Freak, the tone of your posts has shifted since that first round. Maybe too much homebrew was part of it. That’s cool, it happens to all of us.
Freak said:
A couple of videos that show a blow off tube on my fermenter doesn't mean that is my only method. No one trick pony here. Most of the videos on my blog are really old and don't represent everything I do.
But it does represent what you wanted to show the world about your brewing. It represents what you were/are proud of. The whole point of a blog is to inform the world about your point of view. Nowhere is open fermentation portrayed.
In fact, I see a lot of aseptic practices that ensure clean beer. What I see is a brewing team having a great time with a brewing room and setup that would make any brewer horny. Yet, for some reason, this is not what you’re communicating in this forum and I’m confused by that.
I have made a few hundred batches of beer over 23 years
Let me just interrupt you, there. There is a LOT of experience on this forum. There are scientists, authors, engineers, and pro brewers among them. I have your experience beat by 3 years, and that’s just the start of my beer resume. So, time in alone isn’t much, it’s what you’re bringing to the table that matters.
and many of them are done completely open. Just for you I will do a totally open batch and video it for you. I do it many ways. It often has to do with the style, my mood or experimentation.
Don’t do a batch just for me, unless I’m going to get to taste it, too. Do it and document it for the same reason you talk about it here; to educate. Enter it in competitions and show off the ribbons.
Open fermentation is a valid technique, but like any technique, there are right and wrong ways to go about it. Nowhere in your posts do you mention that the beer should be racked to a closed fermenter before the krausen falls. Here are two videos that show commercial open fermentation. Note that BOTH are racked before the krausen falls.
The first one is Bigfoot, from Sierra Nevada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClXKMhcFr0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA3pPPXi7KM
Northern Brewer did a How-To video. Even though the krausen has fallen on the demo batch, they make the point that it has to be racked before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9xT8DHOZFE
But, hey… These are just modern interpretations of a “time honored” technique, right?
Freak, didn’t you mention that you like to follow the really old timey techniques because it makes you feel more connected to tradition? Well, I went to my personal brewing library to get the perspective of 278 year old advice. London and Country Brewer was first published in 1734 and important enough to be included in Jefferson’s library to be used for teaching brewing. The author’s name has been lost to time, but his poetic writing speaks to us, still.
How they saw yeast:
Yeast is a very strong acid, that abounds with subtil spirituous Qualities, whose Particles being wrapped up in those that are viscid, are by a mixture with them in the Wort, … for as the spirituous Parts of the Wort will be continually striving to get up to the Surface, the glutinous adhesive ones of the Yeast will be as constant in retarding their assent, and so prevent their Escape.
On sanitation and clean brewing practice:
Foxing is a misfortune, or rather a Disease in Malt Drinks, occasioned by divers Means, as the Nastiness of the Utensils, putting the Worts too thick together in the Backs or Cooler, Brewing too often and soon one after another, and sometimes by bad Malts and Waters, and the Liquors taken in wrong Heats, being of such pernicious Consequence to the great Brewer in particular, that he sometimes cannot recover and bring his Matters into a right Order again under a Week or two … for when once the Drink is Tainted, it may be smelt at some Distance somewhat like a Fox; It chiefly happens in hot weather, and causes the Beer and Ale so Tainted to acquire a fulsome sickish taste, that will if it is receive'd in a great degree become Ropy like Treacle, and in some short time turn Sour. This I have known so to surprize my small Beer Customers, that they have asked the Drayman what was the matter.
On open fermentation:
By which the spirituous Particles are set loose and free from their viscid Confinements, as may appear by the Froth on the Top, and to this end a moderate warmth hastens the Operation, …but if this Operation is permitted to continue too long, a great deal will get away, and the remaining grow flat and vapid.
If open fermentation is allowed to go too long:
Now tho' a small quantity of Yeast is necessary to break the Band of Corruption in the Wort, yet it is in itself of a poisonous Nature, as many other Acids are … I have known several beat the Yeast into the Wort for a Week or more together to improve it, or in plainer terms to load the Wort with its weighty and strong spirituous Particles.... They alledge for beating the Yeast into Wort, that it gives it a fine tang or relish, or as they call it at London, it makes the Ale bite of the Yeast; …to me it proves a discovery of the infection by its nauseous taste. …But this, last way of beating in the Yeast too long, I think I have sufficiently detected, and hope, as it is how declining, it will never revive again
On Temperature control and racking:
Yeast is put into it, that it may gradually work two Nights and a Day at least, for this won't admit of such a hasty Operation as the common brown Ale will, because if it is work'd too warm and hasty, such Beer won't keep near so long as that fermented cooler. … then they take all the Yeast off at Top and leave all the Dregs behind, putting only up the clear Drink, and when it is a little work'd in the Barrel, it will be fine in a few Days and ready for drinking.
To distill the 278 year old open fermentation advice: Ferment cool, use clean equipment and don’t leave it out too long because that beer stinks!
Quite frankly, at 26 years and counting, I still haven’t stopped learning about beer and brewing.
