This week, we talk science and beer with Edgar Huitema about his Substack newsletter “The Beerologist”. We discuss science, beer science, and yeast wrangling. It is a cool fun conversation.
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Show Transcript
AI created it will have many errors.
Colter Wilson: One of my favorite sayings about homebrewing is that beer is a science that you can drink.
The reason I say that is because beer. In its essence is really just cooking. But there’s microbiology and just all kinds of science that goes on with making beer. So on this week’s episode, we have the Bureau ologist on the show. And we’re going to talk to him. About science and beer this week on home brewing. Diy
And welcome back to home brewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of the home, brewing gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This show covers it all. On this week’s show, we’re talking to Edgar hood, hood or Meyer, and we’re going to speak to him about being the Just, he has an amazing blog and newsletter over on substack. And he’s been writing about the relationship between science and beer.
It’s a great read. And so we’re super excited to have him on the show. But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over a Patriot’s head on over to patrion.com forward slash home brewing DIY. I still have a few scrubber duckies left for anyone who gives it the $5 level. That’s a $25 value.
So head on over there and give today, you’ll also get access to our ad free RSS feed and you get a nice sweet set of homebrewing DIY stickers. . I’d like to announce today that I am now part of the age of radio podcast network. This is going to be a new relationship with a fast growing podcast network. And I’ve now switched. Podcast hosts that shouldn’t make any changes. Hopefully if you’re listening to the show, you’re listening to it. And the RSS feed you were before.
But that being said very, very excited about being part of the age of radio podcasts networks. So thank you very much to Joey and the team over there for. Hooking me up.
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Go to adventures and home brewing and use our link and you would then get a same price as you always would, but it’s going to support the show cause they know that we sent you. Also brew fathers there. And I want to thank all of those during the black Friday sale that used brew father. It really, I saw a lot of, of.
People going to the website and clicking on the link and just excited to have that relationship as well.
One last announcement I’d like to make, before we jump into this week’s interview, I’d like to remind everyone it is December and it is that time of year for our home-brew hack show. I want to thank everyone. Who’s already submitted their Homebrew hacks. I’ve been reading through them with just excitement to share with everyone. It is so cool to see all of the cool things that and hacks and tips and tricks.
Crazy things people have built is part of homebrewing. I, this is the part of homebrewing that I’m truly excited about. And I want to thank everyone who submitted. There’s already. I’m excited to read them and share them with all of the listeners of the show. And if you’d like to share yours, Remember podcast@homebrewingdiy.beer, just put in the subject line Homebrew hacks, and I’ll make sure we read it on the show. Very, very excited to talk and read with.
Evan Sherlock, the president of the old town mash paddlers. And to go through all of those different hacks. It’s just one of my favorite shows. It’s so fun. And I’m excited. So let’s try to get everybody to get those in. By next Thursday, we will be recording that, that show before we kind of go on holiday break, but the show will release on the 31st of December. It will be the last show of 2020.
And I think it’ll be a good way to finish off such a crazy year.
Well, let’s jump into this week’s episode. Where we’re going to talk to . Edgar. Hi, Tamara. And we’re going to talk to him. About being. The bureau ologist to welcome Edgar hight, Amar. He is the bio brewer. And if anybody has done some recent reading on the internet about homebrewing right now, and pretty much some scientific parts of homebrewing chances are that you’ve run into one of his articles out there. And I’d like to welcome Ecker to homebrewing DIY.
Hi, I editor, how are you?
Edgar Huitema: Pretty good. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Colter Wilson: , I’m excited to have you, because I have run into a few of your articles out there specifically. I’ve read a bunch of them recently on Reddit and some other forums out there. And as I’ve read some of the things that you’ve been posting lately, I, it just is.
A really refreshing approach to looking at homebrewing. And I’m really excited to talk to you about your process and your brewing setup, and a bit about how you got here today. So let’s just start there. How did you start brewing and how did you get to where you are today?
Edgar Huitema: All right. , well, it’s a bit of a, it’s a bit of a long story, but I’ll, I’ll try to keep it short. So, , so yeah, as you say, , I’m, , I’m a home brewer and I’m a scientist, , long, long time ago. I think, I think about 20 years ago, a little over 20 years ago actually moved to the West and my PhD in Ohio at Ohio state.
, and my girlfriend now, my wife, but my girlfriend at the time thought it was a great idea to give me a brew, , set. , a beer brewing set. , now my background is in biology and molecular biology. I work with microbes quite a bit as I did back then. , and I liked beer as well. So, , so my, my wife or my girlfriend back then, , thought it was a, was a, was a great combination.
So yeah, I got my first, , brew kit was just, you know, a couple of buckets, , you know, extracts and, and hopes and all that jazz. And that basically got me started. So, , so I started brewing with some fellow students. , and, , yeah. And ever since then, I’ve, I’ve, you know, kept edit. , I have to say with, with ups and downs, I mean, there has been times where I wasn’t, , wasn’t as active, but, , but more recently I’ve been having more active in, in, in brewing again.
, how did I get to the newsletter, the biologists? , I really. You know what I’ve discovered over the last couple of years and being a scientist is actually, I really enjoy writing. I like the creative process of doing science and I like beer making. So, , So it was very natural for me to start writing about, , about beer and beer brewing.
And as you may, as you may know, if you’ve probably spoken to more writers than I have, but, you know, writing is a lot about finding, finding, finding your voice, finding what you like writing about the most. And for me, that turned out to be science and, and brewing. That’s how we, the biologist was, were started really.
So what I do, , or what my aim is, , is really to introduce people to the signs that the drives brewing, the drives home brewing. I try to take a look into the literature of the things that are going on in, in yeast research and genetics research and plants. , And try to distill some interesting, , interesting facts in interesting discoveries that could impact, , on brewing or that could inform, , brewers.
As part of that, I try to give, have conversations as well, , with the authors. So I go to their, , read their papers and ask them questions about their papers. , , just via email, , and yeah, those are very sort of productive, , productive ways of writing about the brewing process, but from a more scientific, , scientific perspective.
And, yeah, so that’s, that’s, that’s what I do.
Colter Wilson: And that’s something that I want to kind of point out that I think is needed in the brewing world is that we get a lot of, Hey, here’s the paper, go read the paper. And I think that there’s a lot of people out there that could just read the paper. Right. For example, I’ve read some scientific papers on brewing, also a place where just reading the summary is also not enough.
Right. When you get into a paper, you might just get the summary, but there might be things you could get out of the paper that is hidden and not really summarized in the summary. . And, , having somebody who has a scientific background to be able to ask the types of questions, I think a scientist would ask another scientist. Being objective, ? Not just reading the summary and taking that for what it is. I also think that when we talk about the media and you know, I have a podcast, so I guess I’m the media, but the idea would be you, you get a headline and maybe a little bit about the summary and to hope this comes out one day, but that’s pretty much what you get from the media is a very top level.
And I think that the importance of having opinion from a scientific perspective, when was reading literature, that’s out there and being able to say, Hey, here’s what I got from that. I asked the person that wrote this, this question, here’s the answer they came back to me with and being able to come up with different conclusions.
Or maybe be a bit skeptical of what you’re reading is to me, something that I, aside of science that I truly love and appreciate. that’s something that I think that the homebrewing world embraces in a way because of, of, of who we are as homebrewers a lot of people have engineering background, scientific backgrounds, and it’s very common.
It’s Tabi, right? And so I think that that’s a place that is very, very needed right now. And so I really appreciate that.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah, no, I think, I think the growing workers is a really interesting one. I think firstly, you know what I should point out when it comes to the sciences at least. And when it comes to scientists, they, you know, they learn, they’re trained to write for other scientists. So the right papers that are meant to be read and understood, , by other, by other scientists.
, of course there’s the media translating, as you say, you know, , I think, I think if you’re not into brewing yourself as a, as a media person, I think it’d be very difficult to convey a message in a, in a specific way that, that, you know, , brewers would, , would, , appreciate. I think the other thing I noticed when, when, when you go on the forums and I think, I think it’s a wonderful thing really, but, , at the same time, you know, all these, those, , Intrigues me is that, you know, there’s a lot of knowledge in the brewing world.
So, you know, you pose a question on some place like Reddit or Facebook or, or, , or whatever, social media platform, you get a lot of answers and you’re, you know, you’re left wondering, well, where did that come from? You know, whereas is there any scientific background to this or is it experienced and there’s a vast, vast body of.
, of experience out there, , for which there is no, , there’s no, , research that, that really formally demonstrates it. And I find that very intriguing. , and there’s oftentimes the questions I’d like to answer myself. , and then I find out most of the times I end up in places like Reddit, where people have experienced with certain, , with certain problems.
, so yeah, so, so I think, I think, , I think there’s a disconnect between science and home brewing in some ways or brewers in general, but I think it’s a good one at the same time. I think if you’re a researcher and you wanted to go into research on brewing processes, I think actually Reddit would be a good place for a literature search initially.
Colter Wilson: You say that, cause it happens all the time. You see science projects will come in and try to do surveys of all the people on Reddit trying to say, Hey, can you fill out this survey for me? I’m trying to get, you know, I’m building an app that they’ll, they’ll ask those kinds of questions too. But, but on the other side of it, there’s also a lot of dogma. In homebrewing. And, and I, and I bring this up all the time, specifically in this podcast where people say that this is just the way to do it. and they come up with these very elaborate reasons of why you should do them. , I’ll give examples, like, you know, you have to cover your boil, right?
These are all things that you hear in homebrewing and people. Tested it, and there’s both sides where some people have had it covered the whole time and there’s nothing wrong with the beer. And there’s people that have said that, you know, swear up and down, they leaving the lid on is something that’s going to know that I get the off labor from, I think it’s DMS or something that, yeah, the idea for me is.
None of this is scientifically done, right? It’s not done at a scale to where if somebody were to write a paper and the papers that have been written about these types of subjects have to do with the brewery level at giant scales, not at a home brewery level, which is a different scale.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah.
Colter Wilson: it’s, it’s trying to Disert, you know, if you were to take, I don’t know, approach of dogma versus scientific and kind of get in the middle there.
What would you say is the approach you would take when kind of balancing those two?
Edgar Huitema: Ooh. Well, I think, , I think there’s no other way around it to do, to do the experiments, but I think at the same time, you know, when you do the experiment experience, especially in biology, I think what Bella’s is one of what is one of those fields where, , where there are so, so many parameters and variables and that that could influence your, your process.
, I think for debates to be settled when it comes to dogma, you know, you, you basically need a very accurate descriptions and you need some sort of unifying approach to testing or, , you know, testing the problem. So I’m thinking the kit, the kit that you use, for example, I mean, if you think about how many different brewing setups there are, , you know, every.
Every bit almost has its own, , specific setup for, , for making it, , so, so I think, I think it’s very difficult to, , to, , to tackle dogma. , you know, without, without doing the experiments in a way that sort of, you know, brings true to those home brewers that rings true and applies to the way, , to the way Homebrew is, do it, do it at home.
So, and yeah, that does mean, you know, picking a particular subject or a particular, , set up, , to do, to do your experiments, but you’re right. I mean, you know, looking at digital, looking at the various. Papers, a lot of them do deal with industrial skill, , industrial skill brewing. So, so yeah, it’s, it’s hard to get a handle of, , in that one.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And one that comes to mind for me is always the IBU, right? The IBU is, is, is that every piece of brewing software is going to spit out an IBU number at you The reason that one always comes up for me is that the IBU was originally done by a guy in his garage with whole leaf hops on a system that was a three vessel system.
And nobody bruised that way anymore. I mean, when was the last time anybody used whole leaf hops for anything, right. Yet that’s the math that came up with the IBU,
Edgar Huitema: Yeah. Yeah.
Colter Wilson: it’s funny is that some people nail it, you know, they’ll, they’ll make beer and they’ll be like, this is 45. I’ve used. They send them out to get tested and it’s, you know, somewhere in that range, sometimes it’s completely off.
And so I agree when it comes to variables, there are so many variables that when you’re trying to look at it at a homebrewing scale, I think the closest. People that come to things like that are probably the brew off Sufi group. And even then they’re the first ones to raise their hand and say, Hey, this is one data point.
I wouldn’t even say it’s really all that scientific. and, and the reason they say that and I think it’s smart, they cover their ass. And also on the other side of it is that they do look at understanding that it is a single data point and it has to be repeated over and over and over again to basically combat that dog. yeah, , it’s, it’s funny how there is so much scientific literature on industrials, nice brewing. But once you get down to a homebrewing level and the scale of homebrewing brewing, there’s almost nothing. And, but when we look at brewing over the ages of humanity, homebrewing scale, probably the scale, most people have brewed beer for.
The, the length of humanity in general.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah.
Colter Wilson: when you think about all of that.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that’s true. I mean, you know, in, in, in my field and I guess in, in, in, in most other fields really, and probably in Broomfield as well, I mean, , the brewing research, a lot of it is basically. You know, , aimed at, at industrial scale because that’s, that’s where the money could be coming from.
You know, new discoveries made that apply to industrial scale brewing we’ll have, you know, , will have its attractions. So, so yeah. , so there isn’t really, , the rest is really a platform for it. I mean, I. I do think there’s opportunities. Right. , but I, I do think there are opportunities when people start organizing on the community level.
So for example, in the us, , in the us, you have the councils when it comes to crops, for example. So you have lots of soybeans at the breeding ground of the us. Or in, in a, in a particular state. So there’s the soybean council and the soybean council, then it’s money from all those farmers, which they then hand out to the researchers that study a particular problem in soybean.
That’s a model that could work when it comes to brewing. So if there’s, homebrewers a large enough group of homebrewers that say, you know, I want this problem addressed and they organize and pull their, you know, pull their money for somebody to actually do the research. Then. In principle, it can be done, but without it, it’s small beans for, for, , for researchers and not maybe attractive enough to, , to really tackle.
, the other, the route would be to actually go to, , to, , to those suppliers, you know, when it comes to the yeast suppliers, for example, if the yeast issue, , you know, you know, the companies, the big companies, I’m not going to name them, that supply used to everybody basically. , and it’s possibly the same for, for the multiples, you know, the molds producers, , or the grain producers.
, if there’s enough pushback from the community again. And I think that, you know, need some organization, I guess, but as long as there’s enough pushback for a company to say, Oh wait, look, this is important. We need to address this. Then it will be done. Okay.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, I think that that’s a very good point when it comes to. The, the, the levers people can pull as a group to get scientific information because obviously people would think that there’s a need and want for that research. Obviously funding is a big piece of it. Yeah. If research isn’t free and that’s just kind of the deal and, and the idea would be, if somebody sees that it’s economically viable, it happens.
Right.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah.
Colter Wilson: . Let’s talk a bit about some of the articles you write. , I think recently you, you wrote some articles about things such as harnessing yeast in your backyard and streaking out different plates and methods of, of doing these types of very instructional stuff. Also very scientifically geeky kind of, I would call it lab level style, kind of science, right?
What would you say if I were a home brewer and I wanted to get out there and wrangle some yeast myself, what, what would be the process to do some stuff like that?
Edgar Huitema: All right. Well, I guess, I guess question number one is, you know, where would you look or would you look for things? So there’s different ways of doing that. So, you know, as everybody will know, it likes it. Plugs glucose like sugar. So, , so there’s some obvious places where you could look. For, , for us, you know, you could look for flowers, fruits, ripe fruits.
I mean, grapes obviously, , and dried fruits are very good sources of Easter. , if you want to isolate them, essentially, what you’ll have to do is sort of, , is sort of just grow them in this media. They, they, they like sweet plunk it into, into tube. It has the right media, , glucose, rich, , source of, , of food you allow them to grow.
And what you end up with is a, is a very complex mix of different, different organisms. There will be bacteria in there. There will be yeast in there, different types of East fungi, possibly. And then what the next step is. At least a step that I use is to, is to essentially separate them out. Some of the work I do there, and I describe it as basically how you can take samples from your, , from your cultures, your very sort of basic, , complex, , cultures, try to streak and lots such that they becomes single cells, single, single, , yeast cells and grow them into, into pure, , into pure cultures.
Once you have those pure cultures and we call those pure causes colonies of single colonies, essentially you can, you can pick those and, and grow them in, in new media, , and grow them up into, into, into proper starters for you to test whether they can convert, , glucose into alcohol and, you know, whichever other interesting, , flavors that, that come with it.
Yeah, I think initially the point I wanted to make, , with the experiments, the first ones I’ve done is basically to show that it’s possible that you can get East from nearly everywhere. , I had the sort of, , , I was fortunate enough to be in lockdown with my daughter, so my daughter actually helped me, , pick flowers.
There was sort of fun science project for her. To, , to tag along to do it. , but yeah, no, I guess, I guess the point was to show that, you know, given the right environment, you still thrive and, and you’ll be able to get some, , and, , and grow some for you, , for your pleasure for your brewing pleasure.
Colter Wilson: Getting some of these cultures and, and some of the sources, obviously you just mentioned flowers. There’s obviously tons of different sources. There’s yeast everywhere in the air. And I took a breath and in that breath, I probably sucked in some East, right. let’s talk about some places where you would recommend getting these cultures.
If, if I were, I, I mean the winter probably pretty tough, but say spring, summer, fall, where would be some good places to get some of these cultures?
Edgar Huitema: I would say. I would say some good open pollinating flowers. So basically pollinating flowers that, that really, , attract lots of bees because those bees like to carry around, , those pollen cross-pollinate, , and those flowers tend to create a lot of nectar as well and the sugary stuff that GS essentially likes.
Because of the open flower architecture, the nectar in it yeast when it falls in a, it will start to grow. And, , and there’s some competition there as well, so that, you know, the most successful ones are the fastest grows and growing ones, , are the ones you can easily, easily get. , So, yeah, so I guess flowers, fruits, or the obvious sort of, , sort of, , places, , then you could consider doing as well as using different types of different types of, , of, , , of plants.
So, , you know, you could use, for example, , barley or wheat, , you know, for wheat flowers, different types of flowers, you can isolate from, , you know, berries. I mean, you name it basically. , you know, whatever you like, if you see nice. Flowers look attractive. You could, you could essentially try it. I guess what’s important to sort of mention is.
The places I tried to stay away from, because I think that’s important too. , so what I’ve done in my experience really tried to stay away from, , from areas that, that are being sprayed with, with fungicides. So if you get close to crop fields and farmers are spraying fungicides to get rid of fungi, it’ll hit, , it may hit East as well.
, so that’s, , , that’s how you can get rid of. Cause that’s how I tried to get rid of, , or increase my chances of getting, , getting used. , and I guess then the other thing is, you know, what are the things I would like to try? , so I am a blimp pathologist. I’m a molecular biologist with an interest in pathogens, and there are some interesting concepts in plant pathogen interactions that deal with, , selection and competition.
, And the idea is that pathogens in general or specialized and have evolved to, to compete with, with plants and be infectious. So if you were to translate that into a breeze, blue isolation and yeast isolation setting, what I would like to try for example is try to go for environments where I know. , , the substrates, the food for the yeast has been alive.
It’s been around for a long time, but there’s repeated competition. So one of the things I want to try for example is to get, , used from honeydew, from aphids, , because that’s a very sugary substance. , I’m sure there will be some use associated with, , with aphids and have very sort of multi cyclic, , the production cycle.
So. They will, they have to be around for a long time and has to go for this competition for a long time. So that’s one of the things I’d like to try in the coming, , spring. It’s winter here now, but in spring and summer, I’d really like to try and see whether I can, I can get something from, from a 15.
Yeah.
Colter Wilson: And it’s talk a bit about now you’ve collected a culture and you’re trying to isolate it down to a single gold colony. What would that look like?
Edgar Huitema: , you mean the actual, the expo isolation procedure?
Colter Wilson: , that exactly.
Edgar Huitema: Okay. so, so what we do when we isolate yeast, , or when I try to separate out yeast is I use solid plates, which you have to imagine they’re small dishes, small flat dishes, , where I use the substance, it pretty much is like mold, but then has an solidifying agent. So you heat it up. You, you pour it out and it becomes a flat sort of let surface, and then you can use these special.
Well just straws in a way that you can use to simply streak around or streak onto streak onto the plate. So what I do in essence is I basically stick a straw into my suspension that has lots of different organisms, , take it out and then I dip it onto the plate and just streak it in one single or two, two streaks in one direction.
So what that does, it basically takes a whole lot of different organisms and just smears the moment,
the one,
particularly again, small portion of, , of the first three girls. I made a small, subtle, the original population that you had and you streak that out again, , over a new area of the plate. And that is a pros can repeat two or three times. So you get like three weeks and what happens is what you end up is, is essentially for, is individual cells that are cheap.
And you can’t see through, she can’t see themselves, but when you incubator and those Southeast felonies in such an isolated colony, you essentially know device, a single. , a single cell. , so then the next step is, is to essentially look at the plate and say, okay, well, what does it look like yeast or not? And there are different ways of doing it. So the yeast colony itself has particular mythology that makes it look like yeast or that you can recognize, , you can stick it on a microscope and see what it looks like, , like a yeast or not.
, and of course you can grow it. You can grow it individually. , in, in, in liquid, in small, small volumes, , see whether it droves and see whether it produces any alcohol. So simply by, by sniffing it, , some of them will be very, very nice and make very nice alcoholic smells. Others are just, you know, playing foul and sour.
, Yeah, for example, , yeah, yeah, no, it’s amazing. It’s, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s really what I that’s, that’s really what I sort of, , appreciate, you know, being a biologist, , you know, is such a diversity out there, I guess. That’s I think that’s something that, that the community. It’s sort of missing out on, you know, we all go to our all, go to our suppliers and get these nice package, pure cultures.
, we can, you know, it’s possible to do it yourself, , but try completely, completely different, uh, different strains that basically come from your own back garden or come from someplace. You’ve been hiking. , you know, in, in the summer or the spring or the fall. So, no, I think it’s a, I think it’s a great, it’s a great pastime, , , thing to try.
Colter Wilson: And so talking a bit about the medium, , you’re used like an AR medium, is that normally what you’re using?
Edgar Huitema: , it depends where I am. So if I were to be in a lab in my lab where I work, , I would use defined media. So they’re, you know, there’s difficult yeast extract kept on dextrose, , Agra plates that. That we use. And that’s what research has used in general for their science at home. , I, I simply make award, I just make a, you dry, , mold, , you know, bulleting, some water sticks from aggravated, , to one, one and a half percent.
Then, , in bolded, let it solidify or port let it solidify. And that’s what I use. I bought some glass better dishes. From the web. , yeah, you can almost find everything on the web these days. , and yeah, just do it.
Colter Wilson: And one of the things that you mentioned there was when you’re isolated out of colony, a lot of it can be done with just visual inspection. You’re not having to get an entire microscope out there and check it out. So what are some of the things that, you know, this is bacteria versus this is yeast. What are some of the telltale signs you’re looking for?
If you’re looking at colonies.
Edgar Huitema: So used to use it as a more of a, sort of an off-white color. , so lots of, so when you look at bacteria, for example, a lot of the air contaminants, , so if you have an air contamination, lots of times those colonies are yellow. Bacterial colonies tend to be sort of slimy. , whereas if you look at, , at yeast colonies, they’re there, they look a little bit more, more grainy and dry.
, if you will, , when you look on the plate, , Then there’s other stuff that you may encounter. You also may encounter sort of stuff that looks like, , like you little threads growing onto your plate. And these are filamentous filamentous fungi, , that you don’t really, really want all the way up to the sporulating, , fungi, but I haven’t shown pictures of those.
, in my, , in my articles, it’s mostly bacteria, , that I deal with. But yeah, if you see a lot of slime, if you see a lot of slimy mucusy, , colonies and smears, that’s that’s most likely bacteria.
Colter Wilson: Okay. And then obviously you, you talked about, then you, Hey, this could be used and the word we’re gonna use this could be, and then you’re gonna, you’re gonna take a little, a little single colony out. Maybe take it into like 10 mils of ward and like a test tube. Shake it up, start growing it from there.
And if it starts to actually really reproduce and go nuts and you’re, you’re going to know pretty quickly whether it’s alcohol producing, right?
Edgar Huitema: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, you can see it quite quickly. Yep.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. It’s a, it it’s, it’s a process I’ve done in the past as well. And I’ve made some really stinky ones. I’ve made some really good ones. So it it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a mixed bag, but that, but that’s all kind of the fun of the process, right? Like, , One of my favorite yeasts I’ve ever had, was actually given to me from a friend where he had taken a swab off of a peel of a pear.
Right. And he, and he called it his house yeast cause he had grown it up and isolated it out. And this thing was a amazing flavor yeast. It was very Saison. Like it was, it was definitely yeast, not bacteria. But had a really, really unique flavor that I can’t obviously describe because it’s kind of its own thing.
And I made a few beers out of that cause he just gave me a small slant and I, I grew them up and made beers out of it. And it was a very, very fun yeast to play with though. And, and these are the kinds of things that you just, that there’s an entire world of this, that people don’t understand is out there.
And it to me is. Something that is very intriguing part of beer and probably why your article’s really, really drive home for me personally. But the idea is that, uh, I, I agree with you when it comes to don’t get me wrong. I’m I’m in the comeback right now. I’m into the cool new isolated yeasts out there that you’re getting from the yeast labs.
I’m also into that as well, there is science behind it that kind of can tell you, Hey, this, this actually started off with. Six different strains of yeast in it. We’ve isolated two out. These two are clean, but there’s also that process that I’m very fascinated with. wild process to me is also just as fascinating, because this is what’s floating around.
This is what we’re making sourdough starters out of. This is what we’re making kombucha is out of. This is what we’re making so many other fermented foods out of in the entire world. Yet people don’t really say, Hey, you could apply this to beer. And so. One of the things that people also have. I don’t see a lot of are using things like fermented foods to ferment beer.
Is that also a process that you can use to kind of maybe kickstart a wild fermentation?
Edgar Huitema: , you mean using the using isolate needs for food fermentation?
Colter Wilson: , no. So like, for example, let’s say I got a batch of Kabuto. Obviously we know it’s a symbiotic bacteria and yeast culture, right? say I want to do a flower fermentation of beer. Get the sugar content high enough. Could you just throw a little taboo of some, some kombucha in there and it, would it turn into two beer or.
Edgar Huitema: well, it’s, it’s like, it’s like anything else that you, that you isolate them to test, you know, some will be good. Some will be bad. , so yeah, some, some, some of you, we have may turn out to be great, and produce alcohol, others. , others, others may not, I mean, that’s, I guess is the Yup is what’s simply hard to, hard to predict. It’s very difficult, it’s very difficult to know. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Right.
But yeah, but if you want it to take the scientific approach, then, then yeah, you would take the approach that I’ve suggested is to sort of separate them out and see, see what’s in there. , Yeah, because even, even if you get, if you get to use to be a ghetto culture, or, or a fermented, fetch, you know, when you tasted them and it tastes fantastic, you know, what you have to keep in mind is, you know, you’re going to stick your yeast in a completely different medium, and you go to expose, you’re used to completely different environments.
It’s going to respond differently and it may make completely different, , different substances. So it’s hard to, it’s hard to know beforehand.
Colter Wilson: And so the a good method would be, Hey, take a small thing of, of, of some wart,
Edgar Huitema: Yeah.
Colter Wilson: couple of hundred mils throat inoculated with some of that, let it build up and smell it, taste it, tastes like crap. not, probably not worth moving forward. If it tastes really good, make a beer.
Edgar Huitema: H conditioning
Colter Wilson: Yes. That, that is always the answer. Isn’t it?
Edgar Huitema: conditioning is.
Colter Wilson: So basically what time will do to a stinker.
Edgar Huitema: Well, I mean, I, I remember making, , making a mistake with, with one of my beers. , and I just had a, I just had too much chocolate Nolte in my, , in my calculations. So I ended up with a very hoppy chocolate TB. It’s more like it, you know, like a heavy stout chocolate deal, but down with lots of, , lots of hops in it and yeah, the first, you know, the first time it was ready to go after two weeks of after bottling, it just, you could just taste it and then you can just.
Feel them fighting in your mouth, like the chocolatey, your heavy, , flavor with the, , with the hops. So I really didn’t enjoy it. So I left it. So I just, you know, made another brew another one afterwards and we finished those. And at some point it came winter time. We were out of beer and I was like, Hey, let’s try the phone.
And it was just amazing how to. Flavors had mellowed. It was just a wonderful combination of a very sort of melody, , stout with a very sort of nice hoppy undertone, but a perfect harmony.
Colter Wilson: It’s amazing how time and conditioning specifically while fermentation beers? , I think time really does a lot for them. I, I had a, a, and it was actually a cider that a friend and I had done with a, with an inoculation of a farmhouse strain, and we drank it pretty young and it tasted like literally the smell of a horse blanket was the flavor of this beer, but like strong, not, not in a good way.
It was like, I remember drinking it. We’d had a few. sleep and I woke up in the middle of the night. I was like, man, I could still taste that beer. Like, it’s not good gamble you, I drank it. But then I gave it a year in the bottle and went back to it and it was a delicious beer and hid it. It turned into something just unique and delicious and amazing.
And all it took was time. And so the bulk aging process, when it comes to. All strains of beer, uh logging to, I think the, all the beers that come to mind that you want to drink as fresh as possible or IPA’s cause obviously you some loose hop character, but when it comes to beers that are very yeast driven and I think that’s the way to put it.
It’s tasting the change over time can be an experiment in itself because there’s a life cycle happening in there. no matter how fast or slow it happens, it just has happened.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah.
Colter Wilson: So let, let’s talk a bit. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Edgar Huitema: No, it’s an interesting one. I mean, it’s actually one of the, , one of the problems I’m studying. So, so, , as you know, as part of the newsletter is various, , subscription options. , one of the paid subscription opposites is to actually get in touch with me and try to figure out what problems are and trying to solve problems.
So I’m working with one group right now who is actually, , having the problem of the beer going off. , so it goes into the bottle just fine. And then after sometime. Starts to, , really taste these weird. So that’s, that’s one of the things we’re working on at the moment. So yeah, it can go both ways, I guess, but, , but it’s interesting.
The chemistry, the chemistry is just a, yeah, it’s so complex, but, , intriguing.
Colter Wilson: It is.
Edgar Huitema: Yeah.
Colter Wilson: let’s talk a bit about the newsletter. So for example, if I wanted to find your newsletter, where would I find it?
Edgar Huitema: , well, it’s a subsect newsletter at the moment. , so you could find it@abeercollectiondotsubsecttech.com. , I can give you the link. That’s where the biologist, , is, , I’m on Twitter as well, and have a link, , on my Twitter. , and yeah, we’re at the moment I’m working on building a website, , for it as well for, for my blog.
, I made a, I made a decision to, , to go more, , To take a more formal route if you will. So I, I guess, I guess, especially now with Corona being at home, being facing the challenges that we do, , I felt was really important to sort of set myself a new challenge for, for the third wave strikes. , and, , you know, and that essentially is to really it’s to really try and build it into something that is valuable to people so they can, they can read, they can.
They can ask questions, interact with me. That’s the thing I like the most, really about, , about a new is the, the questions that you get to comments that you get, , the queries, the problems that people have that you try to fix. , so yeah, so I’m, so I’m building a building, a website I’m trying to expand the subscription model, , and yet put, trying to put great articles out there that are interesting to people.
Interesting to ruin.
Colter Wilson: Excellent. I will put links in the show notes to his, his sub stack so that people can track you down. I’ll also link to your Twitter so that people can follow you there as well,
Edgar Huitema: Cool.
Colter Wilson: will admit Twitter is not my strong suit. It’s definitely when you, when you look at my following as a podcaster. Aye.
Aye. Aye. Twitter is not my nut to crack. I don’t know. I I do. I do good everywhere else. Twitter’s just not my thing. .
Edgar Huitema: Um, I’m, uh, I’m, I’m using counter social as well. , which is sort of like Twitter, but I found the, , the audience way, way more friendlier and receptive. The only thing is that the drew community there I think is quite quite small. , but yeah, no, there’s definitely better. , better platforms out there where, , where there’s a lot of interests. Yeah.
Colter Wilson: if, if you hop onto my. Onto my discord server, ed curd pops in there every now and again, I wouldn’t say he’s he’s there every day, but if he’s, if he’s, if he’s looking around, he, he he’s, that that’s actually where we met was on my discord server. So kind of
Edgar Huitema: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Colter Wilson: yes, if you, if you will go over to my website, homebrewing, diy.beer, click on the, join, the discussion tab, and that’ll pull you right into my discourse for, and, and he is also one of the users there.
But yeah, I, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on a homebrewing, DIY. I, this was a wonderful conversation and, and really fun to talk scientifically about beer. And, you know, if you ever want to come back, please let me know. I’d love to have you back it specifically, if you come out with a topic that you really want to push, , here, so love to have you, and,
Edgar Huitema: Yeah, no, no problem whatsoever. , and again, I really enjoy connecting with, , with brews out there, no matter what level, , and which. Tier you’re in whether it’s professional or, or, or home brewer. , I’ve very much enjoy, , interacting with, , interacting with people about their brewing. So yeah, pay me a visit.
, glad to let’s jet whenever.
Colter Wilson: . Awesome. Well, thank you.
Edgar Huitema: Thank you.
Colter Wilson: All right. And welcome back. I think that for our feedback section, we’re just going to. And it’s going to be pretty short today. , pretty much all I have right now is we are going to do a quick review that I was left this week about the podcast. And I’m going to read that and then we’ll just wrap this puppy up. So.
First thing we’re going to do is talk about a review that was written to us by the blind brew guy. I I’m actually really happy about this review. I followed blind brew guy on Instagram for some time and we’ve interacted a few times and just always great. To see him write us a review. So this is the review he wrote. I gave us a five-star review and he said the episodes cover a wide variety of topics and interesting guests, very helpful for a beginner as well as more advanced brewers. Keep it up.
And it’s always exciting for me to read a new review because these are the things that help. Others find the show and as well, just thank you so much for the kind words that really, really means a lot to me and helps me understand that, Hey, , you know, it’s worth the hard work.
So, if you want to write us a review head on over to Apple podcasts or pod chaser.com. I’m glad to read your review here on the air. Also, if you have feedback for the show or a question. This is the section for it. We will read them. Head over to home brewing DIY dot ear. Use the contact form, or you can just shoot us an email to podcast at home brewing DIY.
DOP year, either way, I’ll get the information and we’ll read it on the air. Well other than that let’s , wrap this show up
I’d like to think Eggert for taking the time to come on this week. Show. I think we had a really cool conversation, science and beer, just two things that really get me going. So definitely a very, very fun episode and exciting episode for me. Head on over to homebrewing, diy.beer, looking to show notes, I’ll have links to all of Edgard stuff is sub stack as well as his Twitter account. And you can reach out. And if you have a question for him, he’s very, always excited to hear from other home brewers. So check it out.
And as always, if you want to follow the show on social media, You can head on over to homebrewing DIY all one word we’re on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Just give us a search and give us a follow. Always love talking to everyone on all of our socials. Well, that’s it for this week. And we’ll talk to you next week on homebrewing DIY.
