Been reading more and more about concrete eggs...

Do tell. I would think it would be a pain to sanitize with concrete being porous..Anyone making stainless egg shaped fermenters?

 

Hair of the Dog has one here in Portland OR. For anyone that has visited, they know there is always a "from the wood" beer that is on tap everyday which is a BA beer of some sort.

a few years ago " from the stone" started to appear on the menu. this designates beers that have spent time in the concrete egg.

Ive probably had 3-4 beers "from the stone" with mixed results. Knowing Alan, he will probably have it dialed in in a few years. for now it seems kind of experimental

 

About a year ago Beer Advocate wrote an article about brewers experimenting with concrete fermenters. Here it is:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/articl...t-with-equipment-that-has-winemaking-origins/

 

A brewery local to me of Tired Hands has been fermenting beer in a concrete egg for some time now. The only beer I had that was fermented in the egg was one of the Saison beers. I thought that beer was good; I suppose it had some 'additional' complexity from the minerality?

Cheers!

 

It was the next big thing a couple thousand years ago when the Ancient Romans used concrete fermentation vessels. Of course they were making wine for the most part though they did ferment other stuff and were known to drink beer.

The referenced article is interesting and something I'd like to sample.

 

Interesting.

I hope this doesn't turn out like when brewers who wanted to barrel age took the short cut by adding oak chips...Please keep the Quickcrete out of my beer.

 

Some very expensive French wines are still being fermented in concrete tubs. Petrus which sell for more than 600 Euros a 750 is one of them.

 

Concrete eggs?

Come on now. True craft brewers only use the finest geodes to age their beers.

 

Wait till next year when the egg vs round vs square concrete fermenter conversation starts.

 

Not going back quite as far as Rome, numerous larger US breweries built or renovated after Repeal added "Borsari" concrete fermenters.

 

From what I gather concrete eggs have been used in wine production for many years. It would make sense then that breweries such as Hair of the Dog (where I first heard about this) and Russian River would be experimenting with this method. Personally, I can't see where concrete would be any benefit to beer production. My best guess is that they would take a few years to "season" like a good ol cast iron pan (taking in qualities of past batches by capturing microbes and other 'goodies' in the porous material) before they could add anything to beer.

 

Recently took my wife wine tasting in Napa and a winery was using them. It was a high end winery and they stated they were one of the first to use use them. Seems to be the next big thing.

 

This begs the next question, do you try and buy concrete eggs for 2nd use? Buy one from a winery to age your beer in to get their terroir?

 

I've tried 2 or 3 beers from their egg, I did get a little more of a mineral flavor from them (just the best word I can thing of to describe it).

They were unique and the Saison worked the best in it, but I feel the concert eggs are more of an interesting experiment for some draft only beers verses being the next bing thing.

 

These concrete fermenters are no doubt fashioned after the "Yorkshire squares" used in Samuel Smith's brewery in the UK.

Everyone knows that beer fermented in a giant concrete square is better yo.

 

Given the size constraints of these egg fermentors I suspect that will keep these to draft only beers.

Cheers!

 

The US examples in that ad are lager brewers, why would they use a Yorkshire Square-design for a bottom fermented beer?

 

Lager yeast requires cooler temps and concrete is easier to cool down?... idk, just a guess...