Improving wort through storage.

Post #1 made 13 years ago
After having the same question asked in 2 different threads, I would like to pose the following question for discussion;

Does storing fresh wort (slow/no-chill) in a sealed cube improve the finished beer?

My initial thoughts are that it is entirely possible.

We know that the sugar (maltose) will remain constant. Therefore the Gravity will/should remain constant.
The volume will remain constant, assuming a proper seal.

Is the wort alive? Once fermentation starts we have live beer and it remains this way until drunk or filtered and force carbonated. If the wort is alive, then it's easy to imagine that it could improve through ageing, a bit like wine. If it's dead at the wort stage, what would make it improve, or for that matter go down hill?

I've read on other forums that HDPE can allow oxygen molecules to pass through it. If this was/ is the case, surely stux' cube that he stored for 9 months would have an increased amount of air in the cube, stux?

So much to think on, it's already starting to do my head in :think: :scratch:

Thoughts...
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #2 made 13 years ago
Damn good question hashie. I often wonder about these things myself.

To expand on that a bit, I have a certain Pale Ale recipe that I always bottle instead of keg because after bottle conditioning at cellar temps for a month the taste is just fantastic. If I keg it after fermenting and toss it in the kegerator it just never "matures" enough to gain that wonderful flavor. I suppose I could prime the keg and let it set at cellar temps for a month before refrigerating but I'm afraid it wouldn't be the same. :think:
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Post #3 made 13 years ago
Thughes,
There is only one way to find out!! Give it a shot and see.

Lengthy Post Follows!

Hashie,
Even though our wort in the cube isn't 'living' the flavours are still combining and balancing themselves as the cube is aged. Similar to stews and curries tasting better as they get older! :yum:

With the comment on HDPE being porous to oxygen molecules, I don't think you would see a cube inflated or blown up without something else sinister being in there first. :o

Experiment 1 - I have a cube at home I will intentionally put aside and mark the size of the air trapped in it and I will come back at monthly intervals and see how much it has grown. As a bonus, I'll include pics!

If the oxygen does get into the cube, it seems it isn't enough to cause any notable defects in our beers.
Example: Hashie and myself with 9mth old cubes and some of my local brewers have told me of their cubes being over 15mths old and fermenting fine.

Does anyone have a story of an old cube making undrinkable or only just-able-to-drink-beer?

Maybe the precursors are there and fermentation has been treated in such a way (correct temperatures, proper sanitation, good amount of healthy yeast etc) that any oxidation is so small that it is undetectable or doesn't develop any further.

John Palmer in 'How To Brew' talks of Hot Side Aeration
If the wort is exposed to oxygen at temperatures above 80°F (26°C), the beer will sooner or later develop wet cardboard or sherry-like flavors, depending on which compounds were oxidized.
It is a possibility that oxidised wort could affect the how long the resultant beer will stay/taste good for once it is packaged and stored for any length of time. My beer doesn't last long enough to find out! :drink:
Experiment 2 - I think this is a bit harder to test as I would want to store the wort for a year in a cube and then ferment it and see how it fairs after 6mths, 12mths etc in the bottle. I'll report back in 2014! :lol:


So, after all of that, what do I think of NC cubes that have been stored for a long time?
I produce double batches so regularly have extra cubes of brews sitting for long periods of time. I'll brew one of the cubes then brew a different beer to have some variety on offer.
In my experience, I am usually happier with the beer I have brewed from a NC cube that has been sitting for a length of time generally 3mths or more. I thought the flavours were more rounded and settled. Having said this, the time between tasting the beer from the first cube and the second one is generally about 1-3mths so time/my memory could distort what I thought I tasted in the first beer. I'll need to take some notes when tasting to have some sort of comparison.

I'll stop typing now so someone else can add their thoughts.

Cheers
HC
Last edited by housecat on 04 Feb 2012, 19:01, edited 3 times in total.
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Post #4 made 13 years ago
Good Day HC,Hashie, The qusstion I had is...I made a double batch, to see if I could. My fermenter can only handle a single batch, So, I No-Chilled the second.

6 weeks later the first batch was clear enough to bottle.
Then, I remembered the No-chill batch, and got it into the fermenter.

3 weeks later the No-chilled batch was clear enough to bootle. It was unusual to have the beer be clear in 3 weeks, Really.

12 days later, I tryed the No-chill batch to check it, it was good. So I popped a bottle of the 1st batch, It was good too. Side by side, the nochilled tasted more refined/less green.

Later that week a few friends/Mates came by and I gave them a bottle of both beers. Both said that the beer was good but the NC version was better. I wondered if anyone else had dseen this sort of thing
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Post #5 made 13 years ago
Great topic hashie!

I know your original post talks about storing in a cube but I'm going to ignore that bit and go with your topic title :P.

I've written the following before but not for a while so apologies to those affected...

The best beer I have had in my life was a lager/pilsner/Munich Helles type beer. I was given half a dozen bottles (375mls) on a brew day and I had one every month or two. The brewer was a gold medal winner but the beer never became impressive to me until after 9 months when I cracked the last one. I am crap at describing beers but this one, that had been stored for 9 months in the fridge, was so good that I put the cap back on it to taste again later. Why? (I can bore you with that in another post if you want :P. Suffice to say I have never been so 'struck'.)

Anyway, that beer got me thinking. Remember in the olden days that you had to age a red wine under cold conditions for a certain amount of time? Then, about 15 years ago they discovered they could speed up the aging process by raising the temperature?

Well...

About five or six years ago I drove across Australia for the third time but this time I had kegs on board! I had a keg of lager exposed to temperatures of what must have often been 60C for about three weeks. The temperature varied a lot but would have never been cooler than 20C. I arrived in Perth, hooked that keg up and that is probably the second most interesting beer I have ever had. Some days I loved it and other days I didn't. In hindsight I suspect that the days I didn't like it were when I had more than a glass or two. I often find this in many beers? (Maybe that should be another topic though I have never seen it done before?)

Sorry about the ramble but what I am trying to say is that those of you who bottle, should try variations on how you condition your bottles. If I bottled, I would go so far as after they were secondary fermented, to put 6 bottles under refrigeration and another 6 left at ambient and maybe even another 6 (safety glasses on) kept at even higher temps.

The problem with this subject is, like me, no one actually ever does the esperiment :sad:,
PP
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Post #6 made 13 years ago
Very good responses all.

"The problem with this subject is, like me, no one actually ever does the experiment" The problem is it is very hard to do a side by side brew 6, 9 or 12 months apart. To split a double batch as Joshua did is also difficult to discern what made the difference. 1 brew fermented for 6 weeks the other for 3. Their finished age or bottled age was different by 3 weeks, so it's hard to nail down which attribute added or removed quality from each beer.

I guess this is just one of the many brewing questions that keeps me awake at night. Another question is why does bottled beer taste and drink differently than kegged beer, when the beer is from the same fermenter? But again that's probably best for another thread.

thughes, I do condition my kegs and allow them to cellar before chilling and drinking and they never taste the same as the bottled beer from the same brew.

Housecat, that is exactly the thinking I was hoping for. I really hope you follow through with reports and photos. It will make for a very interesting experiment.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #7 made 13 years ago
Good Day, Looking over my data book, could the difference be that the No-Chill cube lets the wort settle much more before the yeast happens to stir everything up.
Maybe something falls out in no-chill that the yeast uses in quick chill and that is the quality difference?
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Post #8 made 13 years ago
here's a related question:
say i were to conduct a side by side experiment to be discussed on one home breweing related podcast or another,
and that the subject of this experiment was chill vs. no-chill,
what would the parameters of the experiment be?
what type of beer should i brew?

as was discussed previously, this wouldn't be an attempt at ageing cubed wort, because than the chilled wort would end up being packaged and begin it's post ferment ageing before the cubed half was fermented at all.
Cube:
fermenter: Sourdough Spelt Ale, Classic Lambic, Oud Brune, Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel
Kegs: Bob's Black IPA, Blanc Blond, Soda...
to be brewed:

Post #9 made 13 years ago
I don't think there is a set of parameters you could devise that would completely satisfy any intended audience. My thought is that it's just too much of a subjective comparison to yield any indisputable data or scientific results.
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Post #10 made 13 years ago
Good Day, I was just wondering if a few weeks of wort aging changed the beer.
I agree there is no way to determine if wort aging compares with quick-cooled wort.
Honest Officer, I swear to Drunk, I am Not God.
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Post #11 made 13 years ago
For me, they would have to be fermented and bottled/kegged at the same time. This can't be done because the rapid chilled wort has to go into the fermenter much sooner than the slow chilled wort.

Another way to try it would be to make a batch and slow chill and age it for a month, then brew an identical batch, rapid chill and ferment side by side. The problem being they are from different batches.

Perhaps a double batch with 1/2 slow chilled and aged, while the other 1/2 is rapid chilled and frozen for storage while waiting for fermentation?
Last edited by hashie on 07 Feb 2012, 05:51, edited 3 times in total.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #12 made 13 years ago
Good Day Hashie, Rapid chill to freezing....Interesting Idea. The exact opposite of No-Chill. Another way to save wort!
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Post #13 made 13 years ago
I was thinking of brewing a batch, running half into a cube for no chill and than chill the other half and run it into the fermenter. The no chill half will cool overnight and than i'll transfer that to FV as well.
This experiment won't showcase the aging option of no chill but only the viability of the method as apposed to other chilling methods.
Cube:
fermenter: Sourdough Spelt Ale, Classic Lambic, Oud Brune, Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel
Kegs: Bob's Black IPA, Blanc Blond, Soda...
to be brewed:

Post #14 made 13 years ago
Brilliant idea shibolet,

I was thinking of doing the same thing! I will try it with my favorite "hop bombs". I may also try (separately) to store a N/C cube for a few months and repeat the recipe with fresh wort. My brew club can do the taste testing. They will do anything for free beer!
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV

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Post #15 made 13 years ago
Of course, then you'd had to do an experiment on chill vs freeze ;)
Fermenting: -
Cubed: -
Stirplate: -
On Tap: NS Summer Ale III (WY1272), Landlord III (WY1469), Fighter's 70/- II (WY1272), Roast Porter (WY1028), Cider, Soda
Next: Munich Helles III

5/7/12

Post #16 made 13 years ago
stux wrote:Of course, then you'd had to do an experiment on chill vs freeze ;)
So many ways to make and drink beer, so little time :thumbs:
Last edited by hashie on 09 Feb 2012, 08:55, edited 3 times in total.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."
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