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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Brewing Discussion --> 2015 BrewUnited Challenge Q&A thread

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homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


This will serve as the official Q&A location for the 2015 BrewUnited Challenge.  If you have a question, please feel free to ask it here!



Posted 34 days ago.

davidg
Kula, HI
137 Posts


Beyond excited for this challenge/competition.  As stated in the thread on Reddit, this is my first competition.  Going to shoot for at least 3 entries, with 2 using traditional methods, the third being completely away from anything I've done.

My question comes for this non-traditional way (for me) to brew.  I work at a distillery and we have sugar cane growing all around us, what I wanted to do was capture some of the wild yeast and possibly use that.  For the details on the process we use, how much detail do you want?  Just "used wild yeast," or do you want more to it?  I may log the methods in detail for a forum post in itself if it turns out ok.  And as I understand it, you must use at least 1% of each of the grains, correct?  What's the minimum for the hops?  I understand we need to use 2 from the list, but do the quantities matter?  




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Fantastic, we'd love to have you brew with us!

Note that 3 entries is the limit; we want to allow as many different brewers as possible to enter.  You may enter no more than one beer into any given style category (i.e. only one 11A Mild), and you may enter no more than three beers, period.  This, of course, makes the Homebrew Hero awards that much harder to earn, as you basically have to have three beers that meet the minimum score to reach a BOS.  This is also why you may only win those awards once.  :)

"Used wild yeast" is probably enough, but detail like "used wild yeast captured from sugar cane" would be even better.  Note that you're going to probably want to use clean fermenting wild yeast, as funky characters would be a flaw in most of the styles for this competition.

We will enforce a minimum on the hops, as well - it will likely be something like 25% (by weight) of a given hop as a minimum, and I cannot imagine it falling below 10%.  We don't want people to try to skirt the spirit of this comp by doing something like tossing a single pellet of a given hop in so that they technically used two varieties.

Feel free to log your methods on a forum thread.  As far as that goes, if it turns out as more of a narrative, you may want to consider doing it as a blog post (or series of posts).  :)

Good luck!



Posted 34 days ago.

blur_yo_face
Houston, Tx
161 Posts


I saw that we will include a recipe with our entry.. but will the judge be aware of the recipe prior to the tasting/judging? also, are the submissions anonymous to the judges (as far as the person that submitted them)? 



Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Judges will be 100% blind to the identity of the brewer.  If we didn't do this, we could not be BJCP certified. 

When your bottles are received, they will receive a numbered sticker on both the cap and the bottle.  All the judge will know is that they are judging "entry # 00138, Munich Dunkel".  The judges will not have access to the names of the entrants - the labeling portion is done by non-judges.

The recipe and process information is likewise available on an administrative end, but is mainly used to help ensure adherence to the competition guidelines.  We don't want judges influenced by what they read, only by what they perceive.



Posted 34 days ago.

blur_yo_face
Houston, Tx
161 Posts


okay cool! I didn't realize that's a BJCP standard.. I like that judges are blind to the recipe as well, keeps personal biases out of the equation..



Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I double checked with our judging directors before I answered on the recipe portion.  Yep, all secret.  :)



Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


Pilsner malt...Any pilsner malt? Like, Belgian, Floor malted bo-pils, American, whatever? Or is that more restrictive?

C60...how restrictive is this? Anything that is considered a caramel malt and happens to be 60L? Any leeway here or has to be bang on 60L? British crystals usually have a range of L, some of which encapsulate 60L, but I'm not sure any of them 'average' 60L.

Why no Belgian or wild category? I think a 23A specialty beer category that must use backyard/wild captured yeast would be super rad. Maybe Bootleg Biology would like to get involved. Or maybe 23A that must use some ingredient from your back yard. It could be grass clippings or wild caught yeast, or veggies/herbs/fruit from
your garden.




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by testingapril

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Regarding the grains: good questions.  I'll clarify with the judges and we will include this in the official rules post.  I'll also update you when the ruling is made.

Regarding Belgians and wild beers... we voted, and these are the styles we came up with.  No wheat beer, no Belgian, no wild... these are the three most requested omissions this year.  Next year, we will do a different ingredient list and shake up the styles a bit.

As for the wild - we'll almost certainly have this next year... if we don't do a smaller, standalone wild beer comp before then.



Posted 34 days ago.

davidg
Kula, HI
137 Posts


A stand alone wild beer comp would be incredibly cool.  



Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I've had several comments to the same, davidg.  If this all goes well, we may seriously consider a springtime competition for sours/wild beers.

 



Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Also - I think that we're going to go with the ruling of "pilsner is pilsner, c60 is c60".  I haven't heard back from all of the judges yet, but this seems likely.  So, if you want to use continental or American pils, floor malted, whatever... go for it.  If you use American or British crystal, that's fine. 

The thinking is this - various shops tend to stock whatever, and may or may not even tell you the maltster or source unless you push it.  We want people to be able to source their ingredients from the LHBS without having to special order grains. 

If this changes, I'll say something, but I suspect this will be the final, official, ruling.



Posted 34 days ago.

Matt
Charter Member
Normal, IL
341 Posts


I'm in favor of "Pilsner is pilsner, c60 is c60". I know the maltster makes a difference, and I pretty much only use Carastan malt in place of c60, but I don't want someone to be excluded from the competition because they don't want to pay extra shipping charges for Floor Malted BoPils malt.

I would totally enter a sour/wild beer competition.




Posted 34 days ago.

mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


Agreed. If you think you are getting an advantage using premium continental malts - that is cool. The more tightly this is defined, the harder it will be to source, even from the internet. I do think we can give a better definition in the rules, but it will likely be fairly broad. Hard enough (near impossible) to make some styles on the list with those ingredients. Cannot wait to see how people approach this!

The Sour/Wild thing would be off the hook and IMO deserves a separate comp and judges that understand Brett/Pedio/Lacto and the various styles and beers. I bet MTF would partner up and help spread the word.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Agreed @ separate comp and judges.  The ore I think about it - and hear about it (had someone else message me on this), the more that a springtime sour comp sounds appealing.

But let me get this one rolling for real before we dive into something new, mmkay?  :P



Posted 34 days ago.

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