bperetto said:
I'm not really worried about my pitch rate like some of you. Those absurd pitch rates generated by mr malty are based on professional production where they try to push beer out in a hurry. I'm just more curious than anything. My beer is just fine and from what I've had of Zainey's commercial offerings, better than his.
Wow. You might want to get your facts straight.
The pitching rates are NOT based on professional production. They are based on Jamil's personal experiments as a homebrewer. They were published LOOONG before he even thought about starting heretic. he has been preaching 0.75 mil/ml/Plato for ales and 1.50 mil/ml/plato for Lagers since 2006....for HOMEBREW.
Chris White recommends 0.50mil/ml/plato and 1.0 mil/ml/plato for professional brewers. The explanation that he has given for the differenct (and lower qty's) is the different hydrodynamics, depth, and aspect ratio of the professional fermenters. Essentially, more CO2 is held in solution in professional fermenters which suppresses ester production on the professional scale. Therefore, they need to stress the yeast more to get the same flavor profile as homebrewers---or rather homebrewers don't need to stress the yeast as much.
The leading experts in the field all agree within a few percentage points on the desired pitching rates...from leading beer schools, to the heads of both major homebrew yeast companies (Charlie Bamforth, Chris White, Dave Logsdon, etc). The pitching rates are in NO WAY designed around fermentation DURATION. All of the above listed experts have stated that they were specifically designed around getting the best FLAVOR profile...For both Homebrewers, and professional brewers. The exact numbers differ as described above. But, NOT A SINGLE ONE would call the above recommendations absurd.
I don't really care what you do...but, if you are going to get on here and "refute" the documented advise of worldwide respected experts...you owe it to everyone to back up your claims with facts and hard data. Simply stating "my beer is better than his" really means absolutely nothing. Great, you like your beer. Does anyone else? Have you won the Ninkasi, or Hombrewer of the Year? How about a measurable fraction of as many NHC medals as JZ? Have you done series after series of fermentation trials at different pitching rates, followed by double blind, triangle taste tests?
JZ has done the tests, and has won the awards as a result. He's shared every bit of knowledge that he gained in that pursuit. It's rather comical that someone with no known reputation or credentials, would get on here (or anywhere) and simply say "That's crap. I don't do that, and my beer is way better than his."