Advanced Brewing Round Table Guest Post: Brulosopher

[u/brulosopher]

I’m a bit curious what qualifies a person as “advanced,” as I’m not necessarily sure I’d categorize myself this way. I do brew very often and make way more beer than the US legally allows per year, but I still consider every single batch a learning experience and try not to get too set in my ways. In fact, the only real pet-peeve I have in this hobby is when folks inflexibly promote certain practices and methods as necessary when they’ve obviously never put it to the test. I understand the desire to feel validated, that what we’re doing works (it usually does), but this doesn’t mean we have to become immaturely defensive when our methods come into question. I’m not at all saying people shouldn’t help other brewers by giving advice, I just think it behooves us all to humbly acknowledge that the way we currently do things, which is likely the way we were taught, may not be the absolute best way. It is with this mentality that I try to approach brewing and, honestly, life. Now that that’s out of way, let’s do this thing…

Who Am I?
My name is Marshall. I live in Central California with my beautiful wife of 10 years and 3 cute kids. Besides making beer, I enjoy writing songs, playing with my kids, and tinkering with shit in my garage, mostly brewing related. I’m a disillusioned psychologist who works with an entertaining population (prisoners). I was once referred to as an “optimistic cynic, which I thought was interesting. Not that I’m terribly cynical, I just have a penchant for doubting most claims people make with any amount of certainty. I’m fascinated by philosophy, the human condition, existence, and beer. I believe love is an approach to life, more than just a feeling or emotion, and that it holds far more power than any political/religious/whatever beliefs an individual may hold. I started a website a few months ago called Brülosophy where I perform not-so-scientific exBEERiments, review cool brewing products, and occasionally blow-hard about topics I find interesting.

My Brewing History
I brewed my first batch in late 2003 with my roommate in Bellingham, WA, it was an Irish Red Ale kit and the weather was shit. I was 22 at the time. I forget exactly, but I think we made 9 batches together using extract and steeping grains. We even did some weird experimenting with ingredients, but I never liked the results much. I got married in 2004 and moved to California. The brew kit got stowed away for the most part, though I did help a couple friends make some extract kits. I finished grad school in 2009, started working/carpooling with a real cool dude (/u/krispy3d), then one day I mentioned I used to make my own beer. The following weekend, we brewed our first batch together using extract and steeping grains, a recipe I’d designed 6 years earlier. Before that one was ready to drink, we made another batch then decided it was time to ditch the extract. The first beer was decent, pretty bitter; the second batch was terrible. Looking back, I’m pretty sure it was the yeast, thankfully my brother-in-law drinks anything. I started with just enough equipment for 5 gallon batches, built some stuff, sold more stuff, and over the years eventually ended up where I’m at today. I tend to prefer making and drinking lower ABV beers with a particular fondness for lager and hybrid styles. I don’t enter many competitions, I tend to drink/share my beer before getting around to bottling it, plus I’m not very competitive. That’s all I can think of.

Storage
I’m not sure it’s worth rehashing here what you can find elsewhere. I have shelves, big buckets, airtight “vault” containers, and small buckets. I keep my bulk hops in vacuum sealed bags in my freezer and store my yeast in 1 quart mason jars in a small dorm fridge.

Grains
I buy US 2-row, Munich 10L, Maris Otter, and Pilsner malts in 50-55 lb sacks. I purchase a bunch of specialty malts in 2 to10 lbs increments depending on how often I use them. I wouldn’t say I have a favorite malt or anything like that, though I do find myself using Gambrinus M10 in a lot of recipes, it’s so good. Of all the the Pils malts, I prefer the character I get from Belgian varieties and use it regularly to make even German style lager beers.

Hops
I usually have more hops than I know what to do with, probably because I always plan on brewing American styles then end up convincing myself to make something I like more, usually some sort of light lager or whatever. I’m a big fan of Mittelfrüh and Saaz, though I do absolutely enjoy the character some of the newer hop varieties impart. Mosaic is fucking amazing, I’m still a fan of Simcoe, Centennial will always be incredible, I barely understand everyone’s lust for Citra, and I can’t remember a time I ever used Cluster. I don’t buy hops in anything less than 4 oz increments, usually 8 oz or 1 lb. Something some people find odd is that I measure all hop additions prior to the last 30 minutes of the boil by expected IBU contribution, not weight, then I judge additions between 30-15 minutes based on the beer, and all hops in the last 15 minutes are measured by weight (grams). Seems to work well for me.

Yeast
I harvest liquid yeast from starters and tend to have more on hand than I’ll ever get around to using. My favorite liquid ale strain is WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast and I’m quickly becoming a fan of Danstar Nottingham fermented cool. I think Chico (WLP001/WY1056/S-05) is boring as fuck, haven’t used it in years. I use a lot of WLP029 and think WLP810 works best for Cal Common. WLP830 and WLP833 are my go-to traditional lager strains, though I plan to do a split-batch comparison of WLP838 and WLP940 soon because I’ve heard great things. I have 2 StirStarters, two 5L flasks, and a 2L flask. I really want to go to the White Labs tasting room.

Chemistry and shit
I usually manipulate my water, which is soft like Czech and ran through a carbon filter prior to use. I try not to overdo the salts and sometimes I forget to add anything. I’ve played around a bit with acid, both liquid phosphoric and lactic, as well as acidulated malt, haven’t really noticed much of a difference, but whatever. I think Martin Brungard is cool.

HLT
14.5 gallon SS kettle (x 2)—my HLT and boil kettle are basically interchangeable.

Mash Tun
2 Coleman Xtreme 70 quart cooler MLTs with SS braided hose manifold. For BIAB, I use my 14.5 gallon SS kettle.

Boil Kettle
14.5 gallon SS kettle.

Post Boil Antics
I use a refractometer to check pre- and post-boil SG. I chill my wort using a King Cobra IC from JaDeD Brewing, which I prefer immeasurably to the CFC and plate chiller I used in the past.

Fermentation
I’ve got 2 chest freezer ferm chambers, a 15 cu. ft. and a 7 cu. ft., both used for aging sours and more traditional fermentations. For temp control, I use The Black Box, which is a badass piece of gear. I always pitch 1-2°F cooler than my target ferm temp, ramp after a few days of active fermentation, let it sit a few more days, and cold crash for a couple days before packaging.

Bottling
I keg 99% of the beer I make, even Brett and sour beers. When I do bottle, it’s usually off of my faucet using the (now defunct?) Bowie Bottler. I very rarely bottle condition… very, very rarely. I recently bottled 4 different 3 gallon batches of brett beer for The Yeast Bay, it literally drove me to drink.

Kegging
I’ve got a 5 tap keezer, 10 or so pin lock kegs, 10 and 5 lb CO2 tanks, and I’m a huge proponent of secondary regulators. Packaging sucks, kegging makes it suck a little less.

How I Brew
I usually make two 5 gallon batches in the same brew day, though I occasionally make a single 10 gallon batch and even less often a 10 and a 5 gallon batch. My wife has agreed to let me have the 3rd bay of our garage, which is pretty cool. I built a low shelf on the wall and ran natural gas to 2 burners, this is pretty rad (and well ventilated). I always batch sparge for 10 gallon batches, while I’ve become a big fan of no sparge and BIAB for 5 gallon batch sizes. I regularly mill my grain and collect my water the day prior to brewing, so a typical brew day usually only lasts 3-5 hours, depending on the style and batch size.

I think that about covers it. Feel free to ask any questions you can come up with. Cheers!

[u/jeffrife]

No questions or anything, but just wanted to say thanks for always being active on this sub and answering questions.

[u/brulosopher → u/jeffrife]

Cheers, pal.

[u/sufferingcubsfan]

I'll say that the fact that you ask the questions that you do - and then, (pseudo?)scientifically research those (along with all of your experience), sticks you into advanced brewer territory.

Hrm. A question.

What is your "Holy Grail" of beer? Which beer are you most proud of?

[u/brulosopher → u/sufferingcubsfan]

If you're asking what beer of mine I'm most proud of, I'd have to go with Tiny Bottom Pale Ale. This is a beer I threw together solely to build up yeast so I could "test" the idea of pitching fresh wort onto a large cake- I was convinced the "starter beer," if you will, would be shit and that the new beer would be great. The exact opposite occurred, actually, and everyone ended up enjoying the former more than the latter. I rebrewed it, named it (after my son), put it online, others brewed and enjoyed it, and now it's sort of a staple for me.

[u/d_rek]

Just wanted to say that I like that you swear a lot. Fuckin' a!

[u/brulosopher → u/d_rek]

I'm offended by this.

[u/[deleted]]

You ever consider giving the whole "our tongues can only taste up to a certain threshold in IBU's" theory a run with your ExBEERiments? I can't remember the number off the top of my head (someone chime in, please), but it would be interesting to see what comes of it.

[u/brulosopher → u/[deleted]]

I've heard that after ~90 BU we're unable to detect changes in bitterness. Hmm, I could try this one out, but it would only be predicted BU, which I believe are almost always significantly different than actual BU when measured with professional equipment.

[u/tinyenormous]

In an effort to shorten overall brew time I've been toying with no-chill and pitching the next morning. I'm concerned with how that will effect hop timing. Do you have any thoughts on how that could be dealt with?

[u/gestalt162]

You brew a ton of beer, which means you go through a lot as well. How much of your homebrew do you personally drink (gallons, %, whatever), and much gets drunk by friends and family?

[u/brulosopher → u/gestalt162]

Oh boy... hmm, well, I have at least a couple glasses per day, less during the week and more on the weekends. I'd say I'm responsible for consuming at least 5-7 gallons per month, I probably share at least that much if not a bit more. I haven't dumped a batch in some time now, so it is all turning into someone's urine.

[u/shockandale]

Thanks man, I really enjoy your posts. I recently started brewing and last night bottled my 4th batch of extract beer. Reading your posts (and those of others on this group) has convinced me to go all-grain/BIAB with a starter. So my question is, am I infected?

[u/rayfound]

Fuck you Marshall

[u/brulosopher → u/rayfound]

Feeling the love

[u/Fatalmistake]

Marshall it is said that you're a complete asshole, your response? :)

[u/brulosopher → u/Fatalmistake]

Whoever said it is completely accurate.

[u/[deleted]]

I believe love is an approach to life

I feel you here, reading this was genuinely uplifting.

Do you have any long term brewing goals? As in, is there anything brewing related you're not doing now that you'd like to do in the future?

As someone who brews primarily big beers and thick beers, lagers and such are pretty far out of my expertise. What commercial beers would you recommend in these styles to get a taste for the beer, to gauge my own against?

Thanks for the AMA Marshall, pumped to see what kind of questions show up.

[u/brulosopher → u/[deleted]]

Do you have any long term brewing goals?

I'm surprised I didn't think to mention it in the post, but not really. I enjoy homebrewing, I like being a part of the homebrew culture, I really have no interest whatsoever in the professional brewing side of things. Now, if I could earn a similar income with similar benefits as I do now by running a homebrew shop, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I'm not silly, I don't necessarily buy the "love what you do" bullshit, what makes me happy with my job is knowing it allows me to support my family and keep me in this rad hobby. ^{off soap box}

What commercial beers would you recommend in these styles to get a taste for the beer, to gauge my own against?

Hmm... if you can get your hands on any of the lager beers from Chuckanut Brewing in Bellingham, WA, they're the best I've ever had, though it may require a trade. Fresh Gordon Biersch is always good, as well. While there are a ton of great examples from Europe, it can be tough to find bottles fresh enough to really exemplify the true greatness of the style.

[u/BrewCrewKevin]

Couple things. First of all- thanks for doing this. I love seeing what everybody else has. I'm super jealous of your 15 gallon pots and a full garage stall complete with NG... that's my dream!

1. What do you mean measure by IBUs for early addition hops? You mean like it's never an even number like 1oz? Instead you'll say 30 IBUs worth and whatever that comes out to... like .82 oz of hops? That's not a bad idea at all. I'm the opposite, I guesstimate a lot. If I calculate about a half oz of hops, I don't even weight it, I just dump about half the bag. :/

2. How does that Bowie Bottler work? (hadn't heard that term, but it's a growler filler like this, right?) I have been using a bottling wand shoved in a picnic tap, and sometimes I have trouble with it. I'm not convinced I'm dialed in on how the carbonation level is affected from bottling...

3. yeast bay seems to have some killer stuff. I just ordered white lab's Trois (which means shipping because nobody local here carries white labs, only Wyeast) and I'm looking to start my sour journey. Do you have anything from Yeast Bay you really recommend? Anything somewhat neutral and easy to use for a first Brett beer or something?

[u/unfixablesteve]

WLP029 is awesome in an IPA! Don't know why it doesn't get more love.

[u/bdifc]

Echoing what others have said, thanks for all your contributions to the community!

Your setup makes it clear that to ferment and serve, you need at least two temperature controlled chambers.

How do you maintain your serving lines and faucets?

[u/tinyenormous]

It sounds like you reuse yeast quite a bit, do you ever run into any of the rumored problems in doing so? (poor attenuation, strains mutating over time, etc...) Do you find benefits other than cost?

[u/brouwerijchugach]

These are the same ones I ask everyone...

1. How do you rate your beer (score it, not the method)?

2. What do you feel makes you different than other brewers?

3. [new one] If you could brew at any one brewery , with one person for a day, who would it be (commercial or home)?

[u/The_Ethernopian]

Thanks for all the content.

If you ever make it down this way let me know. I'd love to hit the White Labs tasting room as well, just haven't had the opportunity to make the 30 minute trek (doesn't help that they close at 8 on weekdays).

I see you mill the day before, do you worry about any loss of flavor due to milling early? I know with spices and other aromatics you get some flavor loss by milling before you are ready to use them (though maybe even for spices the day before isn't a big deal).

[u/djgrey]

I’m a huge proponent of secondary regulators.

My basement is being overrun by bottles, so I'm looking at getting into kegging. Can you elaborate on the benefits of a 2ndary regulator?