Author: Marshall Schott

Homebrewing is a hobby that most enjoy spending time doing, and hence a 4-6 hour brew day can be viewed as a great way to kill some time doing what one loves. Unfortunately, some of us have other things going on that limit the amount of time we’re able to spend engaging in an activity by ourselves, so any time we can cut out of brewing is good and can even allow us do it more often. With a full-time job, a couple side gigs I manage, a family with 3 kids, and friends who like to have fun all the time, committing an entire morning to making beer can sometimes feel like a sacrifice. But what if I could get away with making a batch of delicious beer in half the time or even less?

Over the last couple years, we’ve made a few different styles of beer using Short & Shoddy methods consisting of a significantly abbreviated mash and boil, the two biggest time-sinks in brewing. To the surprise of many, the beers we’ve made including lagers and NEIPA have all come out far better than expected, to the point blind tasters were unable to tell they were brewed in such a manner. Continuing on our quest to see how Short & Shoddy methods impact various styles, I designed a Porter recipe featuring Gladfield Malt’s Light Chocolate malt I brought home from my recent trip to New Zealand.

Short & Shoddy Oatmeal Porter

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.5 gal 20 min 34.5 IBUs 32.6 SRM 1.052 1.014 5.0 % Actuals 1.052 1.01 5.5 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt (2 Row), Rahr 10 lbs 71.43 Oats, Flaked 2 lbs 14.29 Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 1 lbs 7.14 Gladfield Light Chocolate Malt 1 lbs 7.14 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Magnum 50 g 20 min First Wort Pellet 11.2 Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 30 g 15 min Boil Pellet 2.4 Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 30 g 5 min Boil Pellet 2.4 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Pub (A09) Imperial 72% 64°F - 70°F Notes Water Profile: Black Balanced in Bru’n Water Spreadsheet

As is true with most of my Short & Shoddy brew days, this one wasn’t totally planned out in advance. I’d prepared for a typical xBmt brew day a few days ahead of time by designing a recipe and preparing a starter of Imperial Organic A09 Pub Ale yeast, but life happened and forced me to rethink my weekend schedule.

Instead of my planned Saturday brew, I ended up carving out some time Sunday morning and decided to see how quickly I could make an Oatmeal Porter, inviting my friends Jersey and Tim over for a lesson in potentially disastrous brewing. We started at 10:50 AM by filtering the full volume of brewing liquor.

While the water was filling my kettle, I weighed out the grains, using a nice dose of Light Chocolate malt from New Zealand’s Gladfield Malt.

With the appropriate volume of water collected, I hit the flame on my burner to heat the water to the strike temperature given by BeerSmith.

Tim brought over a pitcher of his wife’s awesome Bloody Mary and poured me a glass, a tasty morning treat while I ran the grains through the mill directly into the BIAB fabric filter.

Strike temperature was reached at 11:15 AM and Jersey dropped the bag of grains directly into the kettle of hot water, stirring for about 3 minutes to ensure any dough balls were busted up.

For rarely using the traditional Brew In A Bag method, I was pleased with how close the mash temperature was to my 152°F/67°C target.

I set a timer for 20 minutes, covered the mash to retain as much heat as possible, and asked Jersey to manage occasional stirring throughout the rest. A pH sample taken 10 minutes into the mash showed we were right on target.

As soon as the timer went off, I removed the grains, squeezing the bag only enough to reach my target pre-boil volume, then lit the flame on my burner. I threw my immersion chiller into the wort at this point given the abbreviated boil I had planned.

It took about 18 minutes for the wort to start boiling, at which point I again set my timer for a mere 20 minutes and left the task of adding hops to the boiling wort to my neighbors.

At 12:05 PM, the boil was complete and I proceeded to quickly chill it to just above my annoyingly warm groundwater temperature this time of year, it took just under 10 minutes. I then transferred 5.5 gallons/21 liters of the 80°F/27°C wort to a sanitized Brew Bucket.

A refractometer reading showed my efficiency prediction of 57% based on prior short & shoddy batches was solid, as the wort was sitting right at the 1.052 OG I was aiming for.

I set the Brew Bucket in my chamber controlled to 66°F/19°C and, rather than wait for the wort to chill like I normally do, pitched the yeast starter, supernatant and all (after harvesting a liter for future use first). The time immediately after pitching the yeast was 12:31 PM, just 1 hour and 41 minutes after my brew day began. Jersey and Tim helped me clean some things up then we drank a couple beers before sitting down to record a couple 1 minute beer reviews for The Brülosophy Podcast.

The beer was left to ferment while Jersey, a bunch of other rad homebrewers, and I attended Homebrew Con 2017. I took an initial hydrometer measurement 8 days after the beer was brewed that showed it had like reached FG. I let it sit 2 more days out of laziness before checking again, it was the same.

I cold crashed the beer to 32°F/0°C for 22 hours, skipping the gelatin fining step given the highly flocculant nature of Imperial Organic A09 yeast, then kegged and burst carbonated it at 55 psi for 15 hours before reducing the gas to serving pressure. I started drinking and sharing the beer with unsuspecting tasters a couple days later when it was carbonated and clear.

| IMPRESSIONS |

It’s been awhile since I made a Porter, and I’ve never made one with oatmeal using short & shoddy methods. When designing this recipe, I was aiming for something velvety smooth with a noticeable chocolate character balanced by a whisper of roast, precisely what I perceived when sampling Gladfield Malt’s Light Chocolate malt in blind trials. I’d run out of Fuggles, the hop variety I typically reach for when making styles like this, so I relied instead on the noble Hallertau Mittelfrüh in hopes of imparting a touch of earthy and spice character. While I’d never used Imperial Organic A09 Pub Ale yeast, I’d heard it was sourced from same place as other labs’ English ale yeasts, strains I’d come to depend on to produce beautiful dark ales.

Of course, the beer was designed for an xBmt in which mostly conventional methods would have been used. However, given the short & shoddy nature of this brew day, it might be presumed the finished beer would be thin and watery due to low ABV as a result of the poor efficiency of a 20 minute mash, reek of cooked corn or cabbage from the DMS present because of a 20 minute boil, and taste of wicked esters and fusel alcohols caused by the yeast being pitched into 80°F/27°C wort. There was a lot that could go wrong with this batch, no doubt.

Something certainly was wrong with this Oatmeal Porter– it was so damn good I couldn’t keep my hands off of it! Super creamy mouthfeel, beautifully balanced chocolate and roast character with a solid toasty note in the finish, just bitter enough to keep the malt character from becoming overwhelming, and I personally couldn’t find any fermentation flaws. This Oatmeal Porter was not only one of the best I’ve ever made, but I enjoyed drinking it more than I do many of my favorite commercial examples of the style.

What Did Others Think?

It’s entirely likely my perception of this Short & Shoddy Oatmeal Porter as being so tasty was influenced by bias, so I shared it with friends who had no clue how it was made in hopes of gleaning more impartial reviews. Presenting beers to tasters in a way that doesn’t scream “evaluate this!” can be difficult, and since I want to have as little influence as possible, I always try to play coy by simply serving the beer without preface then asking for feedback while we’re drinking.

I served this beer to quite a few people but only took notes for 9 of them including a professional brewer, BJCP judges of varying rank, experienced homebrewers, and a couple friends who tend to stick only to beers that many scoff at. One thing I’m absolutely certain of is that not a single person I served the beer to said anything glaringly negative, and my notes from the 9 tasters I paid closer attention to are also absent of any comments about off-flavors. Rather, descriptors used prior to me informing them of the short & shoddy methods used to make the beer included chocolate, smooth, delicious, not too roasty, very nice, and better than real beer you should start your own brewery. So far, so good, I mostly agree. Then I told them what was up.

Similar to past short & shoddy beers we’ve written about, the people who possessed some understanding of brewing processes were visibly and audibly floored when I revealed the beer had been made with a 20 minute mash, 20 minute boil, and was pitched at 80°F/27°. Of course, a few people asked for an extra sample so that they could attempt to look more closely for expected flaws, none of them noted any on second pass, and others asked for another sample just to enjoy.

| CONCLUSION |

On a recent Facebook post of an xBmt showing no distinguishable difference between cool and warm fermented lagers, a person commented something along the lines of, “then where is all the shitty beer coming from?” I can absolutely relate with this sentiment, in fact as recently as about 3 years ago I would have agreed that most shitty beer is the result of skipping important steps, or “cutting corners” as the commenter put it. However, based on the results of numerous xBmts focused on such steps as well as a bunch of anecdotal experiences, I’m willing to admit I no longer share this perspective and view it as being quite erroneous.

In past short & shoddy articles, we’ve mentioned that while such methods can make a fine beer, more conventional approaches should be used for those looking to win awards. I can’t speak for the others, but looking back, I’m pretty sure I was just playing it safe, as this Oatmeal Porter and other short & shoddy beers I’ve tasted were fantastic with none of the flaws we’ve been taught to expect, even if they are perceptibly different than beers made using conventional methods. Admittedly, this change of heart was also motivated by the numerous brewers I’ve heard from who are taking home competition medals with beers made using abbreviated techniques. Either way, I was stoked with this beer and look forward to using both Imperial Organic A09 yeast and Gladfield Malt grains more often in my brewing.

We’ve gone over possible reasons good beer doesn’t require conventional methods in the past, stuff like modification of modern malts, overall improvements in yeast quality, and a generally better understanding of the brewing process, so I won’t harp on that here. Instead, I’m going to do something I rarely do and encourage people who might be pressed for time to give short & shoddy brewing a shot! With good sanitation practices and accounting for poorer efficiency, I fully trust most will be just as surprised as I’ve been with the final results, and it may even allow you to squeeze a few more brew days into your life.

If you have thoughts about or experience with Short & Shoddy brewing, please share them in the comments section below!

Support Brülosophy In Style!

All designs are available in various colors and sizes on Amazon!

Follow Brülosophy on:

If you enjoy this stuff and feel compelled to support Brulosophy.com, please check out the Support Us page for details on how you can very easily do so. Thanks!

Advertisements

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email



Like this: Like Loading...