No Starter Competition Results Poll

My vote goes to soonami for the ‘win’.

He hit the nail on the head with his statement of: “This is an unfair question because there is sampling bias.” If you ask an unfair question you receive an ambiguous answer.

Cheers!

P.S. Honorable mention to geocool and pweis909 for the analogy of “pulling Marshall McLuhan out from behind the movie poster.” And including the video clip. That was precious!

 

...OR, we could just state our opinions as clearly and convincingly as possible, without antagonizing, and allow novice brewers to decide for themselves what works for them and whose advice they want to follow. There are not many questions on Planet Earth that can be answered unambiguously.

 

If we spent some time at it, we could probably come up with a vary sophisticated poll that would get at your question and help us factor out many of the other variables and co-variables that influence beer quality, but it would require many many respondents to give us confidence in any conclusions drawn from the poll.

Experiments with pitching rates, perhaps at the homebrew club level, might be more work than a poll, but the results, if the experiment were well-replicated, would probably be more compelling.

 

NHC Gold medal winners 2012 in Zymurgy Sept/Oct issue.

23 categories. 17 used starters or slurry from previous batch. 6 did not say.
Of the 6, one used 2 packets for a 1.063 lager, and one was a 1.040 bitter. One of the others was a sour with a pack of yeast and a pack of bugs.

Don't know it this proves anything.

 

“17 used starters or slurry from previous batch.” From my perspective this was addressed by soonami via: “Most competition brewers probably aren't going to brew without a starter or repitching on a yeast cake anyway.”

Cheers!

 

My thoghts too, but data are data.

 

“data are data” Fair enough. The data confirms that competition brewers are likely to make starters or repitch on a yeast cake. Nothing surprising there to me.

Cheers!

 

Vikeman was asking about beers in... competitions.

 

rather than brush off small competitions, silver/bronze medal winners, or great beers in particularly tough competitions, I'd be interested in hearing if anyone won any medal or scored 38+ points for such a beer in any competition.

Also, I really can't get yeast fresher than two weeks old. Using any of a number of pitching rate calculators I can see that I'm underpitching for a large number of styles with this yeast. I don't see any reason to limit to 1.055 and above. That kicks out half of Cat 6, all of 7, 9, 11, 12a, 15a, etc. How about 1.045?

Anyone won a medal OR scored 38 and above with 5 gallons of 1.045 wort and a single smack pack/vial?

cheers--
--Michael

P.S. - for me, the answer is yes. Not something I've done in a long time though...

 

I haven't encountered anyone saying they are as good as starter beers. Perhaps you have. Regardless, not as good does not mean not good.
I simply believe your criteria removed the bulk of people from the poll, and missed a bunch of good or better beers. Hence not many confirmed yes's.

a loooong time ago I won a silver medal in a 300-ish competition with a single smack pack of about 5 weeks of age pitched into 4.25 gallons of 1.054 beer. 41 points. So, like most others, no, I have not tried with a beer fitting your description.

I encourage everyone to make starters. At the same time, I encourage new people to brew. At one point I made good beer without a starter so I don't see why anyone else can't. Meanwhile, I'll continue to make even better beer with a starter.

cheers--
--Michael

 

I agree with the whole original direction this was going, but making a "great" beer is subjective to.. well, pretty much everyone. If you brewed a beer, and thought it was great, then it's a great beer. If I tasted your beer, and thought it was shit, it doesn't make it any less "great", because you might have brewed it for you, and yours.

That would be like telling someone who doesn't do the comps, that their beers haven't won a damn thing, so they aren't good, simply because they won't enter them in events.

But back the point of starters, I've found my beers to be better with them, but not earth shatteringly better.

 

IMHO, this is the comment that "wins" the thread. I love both the thought and the way you express it.