What's Your Brewing Style?

Since I only brew beers I like and not specifically for competition, I'm relaxed and not too scientific about it. I enjoy the brewing part much more than anything, even more than the drinking! This is mostly because I take a relaxed approach. I've also found the more relaxed I am about it, the better the outcome....crazy I know. I figure if I am going to get all worked up over all this, I should get a new hobby. Historical recipes trip my trigger more than the latest DIPA. Most beers I brew are session types, no sparge, long mashes and no timelines.

I rarely get too crazy with my recipes either. As I get older and having brewed many, many batches, I've figured out that simplicity is almost always superior to complexity. I don't even wash my yeast and have been known to use sugar in place of malt and keg my beer before 2 weeks as well.....so WTH do I know.

 

I approach brewing as I do with cooking, don't think about it too much. I would say it may have taken a bit more time until I was able to make great beers, as the trial and error way of learning things takes a while. But, the science just doesn't interest me, although I have picked up the needed science along the way.

 

Mmm... conditional formatting.

Since I'm both a scientist-ologist and a rocker, I do what I want, and feel smug about it later. Oh, and my graphs are impeccable, with formatted and labeled axes, and everything.

 

is that supposed to be a play on words... as in formatted and labelled x/y axis, or formatted and labelled axes (guitars)

 

Some things just can't be quantified by science.

 

I chose Other. I would describe myself as a practical/empirical brewer. To me brewing is not that much of an art than it is a craft and science of measurements/tools/calculators for me is just a means to an end. When it comes to measurements consistency is more important that accuracy - don't care if my thermometer or volume measures are not true/exact, just use the same equipment the same way each time. I'm more of a trial, "error", and adjust kind of brewer that repeat brews the styles I like. Usually brewing the same beer over and over with minor tweeks to hit the flavor profile I desire - then once I do that, branch out with different ingredients to get similar results (or not). I enjoy the simplicity of my process/system and have no desire for change - I just work with what I got.

 

A balance of science and wicca.

 

I follow recipes as far as the ingredients go, but I break a few minor procedural rules during the brewing process. I also don't measure grain and hops very exactly - if a recipe calls for 14 oz. of a specialty grain and I have a one pound bag, guess what....it all goes in. Precision is not a strongpoint for me. So far, so good.

 

I am not afraid to go into uncharted territory and formulate a new recipe from an existing one, but I do have empirical (scientific, right?) evidence that gives me clues as to what the modifications will produce. I only just recently did a couple of my own "from scratch" recipes, which I feel is more of an art when you are hanging it out there a bit.

 

I'm as accurate on the malts as the homebrew store is when they weigh them, which I suspect from watching is within reasonable limits for a dial scale that goes to ounces with major units of pounds (plenty good enough for brewing, but orders of magnitude not good enough for making chemistry reagents for hospital laboratory tests). There's a certain amount of relativity that goes with beer brewing, and yes, precision > accuracy when it comes to replication of measurements.

On the hops I don't even bother to try to be all that accurate. In fact, I sometimes just use the "handful method" if I'm using leaf hops and they're not a strong tasting or high AA variety. Two of my handfuls are about an ounce. Or you can stuff one non-ziplock sandwich bag full of about an ounce if it's pretty taught, but not excessively tightly packed. Sometimes I'll weigh the hops out around a half hour before they're due and put them in sandwich bags, so that all my ducks are in a row, if you will.

As for science verses art, well, who knows. I'm very knowledgeable on matters of science of various disciplines. Problem is, I'm inherently lazier than an old lazy dog who's primary duty is holding down the ground.

So I'm not especially uber-scientific about it, even tho I'm quite well educated on various topics in science. I guess I'm white collar educated, but I'm still just a blue collar man. Who wants to hang out with stuffy professors, listening to the great classics of European Renaissance composers, drinking wine and eating cheese, "pinky out," when you can crank up the Metal, break out the tortillas, jalapenos and fajitas, watch your buddy nearly blow up the house trying to light the grill, and drink fabulous homebrew all day long? To me it's not even a choice. When I have to put the same effort into homebrew that I put into classes like calculus II or linear algebra, forget it, I'm done.

BTW, speaking of ROCK, last night I went to see Mushroom head and One Eyed Doll, with X-factor, plus two local bands. Friggin' fabulous. Highly recommended, tons of entertainment value for my twenty bucks admission. Buy their merchandise too, the prices were reasonable and that's the ONLY way that bands like them make anything notable for their efforts. As a bass player, guitar player, and long time band type dude, I always appreciate a great performance. Oh, and I'm in love with Kimberly Freeman too.

Back on topic now... As for the balancing of whatever science and art we can muster...

Tis a good part of the reason that I keep my beer on the fairly simple side, fairly moderate side, fairly hard-to-screw-up side. The most ambitious beer I've tried in a while is the fresh hop pale ale, and that is solely because of the cost of the ingredients. I hope it's gonna be awesome, but I suspect it's gonna be "pretty friggin' good." I've left it in primary a little longer than I wanted to, but the temperature has been a bit lower than usual, so I think it will be friggin' good enough. Usually I try to ferment at 64, but I know it was at 60 a week into the fermentation. So it's fermented a little low with S-05. Any thoughts? I believe it's been 24 days in primary. I plan to bottle tomorrow or saturday. I've been meaning to all week, but school has just been brutal this week.

Damn. I'm tired as hell, and I've only just finished half of a commercial lagunitas hop stoopid, but I'm already rambling on like I'm on my 3rd bomber and it's 4am. What the heck is this world coming to?

 

Other: Balance of Science and art rather than Art and Science

Disclaimer: after Burton Baton, Homebrew BW/IIPA, and DFH 90 : )

 

I went with combo. As far as science goes, I rely upon it heavily during the cleaning and sanitation process. After that all bets are off. I'll dry hop brown ales, use brett in whatever, rack my beer onto grass clippings just to see what happens. It's very expirimental when I brew, and I don't stick to any one style for very long. I haven't had any real car wreck beers, and I have had some phenom brews because of this ability to say "hold my beer and watch this". The last stand out was a brett saison that I brewed with a pils base, dark munich, and red wheat. Lightly hopped. It with saaz and chinook during the boil and then dryhopped it with an oz of chinook and citra after sitting in primary for three months. I didn't plan on it, but I had a tank 7 I was drinking and some leftover hops. The rest is history.