Impact Of PRESSURE FERMENTATION On A Lager (LAB TESTED!)

Impact Of PRESSURE FERMENTATION On A Lager (LAB TESTED!) | exBEERiment

Рет қаралды 39,488

7 ай бұрын

Fermenting lager yeast under pressure is purported to lower ester levels when fermenting at ale temperatures, creating a cleaner tasting beer. To test this out, Martin split a German Helles Exportbier between two fermenters and fermented one at 12 psi while the other stayed at ambient pressure. In addition to serving these beers to a panel of blind tasters, they were also sent into White Labs for objective testing. Are they distinguishable at a qualitative and quantitative level? Let's find out!
RECIPE: share.brewfather.app/RkczET2b...
INGREDIENTS
Epiphany Craft Malt: www.epiphanymalt.com
Yakima Valley Hops: yakimavalleyhops.com/
Imperial Yeast: imperialyeast.com/
WHITE LABS:
Mythical Hammer Lager Yeast: www.whitelabs.com/yeast-singl...
White Labs Fermentation Society: www.whitelabs.com/customer-club
EQUIPMENT USED
Clawhammer Supply 240v eBIAB System: www.clawhammersupply.com/prod...
Spike Brewing FLEX+: spikebrewing.com/products/fle...
SUPPORT BRÜLOSOPHY
Patreon: / brulosophy
Affiliate links: brulosophy.com/support
CONTACT: martin@brulosophy.com

Пікірлер: 104

@Marshall_Brulosophy 7 ай бұрын

Brülosophy - getting kiddos involved in brewing science since 2014. I’ve been fascinated by the growing popularity of pressurized fermentation, particularly as it relates to lagers. Ferment warm at ambient pressure and you’re committing the worst sin, but add a little pressure and all is good in the world. Not only do the results of this xBmt align with all past results on the same topic, indicating pressure has little perceptible impact, but the lab data objectively shows it doesn’t really do much as well. Ultimately, both beers possessed essentially the same levels of fermentation byproducts, and per the lab data, neither had any that were past flavor thresholds. Fascinating! To me, this further supports the notion that lagers, at least when using certain yeast strains, can be fermented warmer than we’ve been taught without the feared consequences. I don’t expect anyone else to adopt this blasphemous perspective, of course 🍻

@adamgodofwar666 7 ай бұрын

I did a lager with equal parts weyerman pilsner, Vienna, and munich malts and fermented with 34/70. In my mind it was time to see what would happen doing this hot. I pitched at 69 degrees and full swing fermentation my tilt read as high as 77 degrees Fahrenheit. It turned out to be one of the cleanest beers I've brewed yet using that strain! The other times I used it was at 50 degrees and I couldn't taste a bit of Ester In wither hot or cold. I wouldn't worry if you don't have a temperature control if you want to use 34/70

@NoMusiciansInMusicAnymore 5 ай бұрын

I think not using a special new yeast specifically geared for pressure fermentation was more of a backfiring ad than science in this one, I think a better test would be running with standard yeasts

@mr.d578 4 ай бұрын

I have fermented wort at 19c, using W-34/70, S-23, and L17 Harvest - all under pressure. To my palate, I've noticed any difference to the times I've fermented with the above yeast strains cool or warm, under atmospheric pressure. My hypothesis is that many home brewers need an excuse to believe you can break convention and not end up with an inferior product - in this case pressure fermentation - see Kveik also. Saying that, I still ferment under pressure, but only to keep the krausen in check as I ferment in corny kegs.

@lukasthielmann 7 ай бұрын

12psi is about enough to approximate hydrostatic pressure in big macro tanks. If you want to mimick what some of those guys do with added pressure you gotta go higher (20-30psi). DrHans’s channel has great info about it. Basically use a carbonation Calc to match temp and pressure. Works great for me! (Pilsner in 10days grain to glass)

@DENIEL1908 6 ай бұрын

Which video was that? I am just about to try pressure fermenting with a raw neipa, I wanna study all the videos in the topic. Thanks! 🍻

@romsqabr 7 ай бұрын

This is gold, thanks a lot for sharing! Great video

@gamefreeks 7 ай бұрын

Lots of good data points here! Thanks for sharing, great video!!!

@timwood8733 7 ай бұрын

fantastic to actually see some actual lab results -well done

@wyatth4497 7 ай бұрын

I loved the in depth details on this. THANKS!

@williambellavance8784 7 ай бұрын

That was a great exBEERiment. Very interesting results, I have pressure fermented a few times in the past really not a lot as I never really noticed a difference. Great to see not a big difference between the two beers. Love the show and keep up the great work.

@Abeyptfc 6 ай бұрын

Great video once again mate👍

@dustinlight4716 7 ай бұрын

I love seeing this level of detail and the inclusion of the quantitative analysis! I recently did a split batch myself to try this experiment with similar results on the quantitative side. Most of my friends couldn't tell the difference.

@homebrewmania 7 ай бұрын

This was a great video! I'd love to see more videos with the quantitative results.

@AlexBradford23 7 ай бұрын

I wonder if the mesh hop basket holds back the IBU's. Maybe an experiment with one batch with the hop basket and one batch with hops in the kettle

@rogermurtaugh6248 3 ай бұрын

That’s exactly what I was thinking. I always hear people say do not use a hop spider because it confines the hop characteristics too much. Your test proposal sounds like a fun thing to see!

@AlexBradford23 3 ай бұрын

@rogermurtaugh6248 I know the only batch that I did using the clawhammer whirlpool arm and tossing hops straight in was my best neipa to date

@ElementaryBrewingCo 7 ай бұрын

Great video!!! Just brewed a cold ipa with Mythical Hammer. I really enjoyed it! Great yeast, cheers 🍻

@IMakeBeer 7 ай бұрын

Awesome awesome job again Martin. I love the “scientific” aspect you and Brulosophy are doing.

@1TheLord1 7 ай бұрын

Not going to lie... that's so awsome! What a nice support for white labs with the lab results.

@Styv93 7 ай бұрын

I always ferment under pressure at 24°C using normal lager yeasts. I never had a difference in flavour or aroma compared to cold fermented lagers

@andkar83 7 ай бұрын

Very interesting, may I recommend that next time you crank up the temperature to 24-25 degrees Celsius. That should increase the difference in Esters and taste.

@bjsgordo 7 ай бұрын

Great vídeo

@flyingwombattv 7 ай бұрын

This is an absolutely brilliant episode mate! Love your channel but was truely spectacular to see such scientific rigour applied to testing a hypothesis at the home brew scale! I am curious how much of a qualitative & quantitative difference may be expected from a yeast that is supposed to be estery, say a Belgium yeast for example. Sure you wouldn’t really ever pressure ferment with an estery yeast but would be very interesting to see how much pressure ferm COULD suppress an estery yeast from getting estery

@grahamhawes7089 7 ай бұрын

I pressure fermented lagers for quite a while before buying my fermentation chest freezer. I used a variety of yeast strains - my favorite for pressure fermentation was Mexican Lager, though I don’t love it for traditional fermentation. While the pressure-ferm beers were good, and dropped very clear, ALL of them had a very slight sulfurous note compared to cool-fermented lagers, regardless of yeast strains. These days I ferment at traditional temperatures but on an aggressive schedule, and spund the last few gravity points for carbonation.

@normodegard183 7 ай бұрын

More lab testing!

@bradleybarth9939 7 ай бұрын

Nice video. Looks like you missed adding your video link at the end.

@oldschoolman1444 4 ай бұрын

I brew ales and use a pressure fermenter at 7 lbs at 22c. The things i like is the control of the crousen, closed transfers and carbonation. Also good for purging sanitizer from kegs.

@Xlr8ive 7 ай бұрын

I. pressure ferment regularly, it's just faster and easier, never tried clearing with gelatin, but I hear you can get a lager like result in less than a week! I still like to lager at cold temperature on co2 to increase my perception of crispness and let the beer clear, then dispense through a floating dip-tube. thanks for the rigorous testing it really convincing me to try fermenting in a whole variety of conditions, no wrong way!

@pl_audio 7 ай бұрын

I accidentaly pitched a lager at 35c with 34/70. Set the fridge at 16c and let it rise to 22-23c after five days. I served it at a beer festival here in Sweden and one of the few tasters that actually said something about it said "Good job, it's crisp!"...

@TheAndysim66 7 ай бұрын

Many members of our Homebrew club have always thought the brewing software IBU calcs were too high, but I didn’t think they were that far off.

@Sibula 5 ай бұрын

They can certainly be too high, but in some cases way too low. If you've ever tried to make a low IBU pale ale with generous late hop additions, you might notice you "10 IBU" beer tastes more like 20 IBU. The SMPH method of calculating IBU matches lab tests pretty well, but is much more complicated.

@TWillBeer 7 ай бұрын

The IBU discrepancy is interesting. I’ve been able to have a couple beers tested for IBUs and they also came out way under the brewers friend calculator estimates. 80 IBUs estimated/ 56 actual, and 35/7 as examples. Thats exactly the kind of rabbit hole that makes this hobby so appealing to me.

@neilherke6285 7 ай бұрын

Did you use a hop spider? I don't think I get the same utilisation when I use mine vs dumping hops direct in the kettle

@TWillBeer 7 ай бұрын

⁠@@neilherke6285free in the kettle. I stopped using spiders or bags years ago because of muted aroma and low bitterness. Maybe that wasn’t the only factor

@Hellbrews 7 ай бұрын

So at the End the main "advantage" on pressure fermentations are Higher Fermtn Temp with lager strains, and saving some CO2 for carbonation? Cheers Mate ! 👏🍻

@norbertmerkl572 Ай бұрын

I'd love to see a same themed video but with new england IPA and dry hopping involved. I'd be curious about diacetyl levels on that one.

@danmartvk 7 ай бұрын

This is cool to see all the lab work! great video I Pressure ferment all the time. Lager and Ale. Generally in the 25-27PSI range though. This is when I see the biggest benefit. First, because the beer is fully carbonated naturally. Second is the reduced off-flavors, higher PSI really does knock these down, other than diacetyl, as the labs showed. For Diacetyl ALDC is excellent, but the yeast needs to be extra healthy with O2 and extra nurturance to compensate for the stressful PSI. It is funny to see how off the IBU is, it seems all calculators are inaccurate at best when it comes to IBU. Without lab testing, it is a trial-and-iterate deal.

@wd6358 7 ай бұрын

I agree with you as I've seen the same results at higher psi. Beautifully crisp, clean and more maltier lagers

@Marshall_Brulosophy 7 ай бұрын

Regarding the IBU thing - we've had multiple beers tested over the years and this has been a very consistent finding, namely that lab measurements come back way lower than calculator predictions. My initial thought was, "Shit, I need to use more hops to ensure I hit the proper IBU!" However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the error in this line of reasoning, mostly because we've generally been happy with the bitterness of the beers we've had tested. To me, this suggests that our predictive IBU calculators are just wholly different than the numbers returned by spectrophotometric assays or HPLC. I really don't know, but considering this particular xBmt, Martin would have had to use nearly double the amount of hops to achieve the "proper" IBU as measured in the lab, yet he felt both beers were already bitter enough and tasted great.

@davec4955 4 ай бұрын

My main reason for pressure fermentation is to carbonate during fermentation, so I'm delighted with the results of your test.🍻🍻

@rcbran 7 ай бұрын

I'd like to know how and how fast you cooled these from boil to fermenter because there's a belief circulating that faster cooling may have an effect on IBUs. Thanks!

@GScottJohnston 7 ай бұрын

They were both fermented at 20C? So since they tasted the same and were maybe different analytically, it's not like, "using this yeast under pressure and warm temp gets you lager flavour" it's actually that "using this yeast at warm temp gets you lager flavour" and the pressure isn't needed, right?

@benjacobs3820 7 ай бұрын

This was what I was thinking. This was a good way to show fermenting under pressure doesn't fundamentally change the beer, but I understood fermenting at pressure allows us to use normal lager yeasts at a higher temperature with similar results. It would be good to have another proper test made with this in mind!

@donosborn 7 ай бұрын

What a detailed experiment and how great to have some scientific data results. Still, when thinking about pressure fermenting I'm always wondering how much different it is than fermenting with the same yeast at cold temps and no pressure. That is, if I don't have cold temps and I want to make a lager, will pressurized fermenting at warmer temps provide a fairly close result. It is interesting, though, that in this case the pressure didn't do much. We have been hearing in recent years that lager yeasts can ferment much warmer than traditionally thought w/o negative results and this experiment does indicate that. Cheers.

@johnfinderupnielsen4174 6 ай бұрын

Which IBU formula did you use? It's interesting 15:55 that when I loaded your recipe into my Brewfather app it calculated 50 IBU with the Tinseth formula and 34 with the Garetz formula. Garezt seems to calculate lower in general. Wonder what the SMPH formula would calculate. I will recommend the IBU calculation article in BYO July-Aug 2022 edition.

@AM2PMReviews 4 ай бұрын

I want to know if anyone has hopped their beer in the glass with maybe a teabag. I have never heard of it but I love the flavor and aromas right out of the package for the fancy tropical hops. It might create a lot of nucleation points though or maybe garish the beer or cider with the hop like a cocktail would be amazing. I will try it.

@robertjoyce5629 7 ай бұрын

I think you should do the same ex-beer-iment again, but this time ferment both samples at 85 degrees Fahrenheit. I bet you'll get some noticeable differences then!

@Marshall_Brulosophy 7 ай бұрын

We'll add it to the list!

@Gutenmorgenside 7 ай бұрын

Great video, but who drinks all the beer you make ?

@martinm3474 6 ай бұрын

One can of Premier Malt extract, one 4 lbs. bag of sugar, and one packet Red Star yeast in a seven gallon bucket. This worked for me over many years. It wasn't rocket science.

@mikeseaman2809 7 ай бұрын

Interesting to see that the 0% beer actually came out better lab wise. Could that mean it would last longer in the bottle or keg? As for the IBU’s, I’ve always wondered if I’m getting quality hops as a home brewer. 🤷‍♂️

@AndreiAdamtsuk 6 ай бұрын

Hello Martin!

@Fairlylocalhomebrewery 7 ай бұрын

1 thing i think you missed is the clarity? Was there any difference in appearance? Did pressure help clarify it any more than zero pressure?

@wd6358 7 ай бұрын

My 2 best lagers have come from 'accidentally' having the temps in the low to mid 70's F and pressure north of 25 psi. I may actually target those ranges on all my lagers in the future due to how good the resulting product is. (S-23 and 34/70 were the yeasts)

@ittos90 7 ай бұрын

I wonder if the blend of yeast used in this experiment is what caused the similarities. After all, that was the intention of the blend - to be useful in many situations. I wonder if you'd have different results with a standard lager yeast at 68 pressurized vs un-pressurized

@paulandersonanderson1444 7 ай бұрын

I think pressure become more important at higher temperatures. I’ve used US05 at in the middle of the Australian summer and the temperature of the beer hit 29 degrees Celsius. It was under pressure and had no detectable off flavours. I also do lagers in summer under pressure with no cooling and they also turn out great.

@jonathanbaker6835 7 ай бұрын

Can we dig into IBU calculation?

@Seb_Brannigan 4 ай бұрын

Greetings from Dortmund :-)

@RichardDePas 7 ай бұрын

Fantastic information. I had heard that pressure fermentation would increase hop flavors. It sounds like that is not true. Typically I ferment under pressure with a Fermzilla.

@AM2PMReviews 4 ай бұрын

I just got a few styles of mini kegs for cider pressure fermenting. What is the deal with lager vs ale fermentation? Is it just a temperature difference? Maybe pressure fermentation is just a little better since it's less exposure to oxygen, faster, hotter, less to clean, less Co2 needed?

@MrHayden123982 6 ай бұрын

My bet would be your hop basket for decreased utilization. You can adjust utilization in the app if you haven’t yet. Also curious if you have all of your volumes in brewfather for things like trub waste, pre boil, etc. some people never adjust to mimic their exact results on brew day and if your volume in the app was sig diff from real life, then it could over approx IBU

@horn8mech 7 ай бұрын

My understanding is that fermenting under pressure at room temp gives similar results as fermenting cold without pressure. This experiment fermented at the same temperature pressurized and unpressurized.

@pv4669 Ай бұрын

The IBU difference was dramatic from Brewfather to the tested samples. Something tells me we've all been doing this wrong. Further Brülosophy investigation?

@xamolxis 6 ай бұрын

The music makes it hard to fallow what you say....

@cg-404 3 ай бұрын

So for a professional homebrewer, there is no difference. Could this be replicated with extract kits and see if the weekend warrior gets different results on the more amateur scale of pressure fermentation

@kis1815 7 ай бұрын

Doing this on a commercial scale, the pressured one would probably end up having way more fusel alcohol and even acetaldehyde than the no pressure one, becasue the yeast would be very stressed and won't metabolize properly . Hence so many European lager breweries would use open fermentation instead. I have no clue who come up with this couple years ago, but a few blind tests don't prove the harm this method on lager.

@noregrats 2 ай бұрын

My first time using white labs yeast I was sent 2 packets that were stunted and runined 1 of the batches of beer I made. Contacted support and was told they would send me some yeast as a apology until they found out I was from Canada and told me a I had to pay import duty and the border for more than the yeast cost. They got some cool stuff when it works apparently but I'm sticking to dry after that disaster and their customer service.

@ScullyBrewing 7 ай бұрын

Very interesting regarding the IBU differences. It would be great to talk to developers about some possible improvements to IBU calculators for brewing software. I always thought that beers with lower IBU would be more accurate to estimate than say a triple IPA with 100+ IBU, but that wasnt the case here. Sidenote, are there any affordable IBU calculating machines? 😄

@derDKP 7 ай бұрын

The biology lab at my local Community college has everything needed. Get a student to do a project?

@pdescham496 7 ай бұрын

Great stuff would be awesome to see a more exagerated situation.. Lager fermenting at 27c with 0 and 12 PSI :)

@gregflynn1107 7 ай бұрын

I thought the reason for pressure fermentation is that you could ferment at higher temperatures, not that there would be a noticeable difference at slightly higher than recommended temps. Seems like a better experiment would be to ferment sub 16C and pressure ferment much higher, say 22-24C. I’m in South Florida so both getting my wort to fermentation temp is hard to do timely and requires refrigeration to hold fermentation below 25C and in summer it is hard to get it below 30C.

@KnobbyWobby 4 ай бұрын

Isn't 4/7 in the white labs test a statistically significant result?

@CrazyAboutVinylRecords 4 ай бұрын

10:08 "And if we run out of beer to test we can double as a urinalysis lab during the slow times." Lol.

@CozzyB 7 ай бұрын

Wouldn’t the most obviously IBU being off factor be the hop spider? I’ve always suspected my utilisation is lower when using mine as much lower contact surface

@derDKP 7 ай бұрын

Seems like a good thing to test

@AdamNotThatAdam 7 ай бұрын

Maybe an exBEERiment as scientific as this to test hop utilization with and without a hop basket.

@ants9230 7 ай бұрын

@@AdamNotThatAdam Pretty sure it was already done within the last couple of months. From memory, there was no discernable difference in the beers. Similar result to this one if I recall.

@AdamNotThatAdam 7 ай бұрын

@ants9230 was that sent to a lab? If so, do you have the link.

@TheBruSho 7 ай бұрын

So basically everything we are ever told is a lie! Thanks for "ruining" the hobby Martin 😅

@Marshall_Brulosophy 7 ай бұрын

Hey now, don't go putting on Martin what is rightfully mine! I RUINED HOMEBREWING! Trust me, some guys who brew lagers a very specific way and also a guy named Bob told me so.

@jamesspinks716 7 ай бұрын

The only way to tell is by the label on the can?

@JoeGraves24 7 ай бұрын

So my big fancy pressure fermenter was a waste of money?

@diogolovato3074 7 ай бұрын

Probably not as they tested only one yeast strain

@suwirwong 7 ай бұрын

Try test budweizer

@clevelandmortician3887 7 ай бұрын

If I drank a couple of one then switched to the other I feel like I would know immediately. Taking that test would be a different story though

@GlennHill-jf4zh 2 ай бұрын

so up your Temps and see how high you can go

@jacksonakson8224 7 ай бұрын

My take, and current dilemma.... The 2022 European hop crop is substandard at best.

@rici_22 7 ай бұрын

Yeah, ditch the hop spider. Or better yet, do an xBmt on it and get a lab to measure IBUs. Then maybe Brewfather could add a "Using Hop Spider" tick box to their app that would make the appropriate IBU adjustments... My 2¢

@paskrell 7 ай бұрын

It’s the strain!! Do again with 34/70. 😅😅😅 I’ve done it (cold no pressure vs warm pressure) and it was easy to see difference.

@Marshall_Brulosophy 7 ай бұрын

We've done that! Both beers fermented with W-34/70 at 68F/20C, one at 12 psi the other at ambient temp, and only 8 out of 20 blind tasters identified the unique sample. I'd drop a link, but last time I did that, I was banned from commenting for a few days... despite this being my channel. If you're interested, you can find the article by searching "Impact Of Pressurized Warm Fermentation On A Festbier." We've also done the same test with other lager yeasts and consistently get the same result, which is to say tasters cannot reliably distinguish the beers based on aroma, flavor, or mouthfeel.

@Marshall_Brulosophy 7 ай бұрын

I just realized you proposed a dual variable experiment comparing a lager fermented cool with no pressure (standard) to one fermented warm under pressure. My bad. My understanding is that the argument for pressurized fermentation is that one can get away with fermenting warmer without the risk of producing stylistically inappropriate fermentation byproducts (esters, fusels, etc). It sounds like you're claiming that fermenting under pressure even when keeping the temp cool has benefits as well?

@Murzington 6 ай бұрын

I was under the impression that the point in pressure fermentation was to do so at higher temp. This experiment should have been a comparison of a split batch where one half is done normal (standard lager temps and no pressure) and the other half done under pressure at ale temps (12psi 72ish F). That's where all the comparisons and anecdotal evidence is.

@jonasragnarsson6143 6 ай бұрын

How about to ferment whith pressure and low temp? Will ett come out super clean with no esters? Or do the yeast turn in and out and say godbye?

@paskrell 6 ай бұрын

@@jonasragnarsson6143 personally I’ve always done 20C at 1bar and a gold and silver medal later snd a 5th with proper temp control I’ll continue 20C 1bar 😉

@ericrolerkite951 7 ай бұрын

Not sure if this has been commented, but I bet your hop strainer prevented a lot of utilization of hops. I recently started brewing in stainless basket and I’ve been getting a lot of astringency in my final product. It be cool to see a Brew experiment on astringency. Such as over sparging heating up the entire grain basket, so on so on.

@gustag 4 ай бұрын

10:22 HEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHHEHEEHHEHE

@gamecollector7930 7 ай бұрын

Anton Paar SUUUUCKS, trust your hydrometer

@simontja 6 ай бұрын

please just show all data, not one data at a time.

@dibbsonline 7 ай бұрын

18 minutes of your life you'll never get back.

@user-id2bm9hw3i Ай бұрын

Let your son try :)

@jgar538 7 ай бұрын

I'm sorry for giving you a thumbs down, but I was expecting a comparison of normal lager fermentation (50-53 F) and pressure fermentation (at 65-68 F) using a standard lager yeast. Cheerz.