A bit of controversy here..

[Jim]

Saw a link to this on aussiehomebrewer:

The Roving Brewer.

Basically he is saying that:

First wort hopping
Stepped mashes
Aerating your wort

aren't really good ideas after all!

This hasn't gone down well with the aussiehomebrewer crowd - the thread's here.

[Vossy1]

Very interesting and certainly worth a trial

[steve_flack]

My thoughts on it are

1) FWH- Fair enough. Horses for courses If it works for you.

2) Mashing - He seems to assume by his comments that everyone uses enzyme-rich 6-row malts. Big brewers might as they are quite often using quite a lot of adjuncts and 6-row malt is cheaper. In the UK HB scene we use malts that have quite a bit less enzymes that 6-row so I'd be wary of cutting the mash too short. Indeed an article on http://www.draymans.com/articles/arts/14.html says

Traditional British two row malt, for which the longer rest, single temperature infusion mash was developed are very well-modified malts (but with quite low enzyme content) which can only be mashed successfully at low temperatures (say 65°C). Because the starch dissolves easily, enzymes are conserved sufficiently at these low temperatures so that adequate fermentability can result over say 60 minutes.

3) This is all well and dandy if you pitch enough yeast. Most homebrewers don't - especially when they use liquid yeasts. You actually need a MUCH bigger starter (up to a gallon I read recently in an article recently) than most people think to get the right amount of yeast slurry from a liquid yeast. With dried yeasts or a big starter I can well believe oxygenating the wort is a waste of time. It seems Fermentis seem to recommend a pitching rate of about 1g dried yeast per liter of wort (so two packs for 5 gallons). One advantage of not aerating the wort is that it potentially reduces the risk of infection from airborne nasties.

EDIT: Changed mistake. See post below.

[PieOPah]

I can't really make much comment about this as I am pretty niave in what is happening with my beer. I know that if I follow certain procedures I get beer. What is actually going on at this time is another thing. (To be honest it is rather strange as I Normally like to understand a lot about what is happening and why, never settling for just do it - they hate me asking why at work as it takes them an age to explain!)

As for First Wort Hopping, I have seen this term several times but never really understood what it meant. Now I understand it to mean hopping before /during the Hot Break. I have no real preference on what I do in this instance - whatever happens at the time. At the very minimum I wait until rolling boil....

As for aerating the wort. All I know is that the yeast needs oxygen so I give it to 'em. Why wouldn't I.... Okay, maybe injecting pure O2 might be detrimental, but I'm not doing that, just shaking my wort around quite vigorously. Doubt I could get too much in there that way!!!!

[steve_flack]

You actually need a MUCH bigger starter (up to a gallon I read recently in an article recently) than most people think to get the right amount of yeast slurry from a dried yeast.

did you mean liquid yeasts here Steve?

Yes I did...sorry. I'll go and edit it

[steve_flack]

If you're making a gallon starter i'm guessing the advice would be to only pitch the slurry.

Pretty much yes...otherwise all that starter will really crap up the flavour of your beer

[tribs]

This article is a regurgitation of a post back in 2004

http://www.beertools.com/forum/viewtopi ... ight=#6282

Some of the info I think maybe flawed. FWH was done in Germany for different reasons than homebrewers use it now. It may be detrimental to head retention in certain circumstances and to a certain degree. Most homebrewers who use FWH regularly will tell you there is no noticable difference in head retention and I am one of them.

When he talks about mashing high for a short period of time he is then starting recirculation for a while where converison is still taking place. His reason for mashing for a short period of time is to avoid extraction of undesirable elements from the grain. It would be interesting to experiment with this, but I suspect the only noticeable difference would be much lower efficiency.

He may be right about the wort aeration but again I don't think it would make that much difference but you run the risk of having under aerated yeast. Wort aeration is the safer option IMO.