In this week’s episode, I have Ryan Pachmayer and we’re talking about the different and alternative methods for making the lager which is Pseudo-Lagers. We’re going to discuss how to make different iterations of lagers and some of the new ways to get into lagers.
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Show Transcript
AI created it will have many errors.
1-Colter-5: In this week’s episode, we’re going to talk to Ryan pack Meyer and we’re going to discuss different and alternative methods for making the. Logger, you can call them a pseudo logger, or you can call them a steam beer, or even a culture. There are all different types of names for this style of beer, but we’re going to discuss how to make different iterations of a lager light beers using L temperatures.
And we’re going to talk about some of the new ways to get into lagers this week on homework. Yeah.
And welcome back to homebrewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of home brewing. Gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This show covers it all on this week’s show. We’re talking to Ryan packed buyer. Yeah. We’re going to discuss different ways to look at fake loggers or the pseudo log.
We’re going to talk about the traditional ways to get lager-like ales, or even if you want to look at the new world ways of doing them, maybe under pressure or using Kobe. So stick around while we talk to Ryan, but first I’d like to thank you. All of our patrons over at Patreon. It’s because of you that this show can come to you week after week for free.
I first would like to thank our newest patron. His name is James. So James, thank you very much for becoming a basic plus member. Your support is obviously going to help the show improve. And I just can’t. Thank you enough. And if you’d like to become a patron head on over to patrion.com forward slash homebrewing, DIY, give it any amount.
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But those. Companies support the show cause they know that we sent you well. As far as what’s going on in my brewery. Yeah. I’ve been really, really, really working hard trying to nail the topic we’re going to talk about today, which is the pseudo logger. I’m particularly using the method of trying to use at really warm temperatures but trying to get a lager-like beer and.
I have to say, I feel like I’ve got the flavor down and things are there, but I’m just working on getting that lager light clarity, but I think it will come. And hopefully, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk to Ryan and get a little bit deeper into some things you could do to make that work. Okay.
Other than that, I’ve got my brew pipe, remixed build, getting underway. I’m I know I’ve been talking about this one for a few weeks, just waiting for one more part, and then that one’s going to be built up, keep an eye out on my Instagram and you will see the photos of that. And yeah. , just that’s what’s going on in the homebrewing.
DIY is a brewery also over at discord. We are getting a little going on over here. And I highly recommend if you go to our website, click on the, join, the discussion, hop onto our discord server. We’ve got a channel on there for Kovach swaps and I have to say that, it’s been pretty cool.
We’ve got some of the brewers that are on that discord channel, have some really cool yeasts and I’m pretty excited to try some of those as well. So if you want to check that out, head over to our discord server, let’s jump into this week’s episode where we’re going to talk to Ryan pack Meyer, and we are going to talk to him about making the pseudo logger.
I’d like to welcome Ryan to the show. How are you doing Ryan?
2-Ryan: Thanks for having me again.
1-Colter-5: Hey, always pleased to have you on homebrewing DIY. Now, for those of you that don’t know, Ryan is a BJC P certified beer judge. He’s also, your writer and is currently working on a really cool article for Zimmer genie magazine. That’s due out here in the next issue. And. I thought he would be a good person to bring on the show for this episode because as you heard in the introduction, I’m really trying to nail the, I call it the pseudo logger or the fo logger.
And there’s a tradition in home brewing to get lager-like beers. And I want to talk about kind of the old ways and then maybe get into the new ways. Does that sound like a pretty fun conversation to have today?
2-Ryan: Absolutely sounds great to me.
1-Colter-5: Awesome. So Ryan, let’s, let’s talk a bit about maybe some of the more traditional ways to get lager-like ales when you don’t have, let’s say a fermentation chamber set up to be able to do watering temperatures.
What kind of styles would you want to go to?
2-Ryan: I mean, if you’re trying to make it longer like beer, the first thing that jumps out to me is kind of the warm butter water fermentation method. I’m like, Where you’re basically in like the sixties and your pressure from any, and you’re using the lager yeast and you’re just turning something over pretty quickly.
So you’re essential for many of the primary for a week or two till it finishes out. And then you’re going to try to find a way to cold crash if you can, or just gelatin it to clear it up and serve it two weeks later. And you have a pretty lager-like beer that’s actually made with lager yeast. That’s the one method that jumps out to me. The other method is to use the steam water, use the California steam blogger, um, anchor steam use, and that’s really a warmer use. And that gives you a lager-like as well. Uh, but both of those have to be done in the sixties and for people without fermentation control, sometimes the sixties can be tough to get, especially when you’re talking about internal temperature.
Um, if your house is 68, your internal temperatures can be warmer than 68. And that beer when it’s fermenting. And it can be tough to get in the mid-seventies for a beer like that and still have it be clean. Um, and that’s kind of where the light comes in.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, I kind of totally agree with you. When you think about the different styles of beer. When you’re looking at, let’s say I have zero control I’m in my basement and my basement is 65 degrees. The temperature in the middle of that beer could be two to five degrees warmer depending on the gravity of that beer.
Right.
2-Ryan: Or even bigger if it’s a big beer or just a really aggressive use, like these London three, I bet your temperatures can be five, maybe even eight or nine degrees warmer.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. I, I personally have had issues where I have my fermentation chamber set it, like, you know, Let’s say it’s set at 67 degrees and I’ve got it kind of taped to the outside of my fermentor. And once the heat starts taking off, it’ll actually bump up a few degrees and I’ll see the cooler kick on and try to bring it back down.
Luckily, I have temperature control, but when you think about somebody who doesn’t have temperature control, are you using the ice method and you’re not really tracking your temperature control? Well, it could be very, very different in the middle of that beer. Right.
2-Ryan: It was very difficult to, it’s very hard to make something longer. Like when you don’t have at least some idea or some sort of control, um, cause you want to be within five degrees, maybe sometimes a little bit better. And if you’re swinging from 64 to 74, it can be pretty wild. So, um, it’s good to use alternative use in those kinds of situations.
And that’s, you know, again is appealing to that for that reason.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, it is, uh, let’s, let’s talk about like the first attempt in America to come up with an ill beer that’s lager. Like, and I would say the first thing that comes to my mind is a cream ale, right. Uh, you know, to me it’s like the cream ale is like the ale version of an American light lager. And you can actually get a very crisp, clean lawnmower type beer from a cream ale.
Right.
2-Ryan: Yeah, I agree. I mean, females are very, uh, neutral, and profile. They’re nice. Um, don’t quite have, I mean, they usually don’t use the German hops and oftentimes there’s a little bit of corn or something like that in there, so you’re not, um, you’re not necessarily. Trying to mimic a German Pilsner, but you get a very clean, refreshing, one more type here.
Um, that very possible, very drinkable. And, uh, those are great styles. Some of the neutral blondes are very good as well. Um, we were trying to make like an American blonde.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, an American blonde Ella would be a great one and simple to make both of those beers. Right. So if you’re thinking about a recipe for like a core, a cream ale, it’s going to be two-row or six-row. If you’re going for traditional, you’re going to use six-row. Y’all want to have some corn in there. Some, some flaked corn, probably about 20 per 20% or less of the grist.
Would you agree with that? That seems about right to you.
2-Ryan: Yeah, I think that’s about right. I don’t think he puts too much more than that.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, traditionally they’re made with cluster hops. If, if you’re, if you’re really wanting to go with a traditional cream L you get the little bit of cat piss in there. That’s the, that’s the flavor profile of cluster, but it’s mainly just a light, like 15 ID use very, very light on the bitterness from the cluster.
And usually, only a bittering charge, not really a lot of aroma hops, but you can ferment a cream ale at. 70 or in the seventies, if you’re using and have zero issues, right.
2-Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. And I actually liked them better than light lagers. I think when you use the adjuncts like corn in a light lager, the white laundry when you actually use a lot, you used to becomes almost too clean. It has a little bit of like that alcoholic bite, at least to me, you know, if I’m drinking like a Coors Light or a banquet or something like, they’re not bad beers, but they had this little bit of a bite to them that I don’t really get in the CRE mouse, the queen nails, I think because they’re using the alias, they’re a little bit, a little bit more of a mouth feels then, um, they don’t have that alcohol.
So I actually enjoy female more than the Americans.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, I do too. And I think they have a little bit more body in general, just, uh, and I think it’s because of the, yeah, it’s, it’s a lot lighter, adjunct, right? If you’re talking about, uh, uh, a traditional American light lager, you’re looking at a much higher percentage of adjuncts than barley.
2-Ryan: Yeah, so it’ll dry it out a little more. And a lot of times they use rice and that American life. So
1-Colter-5: Yeah. A lot of the time they use rice. I mean, come on bud lights right now, advertising. There are only four ingredients in it and rice is one of them.
2-Ryan: I prefer it for
1-Colter-5: Yeah, me too. Me too. Me too. Uh, the other, the other beer I’d like to maybe jump into, if you if you’re looking at zero, temperature control might be a Kolsch, which for me if I talk about the crisp. Lawnmower beer crushable beer that I think has a great flavor and body. The culture for me is a go-to.
And I think one of my favorite, favorite styles to just have as a house beer.
2-Ryan: I like ulcers as well. I haven’t actually routed a culture as far as I can remember. So I enjoy drinking than when a brewery does it while I’m very, very happy. And that is another one that if a brewery’s out longer, you know, they don’t need to don’t have the time or the capacity to do a logger. A lot of breweries traditionally will do something that calls in.
Yeah. When it comes out, it’s just a clean, easy step in good clean flavors.
1-Colter-5: Clear, they usually just the culture yeast out there just flocks out is so clear.
2-Ryan: not a lot of places to hide a flaw in that kind of view either. So, uh, definitely have to. Yeah, pretty good brewery to make. I think a solid, at least special sense.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. So, so now we’re, we’ve kind of talked about like, you know, some ales you could make that are crisp then clean that are going to be in that style. But I had like to really dive into some of the newer methods, like, let’s talk a bit about the yeast and, and what’s kind of going on out there as far as people trying to get lager, like beers with different strains of Kovacs.
2-Ryan: Yeah. At some point last year personally, I was reading the random philosophy article and someone made an offhand comment in the comment section, which by the way, the last few comments section is pretty, it could be inspiring because people do so many different creative things. And someone mentioned turning a lager around in five days with the scar out East, from the escarpment and.
They said it was very clean and tasted just like a longer. And that was, uh, I was kinda surprised. I’d heard about people doing clean beers before, but people do clean beers with us for five. And it’s not, it’s not what I would call a Lauder. Like, so this guy was insistent that it was a lager. Like, and I started Googling around other people were doing this and reporting pretty good results with it.
And I just decided, Hey, I want to try this. Let’s see how close to a logger this yeast can really be like. Cause you know, like he used his. You know, the Norwegian farmhouse is known for giving all five us flavors, the tropical flavors, all sorts of different flavors, but it wasn’t known for being super clean, but apparently there’s a few of these screens that incremental very, very clean, very quickly.
And at very high temperatures, uh, people are doing the scar. The people are doing a lot of this 80-degree range and they’re coming out with really clean beer. Um, so I started experimenting, researching, and experimenting, brewing so on and, um, Eventually I talked to Dave carpenter energy and, uh, working on a feature article.
I think it’s been out in February about, uh, making clean, almost longer, like beer with my keys. Then I’ve talked to all the, uh, East labs. I’ve talked to dozens of brewers, professional brewers that are making these beers. Some of them are calling them the region lagers some of them are calling them pseudo loggers, some were just calling them waters. Um, and they’re, they’re coming out really well. And, uh, there are some specific parameters you’d have to follow to kind of make sure it’s clean. But, um, it’s really interesting and it’s allowing bruise too, from that well into the seventies and eighties, ferment faster, um, you can re harvest these in a very safe way.
It’s a very strong East, so competes for a lot of wild East, so contamination less than a factor. Uh, so it becomes really affordable. Quick to turn over lagers, you know, one, two, three weeks, you turn over a lager, re-harvest a yeast. All of a sudden you don’t have to pay for a used again. And you’re just getting really good attenuation, really stop fermentation.
Um, so there’s a lot of advantages that some of the traditional methods of making studio loggers don’t offer, uh, that this is really come into play with.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. And, and let’s talk a bit about some of these tricks that you might want to do to make it work. Right. So one of them, obviously I’ve been doing some of this experimenting with you. I think one of the first ones when we got ahold of some scarer we did together and I feel like that beer. As far as clarity ended up turning out really, really good.
It did have a tinge of a, of a fruity flavor to it. But I think that that just has to do with, uh, we, we fermented it very, very warm, like in like, I think it was 87. What we ended up doing it at,
2-Ryan: it was on the high side.
1-Colter-5: it was definitely on the high side, but for me, what are some of the things that you’re hearing from these brewers and the yeast labs that you can do to really get a super clean beer with
2-Ryan: Um, so the first thing is really the pitch rate. Um, you want to pitch. Usually, the advice people are speaking in general, whether it’s a Cezanne or an IPA is you can under pitch it and don’t give up your character. So if you’re trying to make a clean beer, you want to pitch it at a much higher rate, closer to like a full hail pitch, right?
So you want to, you want a higher pitch rate, and that means the best as much. They won’t throw off as many flavors if you like a cleaner. Um, that’s number one. Number two is somebody can be like, you seem to, uh, initial a little bit lower in pH. So you want to keep your mash pH in the higher range. Like five, four, or five, five.
A lot of times when I’m making a German monitor, I might be got like five, two with like a larger use. But with you want to start a little higher because you’re going to drop a little more on average. So starting at like five, four, five, five will allow you to kind of end up in a range that’s appropriate. It doesn’t peer out too much, um, using nutrients both with your starters.
Um, and when you’re pitching the yeast in the beer, Uh, is really important for whatever reason, like is used to being in like super harsh conditions, these farmhouse conditions, and they’re used to fermenting like, you know, poorly fermentable work that’s super high gravity. And so when you get it low gravity of like those asleep, lot of times, you really want to give it nutrients.
So it’s really healthy and really through a lower crappy work without the kind of going to sleep on you or, or the under attenuates, you don’t want them to attenuation at all.
1-Colter-5: And if you’re talking about different kinds of East nutrients, what, what types of nutrients are there? Are they, is
2-Ryan: Um, I’ll go with that. That’s, that’s generally what you want from what I’ve been told,
1-Colter-5: Yeah.
2-Ryan: and that’s what I’ve been using and having
1-Colter-5: yeah. That’s what I have a bottle of. And I use, I just, you
2-Ryan: the most, most breweries use has that in it as well. Just look for a downloading phosphate or adapt, um, in the nutrient and you should be pretty good. I think, um, But the other thing is, um, uh, using the right strain. So there are a ton of like use and some of them will give off fruity flavors and almost any temperature.
And then some of them are way cleaner. Um, so just a quick overview of them, crispy from escarpment is a really good clean strain. That’s the SCARA like the new one. They isolated two of the three, the better the attenuating experience from the scar. They’re not going to make that scar. So crispy is that. The newer version of that and better version that attenuates a little better.
Um, Luchea from Omega, which is I have, uh, like those narrate here, maybe a hundred percent German mall, um, all the thoughts I think, and, uh, quite clear now, but, uh, it’s based in nice. So Lucia from Omega,
1-Colter-5: And that’s what I’m drinking a Lutra one. As we, as we speak as well.
2-Ryan: um, Oslo, uh, both propagate here in Colorado and bootleg biology. They cause low use. Um, I was, it was really nice. It also gives off a little bit kind of sulfur flavor, which is nice. And at least in my experience, I’ve had a little bit better situation with it. Um, so I was, it was pretty cool. Um, there’s possibly a few others.
I haven’t tried OSS fog from, uh, propagate. That’s supposed to be pretty clean the original boss from the boss, from, uh, propagate, supposed to be pretty clean. And then some people are even using, uh, The horn and on some of those, um, in my experience wanted dollars to Rudy, better for IPA’s, but some brews are using it to success, especially if they’re making more of a hoppy, IPL, or American hoppy bills in their kind of style where the fruit a little bit fruit can kind of play with the hops and you still have to clean here.
So, I mean, those are kind of the general overview of the temperature’s another factor. Um, you gotta be at least 70 degrees in my experience with most of these use. If you go below 70, a lot of them will kind of just fall on you or under attenuated. And then some of them go all the way up to 90. Um, it really depends on which one you’re using.
I think Oslo stays cleaner for a little higher. Um, in general, I like Lutra in the seventies, but there are professional brewers using blue, tread 90, and getting a clean beer. So it’s very, uh, they have a wide range once you get over 70, that’s a pretty wide range between 70 85 I think is pretty safe.
Temperature for most of these. Um, and as you dial it in to new batches, you can dial in the temperature. Do you think works best? Um, the last, the last thing I would say is making a starter is pretty important. Getting some active used going for these. Um, to me, it seems like they get better attenuation than a lot of activities.
So even if you’re pitching a ton of dry or liquid East from packages and these beers, I’ve gotten better attenuation with a starter, even though it ends up being pretty big over the pitch. Um, it just seems like there’s the more active use of looking around and it, it just cleans everything up a little bit more and you get closer to that kind of 80, 82% attenuation, which if you’re making like a German pseudo like German, Pellicer, that’s the kind of attenuation you really want.
It’s that dry crisp flavor really mimic that kind of year compared to this one was only 75%. Tenuation I didn’t make a starter super clean tasty, but it doesn’t quite have that crisp bite to be like a German Pilsner. I think that 82% attenuation.
1-Colter-5: Let’s talk a bit about you find, do you, do you feel that you need to do gelatin or any type of finding like that to get it to be crystal clear? One of the things that I’ve struggled with is actually getting it to fully flock out. My Lutra is still kind of hazy and it’s been cold conditioning for a couple of weeks.
I can never get mine. My, uh, Oslo to ever clear out. It just was hazy the whole time. W w what kind of things could you do to maybe get a beer to be more like that? Crystal clear lager color.
2-Ryan: Absolutely. This is something I’ve struggled with as well. So this beer is clear now it’s just kind of where I want it to be, but this is like three and a half weeks out. And I didn’t find this at all. So, um, in talking to professionals, um, the first thing you want to do is you start that as a world’s block kind of thing, um, to just knock out and just get clean work, going into the fermentor.
Do you want your work to be as clean as possible going into the fermentor? Um, whether you use a filter will flock or something else like that. Um, Irish Moss, something like that. That’s a good way to get started.
1-Colter-5: So
2-Ryan: But then
1-Colter-5: hops in the boil kettle. Cause I do that.
2-Ryan: would your hops in a hospital as well? But, um, uh, another thing you want to do is, uh, I like to kind of secondary crash them and then using like bio finer gelatin, I think is really important. So like these beers interesting about these beers is that you don’t get off flavors like five days in like they’re drinkable.
But they look like, you know, really hazy, like vise beer, Keller beer, because they don’t, they don’t drop out. So you really need to push them to drop out. So in my opinion, you kind of want like a five day fermentation give or take and then transfer it into like a CAG with bio finer gelatin and then cold crash it for a good five to seven days.
And then you can carve it up while you’re crashing and then you’re ready to drink it, like on day 10 or 12. And it should be pretty clean at that point there. So I think that’s the way you get really clean beer. Usually I personally. They still tastes really good when they’re not fully locked out, but they, uh, they maintain a little bit of that slightly fruity flavor until they really drop out.
And that’s when you get that crystal clear view. And if you’re going for like a pseudo German lager, that’s what you want.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. And, and you want to kind of one, one trick that I love it is I format in kegs. And having a Fu and having a floating dip tube is something that you can get clearer beer faster. Cause obviously you’re drawing from the top, even, even a hazy IPA eventually is going to clear out, right? If you, if you, if you’re in a hazy IPA’s and you’ve, and that’s why they’re meant to be drunk very fresh.
If you actually have a hazy IPA and it sits cold conditioning for three months, it’s eventually gonna settle out like the.
2-Ryan: I’m going to be nearly as good either.
1-Colter-5: Oh, they’re not even close to as good. Right. But because I’ve done that, I’ve, I’ve had a hazy IPA on and it’s five gallons. I don’t get through it. And then like, you know, two months into it, I pour one and I’m like, Oh man, this looks just like, it’s crystal clear.
And I have hot flakes in it. It just is gross. It’s not the way you want to talk. It
2-Ryan: Easy ones. Um, so you can use it to your advantage in some ways, because you can, what I do when I make IPA’s with this bike is I just pitch onto the hops. So I throw my work under the hops and it’s done from any in four or five days. It can be done from any in 48 hours. Even a lot of times, it’s the high eighties, a little bit of fruit flavors.
That’s not a big deal. It actually goes really well with the tropical hops. And then you have a beer that’s fantastic. I mean, drinking fresh hops in the beer, it doesn’t have that same negative green flavor that you get when you use a USFL five and you try to taste it after like, um, so like my Keast is actually fantastic.
Right? A lot of breweries were using different of experience to use right now. Um, probably plenty that people have drank and they just
1-Colter-5: yeah, I could. I really agree. I think that the strains right now, when it comes to hazy, IPA’s crush it, that you get that like kind of orange flavor, the fruit you get is a T a touch of citrus, but not like lemon citrus. It’s more of like
2-Ryan: good marmalade. It’s like orange marmalade
1-Colter-5: like orange marmalade
2-Ryan: instant tangerines a little bit sometimes. Yeah.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. Those are the kinds of flavors I get. When, especially when I try, I was trying to do a pseudo logger under pitched it. Got a weird, got an awfully rare. I wouldn’t say it was weird. It’s expected with a right. And the offer I got was totally orange and orange marmalade, I think is a, is
2-Ryan: A lot of those, uh, yeah. When you use an all in Boston stuff, they throw out a lot of tropical flavor. That just goes so well with like a hoppy hoppy ale. IPA’s it’s fantastic. So I’ve made several of those, like my new house, IPA’s just East and, uh, you know, simple Greenville is a little bit oats and wheat and a ton of flameout ops ton of 10 minutes, flame out, and then massive, massive dry hop today.
Pitch the word onto the East and it just comes out. Awesome. And it’s drinkable like still fast.
1-Colter-5: let’s talk about fermenting under pressure. I know that I personally don’t have a spawning valve, so I don’t do any fermenting under pressure. I am a member of the new order, loggers with you and Dan and. That guy is crushing some serious lager under pressure. And I think that that’s also a great way to kind of fast make lagers.
Wouldn’t you agree?
2-Ryan: You don’t have to do a full podcast with Dan. Cause he knows all the ins and outs of that because Dan, Dan used to brew to a brewery called Nighthawk that started off really slow. Um, it was one of those breweries where the owner tried to make beer and how they got a really bad reputation. Dan went in there as someone who, uh, worked at like great divide industry.
Then also had a lot of whole grain experience. Dan was professional brewer there and he really turned the place around, um, They went under, if there are other business reasons through the owner, but the dad has professional experience and he wants to start his own, you know, mostly lager focused brewery.
So he’s been doing tons of basically test batches at his house. Um, and I visited him a couple earlier in the summer, um, probably early summer and I got to try a lot of, uh, a lot of his pressure loggers and he’s just pressuring. He’s just for many at room temperature with lager yeast under pressure. I want to say he’s in the teens with this pressure and he’s responding valve.
Um, And it was just kind of like eyeopening, opening, how good these beers can face. He’s using the August scenario a lot. Uh, he’ll use multiple generations. So he’s kind of treated it like he would have brewery and these are essentially his sort of tests to open a brewery. And, you know, he has home brewing friends around the area, come over and try him.
He’s just improving tweaking recipes and making different styles of bloggers. Um, but I I’ve started doing it mostly after going to dance because the oxygen, uh, Keeping oxygen out is what appeals to me the most. So like many of their pressure is great. They can get rid of semesters, can make it cleaner beer, suppresses Ester formation, um, and your beer cleans up quicker.
But to me, it’s just like keeping oxygen now. So you have pressure and then you go from tech to tech to transfer and the other tech already has some CO2 in it and there’s absolutely zero way oxygen into your beer. And just from drinking homebrewers jutting. Homebrewers like one of the number, the biggest thing, biggest flaws that you can have is just oxygen hitting your beer.
And it doesn’t always have to taste like cardboard. Cardboard is kind of an extreme example when you’re oxidized, if you just have a little bit of oxygen getting into your beer, it just kind of dolls all the flavors. So when you go into a brewery and you taste the beer and everything pops, all the flavors pop, and then you try to make the same beer.
And it’s just a little dollar. I mean, it can be not fresh pops or not fresh. A lot of things that could be used. That’s not fresh, but, um, a lot of times it’s just people transferring. Even if you have a tube that has oxygen in it, and you’re pushing the beer from one carboy to another, there’s still oxygen can interfere.
And, uh, it’s going to be less oxygen in the professional version, usually. So fermenting under pressure or transplant under pressure and serving under pressure. There’s no way oxygen gets new beer. And you just, the freshness will notice a fresh difference in my opinion, if you previously had some boxes here.
So that’s exciting to me to do it mainly for that reason.
1-Colter-5: And for me, the easiest way to do that, I found it’s just, you know, for many in kegs is kind of solves this problem. There don’t get me wrong. They’re great for mentors out there. I think the firms Dilla comes to mind. You can ferment under pressure. It works with the spending valve. You can transfer under pressure.
It’s a plastic fermenter specifically made for it. I’ve seen hacks with other plastic fermentors out there. Not glass carboys or anything like that. But like, for example, I know that the spittle fermenters have a special top. You can get for them that allows you to transfer under pressure. But for me, a keg is just the easiest way to go.
You get a stainless steel for a mentor. You don’t give up a lot of volume to ferment in a keg. I, I dropped from a five gallon to a four gallon batch. And to be honest, I don’t really even miss the one gallon. So
2-Ryan: To be that conservative in most periods you can do, especially under pressure. You can do four and a half.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. Or you could just put a couple drops of defoamer in it and you don’t have problems with it. Right. If you’ve got, you don’t need a ton of Headspace. If you have a couple of little small tweaks like that,
2-Ryan: Courtney’s are cheap too. Um,
1-Colter-5: cheap, cheap,
2-Ryan: they’re versatile could use them to serve using the format, using the transfer. Like they take up a very little space. They’re tall and skinny. So they’re very, uh, Very economical space-wise to be in your fermentation fridge, you could have a very small fridge and permit two pointy kegs at once.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. And one thing I like to say about the corny keg is there’s two methods. You can either get a floating dip tube. There are about 15 bucks. I think I got mine shipped on KET connection for 20. And the other one is you can. Yeah. And then the other one you can, or you could just take a dip tube and you just want to take like an inch off of it so that you can you’re you’re not sucking beer off of the total bottom when you’re transferring.
But the cool thing is, is if you have a keg that, like I had a keg that was actually just a bad keg over time. That happens too, and I actually took the dip tube out of that one, cut it off. And then that’s my actual fermenting dip tube and it just gets swapped to the fermenting keg. So it doesn’t, it shouldn’t take a lot of work or if you’d just wanted to buy a dip tube, dip tubes are even cheaper than a floating deck too, but I think you can get one for 10 bucks.
So it’s very, very economical way to get a pressurized for mentor or even to be able to have an oxygen free for mentor is corny cakes. I can’t, I can’t say they’re, they’re just
2-Ryan: And they sell, they sell bigger ones too. Like if price, isn’t an objective, you want a bigger batch size, like you can buy seven, eight gallon ones or whatever. Like I’ve seen people with 10 gallon,
1-Colter-5: Yeah, they have, they have 10 gallon, corny kegs. They have two gallon corny kegs. You can do whatever size you want. You can do a
2-Ryan: got a lot of three gallon ones.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. You can do a one gallon batch in a corny keg if you really want to. So it’s, it’s not a thing you can do it. So,
2-Ryan: Yeah, I like it a lot. And obviously at the higher end of the fermentation, like the stainless steel stuff, they have pressurized stainless steel, fermenters, the Blackman. Stuff’s great. If money’s not an object, that stuff is fantastic. But for
1-Colter-5: brew buckets, all that stuff. Right.
2-Ryan: absolutely.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. So I don’t know. Let’s, let’s summarize here. If you were going to make a pseudo logger and I didn’t have fermentation control a great way to go would be with the, kind of the hybrid beer, right? The culture, the, the steam beer, maybe, uh, maybe a cream ale, right. That that’s always a great, easy tried and true old school method.
The other way is obviously which. Has less control restraints than even the hybrid
2-Ryan: As long as you’re saying over 70. Yeah.
1-Colter-5: yeah. As long as you just keep it warm and it’s a lot easier to keep something warm than to keep it cool. I,
2-Ryan: Like you said, the heating pad, you can wrap it.
1-Colter-5: yeah, rapid a heating pad, any bird controllers, 30 bucks. It’s not like it’s super expensive to get there.
So keeping things warmer as you, you don’t have to have a whole fridge or anything like that. You could just,
2-Ryan: I mean, a lot of people use garages. They’re 80 degrees.
1-Colter-5: Yeah in the summer, just throw it in the garage. Right? I can tell you, my garage is hot as hell in the summer. And then you also have the pressurized, fermentor, and it a great way to do that would be a spending valve with a corny Kagen.
That’s also an easy way to get into it. And really these are all ways without having to build an entire huge fermentation chamber and be able to get these lager-like styles of beer.
2-Ryan: I think personally, the warm loggers and the comeback. Pseudo loggers are the closest. You’re gonna get to a real blogger if you’re making steam beers and cultures and you know, pre-meals, they’re great, but they, they taste distinctly different or different to me than the successful beers, uh, blogger use that room temperature or pseudo, uh, like bloggers that are made.
Well,
1-Colter-5: I agree. They, they CA they still have that ale flavor is it’s hard to explain, but there’s, there’s just a bit of flavor in ale that I want to say. It’s, there’s just an Ester in there that is ale and
2-Ryan: me, like, especially with the use of the five, you almost get like a very light, like stone fruit, like peach kinda Esther. Like no matter what it’s always seems to be there. And you always know that you used USO five, that kind of make an dailies
1-Colter-5: And the both of us have used so much, so five. I think it’s like, I almost feel like every beer I’ve made for like a couple of years was like, Oh, that’s just the flavor of like
2-Ryan: Because it’s clean. I mean, it’s only known for being clean, clean, clean, but if you actually just use to row in like 30, I’ve used like noble hops, you paste that little peach jester. You don’t, you don’t taste it when you make an IPA or Brown paste. It, when you’re 30, I’ve used in the last kind of Greenville.
1-Colter-5: Yep. Exactly. And that’s the distinct flavor of like a blonde ale, right?
2-Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Yup. That’s exactly what I think of when I think of that.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. And so, so, and those are really the, the ways we would do it. I do want to break into a bit of another subject because you and I have been talking a lot and we’ve been talking about doing a new segment on the show and I’m thinking I’d like to maybe try for it to be a monthly segment.
And so we’re going to pitch it out to some of the listeners here on homebrewing, DIY as something that we might be able to do and kind of. The idea that we were thinking is that we wanted to do a bit more of how do you, how do homebrewers hold up to some of the styles that are classic examples? I know that personally, I’ve tried to make beers that are held up to a class, a example.
And I, Oh, I, I gotta admit, I, I can’t do it. I, every time I make a beer and think, man, this is a really great example of this style. And then I go and drink the classic example. 99.9, 9% of the time, the classic example is just a better beer. And if you did it blind it’s to me always kind of stands out, right?
Like you like, like example would be, uh, I’ll use an example. We did a, we did a Pilsner tasting at your house pre COVID God, I miss the days when we could have 26. Beers with like 10 dudes and just, you know, have a
2-Ryan: Inside of a house. Yeah,
1-Colter-5: And, and I have to be the, like, we’re all going to get sick from it.
But the idea is that w we did a Pilsner tasting where we tasted like 20 pills. There’s a, we threw a couple of homebrews in there and they just stood out. Like you knew the Homebrew, right. It ha it
2-Ryan: that’s what I did that blonde one too. I did it with USO five and it was so obvious.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, so obvious. Right. And so the idea for me is more of, we want to kind of put out there to home brewers that are listening to this show. We’d like to see how homebrewers can hold up to some classic examples. So think of it as like, kind of like iron chef of beer and the classic example is the iron chef.
Right. And so what we’d like to do is maybe recruit some. Brewers. And you could just email me a podcast at homebrewing, DIY it up here and we can organize it. But the idea would be we’d like you to like, we’ll, we’ll figure out logistics to get me and Ryan and maybe another BJC P judge, a beer and. Here in the Colorado area.
So then it’s just like, you know, we ship it to one place and I can drop them off. And then what we want to do is kind of do a beer team you’re on the show and we’d make an entire episode out of that beer tasting, where we take a classic example of that beer, the actual classic example, let’s say it’s American pale ale.
We would taste it against the Sierra Nevada or whatever the classic American paleo
2-Ryan: Especially if it’s a clone or something. If someone closes here in Nevada, we’ll get, we’ll get, we’ll get that beer. We’ll we’ll get it. And we’ll, uh, try and side by side.
1-Colter-5: Yeah, try side by side, but we try a blind, right? The idea is that like, and then we sit down and we say, all right, this is the best beer of the two. Can you beat the iron chef of beer or the classic example? Can you beat the classic example and uh, you know, give, give you surprises and some stuff like that.
I think that would be
2-Ryan: Absolutely. And if people don’t want to, if people don’t use your names, that’s okay too. I know some people might be a little reluctant, but don’t worry. You’re not expecting the homebrewer to win very often. Just like the iron chef show. You know, most people did beat Bobby Flay. Um, but I think it’d be fun to dive into the beers, talk about them.
You know, you could send the recipe along so we can talk about it after. Well, it would just be fun to dive into some beers, prepare the new commercial examples.
1-Colter-5: I completely agree. And, and to me it’s like the commercial example is always, whenever we do big beer tastings, we always throw a commercial example in the mix is the, uh, uh, I would call it the standard bear. And then we, even if we have 15 of them and it’s funny, we did it as a group. We did a big tasting where we did all Trappist sales.
And of course, what beer was the best. It was the commercial example of a track of a sale. Right. So, great examples were in that tasting, but, and it was all Homebrew with like one or two trappers thrown in there that were commercial and the commercial examples just stood out. And so for me, it’s like, I would love to see how we can get homers and if a homebrewer feels that they can take the challenge, we can do it.
That being said for anybody that does it, I’d be willing to throw you a, a, a free gift from some of our sponsors. I still have some, some stuff laying around that some of our sponsors have given us, and I I’d like to throw those as prizes for participating. And so if you’re interested, I’d like you to head over to homebrewing diy.beer, you can just hit the contact us.
Tab and fill out that form, or you can just shoot me an email at podcast at homebrewing DIY, and either way I’ll get the message and we can figure out the logistics. And so I wanted to throw that out there. And so I want to know which one of you brewers is going to be the first one to send us one and we’ll, we’ll figure it out.
So we’ll have to get some feedback on that.
2-Ryan: It’s a high bar, but it can be, uh, it can, it can happen. I’ve had one bruise that were better than the commercial examples. Um, you got to remember the commercial examples have advantages, lack of oxygen, and they do the same recipe over and over and over, and they can speak it, but there’s some disadvantages too, because they have to weigh the cost of goods.
So they might end up using instead of middle fruit. And sometimes they’re really good batch I’ll tell middle fruit is going to taste better in a certain view in that way. So a homebrewer has the advantage of. Not caring about the exact cost of every single plane. Um, there’s so we might see some numbers when my opinion we will, if enough people enter and I look forward to that,
1-Colter-5: Yeah. And I also will throw out there that, uh, I’ve never one. I would consider myself a mediocre brewer, I, and a, and a good drinker, but one of those things. And I feel like I’m a good podcaster and an okay brewer. I have won some medals, you know,
2-Ryan: you’re certainly a finder.
1-Colter-5: I have a fiber, right. I make fine beer, but I wouldn’t say that like, there, there are brewers around me that make much better beer than me, but the point is.
You know, th I know where I stand and I admit to it, I, you know, there, there are homebrewers out there and I want to call it to make great beer, amazing beer and do it like, you know, we could use Dan, as an example, worked at a brewery is crushing these pseudo loggers over and over and over again. I mean,
2-Ryan: Yeah, Jim, Jim Spalding’s best beers can stand up and be better than some of them.
1-Colter-5: Absolutely. Absolutely. So the idea is that there are homebrewers around me that make amazing beers and I’m, and I’m jealous of their style. And, but they put a lot more work into it than I do. So I will throw that out there too.
2-Ryan: Yes.
1-Colter-5: They don’t and this is also a lot of work, so yeah. Uh, Patrion guys helps.
And then, and, uh, other than that, uh, yeah, we’ll, we’ll wrap up this week’s episode. We’ll definitely have you back check out Ryan’s article due in the,
2-Ryan: think it will be on February.
1-Colter-5: okay, so do
2-Ryan: I think it’s, I forgot which issue it is, but I think it’ll come out in February and then I’m doing the big feature on the Quebec clean news. And then someone’s doing an article where they. Fermented with a bunch of different white strains, uh, same festival recipe. They’re gonna compare those.
So there’s gonna be more than one, could like article in that issue. So it’ll be really cool.
1-Colter-5: there’ll probably be an entire COVID issue. Right.
2-Ryan: Yeah. I mean, at least I just know what my article and then that other article, but there, I mean, he said he wants to have kind of a theme, so I’ve got, there’ll be at least two, maybe three or four depending.
1-Colter-5: Yeah. So, you know, keep an eye out for that, a designer GSU to get Ryan’s, uh, article excited about that. I know that, uh, Ryan’s chomping at the bit to write a book and, uh, when he does that, we’ll definitely have him back on the show and push that and we’ll have it back on the show many other times. Cause,
2-Ryan: Awesome.
1-Colter-5: yeah, well, we’ll see how COVID just damn you COVID well, Hey Ryan, thank you for coming on homebrewing DIY yet again, and look forward to having you back on the show.
2-Ryan: I appreciate it.
1-Colter-5: I’d like to thank Ryan for taking the time to come on this week show as always it’s super informative. I always learn a ton when I talked to Ryan and I also have a really good time when I brew with Ryan, we have a good time. So, uh, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You can always leave us feedback by heading over to homebrewing, diy.beer and filling out the contact form.
You can also send me an email to podcast@homeroomdiy.beer. We will read your feedback on the show. We usually do that towards the end. I just didn’t have any emails this week. So yeah, they come in phases. Well, that’s it for this week. And we’ll talk to you next week on homebrewing, DLI.
Kveik does not make anything resembling lager
I think you should give it a try. Specifically Krispy.