and bottle two different batches.
Instead, you can perform two different boils from one mash (maybe to test hop varieties), so that’s easier. Better still, you can split a single boil kettle into two fermenters (maybe to test different yeast strains). And splitting a single fermenter into different kegs (whole fruit vs. puree perhaps?) is even easier.
See the difference in time & efforts between these experiments?
If you want to get quick wins, start further downstream. I love doing experiments in my keg or bottling bucket. I don’t do anything different until that very last day. Plus you can do some really fun stuff when it comes time to package your beer.
Test Ingredients AND Process
By now you know that you can tweak your beer without touching an ingredient. I’ll let that post do the heavy lifting in this section, so go check that out.
When we think of experimentation we immediately think of ingredients. And you should definitely test those. Test them like crazy. Experiment with different hop varieties, different yeast strains, different kinds of malt. You’ll get new insights while improving your palate.
But don’t forget about your process. Just a few of the places in your process where you can experiment are:
- Boil duration
- Fermentation temperature
- Mash temperature
- How long you age a beer
- How long you aerate
You might find some of your biggest successes in the tweaking the steps you take to brew your beer.
Brew Small Batches
Sometimes you’re trying something so wild, so cockamamie, so…STUPID (in a good way)…that you don’t want to risk an entire 5 gallon batch.
What do you do? Brew a small batch.
There is a monstrous and fantastic 1-gallon brewers unite thread here on HomebrewTalk. I suggest you give it a read. Now, there is debate about whether brewing a 1 gallon batch is worth it or not. My 1 gallon batches never turn out as good as my larger batches.
But that’s not the point. I’m not trying to brew a perfect beer at one gallon, I’m doing an experiment and looking for a thumbs up or thumbs down decision on whether or not I should scale it up to a full sized batch.
For that, they’re awesome
Finally, Get Inspiration from Other Brewers
Take advantage of the experiments conducted by other homebrewers. My most dog-eared brewing book is Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. The Basic Brewing podcast also has great experiments. And while my copy is still in the mail, I hear the new book by our friends Denny Conn and Drew Beechum is one for the ages. Use them all.
Now go forth and tinker!
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Billy Broas heads up the The Homebrew Academy. When not writing for HomeBrewTalk you can find more from Bill Broas at his blog, or at The Homebrew Academy.com.
from HBT