I have a quick question and wanted to see if you could help. I’m with Oregon State University and we have an upcoming Beer Quality and Analysis workshop for those who want to level up their brewing skills and learn from industry experts. Before it begins, I wanted to see if we can make it even better. Question – What is your top brewing questions/issues that we absolutely need to cover? Thanks for your time. -Greg- Communications Manager Oregon State University https://pace.oregonstate.edu/beer-quality
Your audience is going to be professional brewers, so this thread might be better in the Homebrewing forum where some very experienced brewers hang out, including some professionals.
I always wanted to know if it was beneficial or not to spoon off the scum that collects when the wort first hits a full boil. I do it out of chef habit, but I don't really know if it's doing anything one way or the other.
How can you evaluate how a given batch of hops will express flavor/aroma in a finished beer? I have read and attended presentations on this topic where topics were discussed of: · Rub the hops between your hands and smell them · Make a hop tea with hot water · Etc. These ‘techniques’ give you some indication of how the hops are in non-brewed form but how will a given batch of hops express flavors when: · Exposed to boiling temperatures in the kettle · After the hopped wort is fermented by the yeast · Exposed to the ‘solvent’ of beer during dry hopping Cheers!
Over the years I've visited newly-opened breweries with marginal to bad beer being offered. What should a new brewer (or the brewery owner if your workshop audience has owners too) do to objectively evaluate the beers before opening so that there is no need to do it after going out of business?
I think PapaGoose is spot on. Maybe discuss how to set up and train an objective sensory panel to asses their beers. I know many start ups are small, but you can typically find interested people willing to judge your beers. They do it every time they order a pint.
I noted a couple of posts concerning QA/QC within the brewery. Perhaps a workshop could be developed along the lines of what is discussed in the attached “A Guideline to Growing Your Quality Laboratory”. https://www.asbcnet.org/lab/getstarted/Documents/2017_Growing_your_lab.pdf There is also some discussion in the below linked article entitled “Setting up a craft brewery quality assurance program”: https://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/equipment-systems/brewery-quality-assurance-program/ Cheers! P.S. Brewing quality beer in a consistent manner is indeed a problem at some (many?) new, small breweries unfortunately.
