Author: Marshall Schott

Brewer: Ed Coffey

I began pondering my plans for Homebrew Con a few months ago and quickly realized traveling across the country with beer wouldn’t be very practical. This was right around the time we published the Brü’s Views article on hazy beer, which provoked a friendly conversation between Ales Of The Riverwards‘ Ed Coffey and I about the potential impact fining might have on Northeast/New England (NE) style beers. I reminded him of the results of the first gelatin xBmt showing a fined-to-brite APA was indistinguishable from a non-fined hazy version, he responded that there are particular aspects of NE-style beer that may produce different results, namely the inclusion of a large portion of oats in the grist, which many believe is responsible for their perpetual haze. Touché. My grist included precisely zero oats, only the standard malted barley with a touch of wheat.

Over the course of the following few days, Ed’s and my curiosity about the effect of gelatin on oat-caused haze came to a head and we agreed the only prudent avenue at this juncture would be to put it through the rigors of an informally formal xBmt. We pulled Brülosophy’s hazy beer appreciating Malcolm into the fray to discuss how to approach this variable, which is when the idea of collecting data at Homebrew Con in Baltimore, MD came up. Given Malcolm’s commitment to brewing beers for our seminar, Ed offered to brew the beers using our annoyingly stringent protocol and bring them to the conference– collaborative xBmt born!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the qualitative differences between a gelatin fined NE-style ale made with a good portion of oats and the same beer left non-fined.

| METHODS |

After some back-and-forth between Ed, Malcolm, and I, we ultimately settled on brewing an iteration of one of Ed’s favorite NE Pale Ale recipes he calls HopWards, a play on Tired Hands Brewing’s HopHands. For a more in-depth discussion about this recipe and to read Ed’s thoughts about his clone attempt, check out his article on the Ales Of The Riverwards blog.

HopWards NE-Style Pale Ale

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 11 gal 60 min 61.8 IBUs 4.4 SRM 1.051 1.013 5.0 % Actuals 1.051 1.012 5.1 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt, Halcyon (Thomas Fawcett) 17 lbs 81.93 Oats, Flaked 3.75 lbs 18.07 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Columbus (Tomahawk) 31 g 60 min Boil Pellet 13 Amarillo Gold 37 g 5 min Boil Pellet 8.2 Centennial 37 g 5 min Boil Pellet 10 Simcoe 37 g 5 min Boil Pellet 12.3 Amarillo Gold 37 g 20 min Aroma Pellet 8.2 Centennial 37 g 20 min Aroma Pellet 10 Simcoe 37 g 20 min Aroma Pellet 13 Amarillo Gold 114 g 5 days Dry Hop Pellet 8.5 Centennial 114 g 5 days Dry Hop Pellet 10 Simcoe 114 g 5 days Dry Hop Pellet 13 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature London Ale III (1318) Wyeast Labs 73% 64°F - 74°F

A couple days prior to brewing, Ed made a properly sized starter that would eventually be split between two carboys.

The brew day began with grist collection, which included only Halcyon Pale Malt and a relatively large portion of flaked oats that were added directly to the MLT without being milled.

While NE-style ales are commonly made with water that’s very high in chloride, we decided it would be best to go with a balanced water profile in order to reduce the impact it has on haziness. With the treated strike water all warmed up, Ed incorporated the grains and hit his target mash temperature.

The mash was left alone for a 60 minute saccharification rest.

About 10 minutes in, a small sample was pulled and cooled so Ed could take a pH reading.

Wort was collected at the end of the mash rest and boiled for 60 minutes with hops added per Ed’s schedule, as well as two Whirlfloc tabs. It was then chilled and transferred to a single 15 gallon Speidel fermentor before the yeast was pitched. Ed let the beer ferment for a week at 66˚F/19˚C then he ramped it up to 70˚F/21˚C and let it ride until it reached a stable 1.012 FG. At this point, he cold crashed over a couple nights then racked equal amounts into two separate kegs. This is the point where the variable was introduced. Relying on the method outlined in the first gelatin xBmt that I’ve found to be quite successful, Ed combined 1/2 teaspoon powdered gelatin with 1/4 cup water and warmed it to right around 150˚F/66˚C before adding it to one of the kegs; the other keg was left alone.

The beers were left undisturbed and on gas for 3 days before Ed pressure transferred them to fresh serving kegs, leaving anything that dropped out behind. They were then loaded in his car for the 2-ish hour trek from Philadelphia, PA to Baltimore, MD. But not before pulling a couple samples to compare appearance…

Our first finding was quite obvious– gelatin did not seem to have nearly the effect on a beer made with a large portion of flaked oats as it does on all barley beers. However, a close examination reveals the gelatin fined beer to be slightly clearer than the non-fined batch, leaving me all the more curious if tasters would detect a difference.

| RESULTS |

All of the data for this xBmt was collected during Homebrew Con 2016 in Baltimore, MD and including 45 participants of varying levels of experience. Each taster was blindly served 1 sample of the beer fined with gelatin and 2 samples of the non-fined beer in opaque cups then asked to identify the one that was different. Given the sample size, 21 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to accurately identify the unique sample in order to achieve statistical significance, though only 14 participants (p=0.68) were capable of doing so, a number almost perfectly consistent with random guessing. These findings provide further evidence that a beer fined with gelatin is indistinguishable from the same beer receiving no fining at all.

Even though our recent analysis failed to demonstrate a link between level of experience and triangle test accuracy, I thought it’d be interesting to share the results of only those participants who endorsed being a BJCP judge. A total of 23 BJCP judges of various rank participated in this xBmt, a sample size that would require 12 (p<0.05) accurate responses in order to reach significance. Six (p=0.83) accurately selected the unique sample, that’s only 23%, which is a fair degree lower than the 1/3 expected by chance alone.

My Impressions: I couldn’t tell these beers apart at all. Sometimes in non-blind side-by-side comparisons, I think I noticed a difference, but that wasn’t the case with these beers. They tasted exactly the same to me even despite knowing the variable. The fined beer was visibly clearer than the non-fined sample, but not by much. They looked more similar than they did different. As for the beer, my goodness was it hoppy. Not bitter or muddled, but enormously fragrant, to the point people walking into our hotel room during a particular tasting session commented on it, and that was mere minutes after pouring from a couple 32 oz growlers. Absolutely delicious, Ed’s HopWards recipe is one I would heartily recommend people brew!

Ed’s Impressions: Ed participated in a “blind” triangle during the conference, the data of which was not included in the analysis, and like me, he could not reliably distinguish the fined beer from the non-fined sample. For more details on what Ed thought of these beers, check out his blog for an upcoming post covering his brew day for this beer.

| DISCUSSION |

This xBmt served two main purposes, the most obvious being to test if a NE-style beer fined with gelatin would be reliably distinguishable from the same beer that was not fined with gelatin. However, a second and perhaps more interesting goal was to investigate the effect gelatin had on a beer produced with a large portion of flaked oats, an ingredient commonly used in these types of beers for its purported ability to impart a silky mouthfeel and contribute to so-called “juicy” character. Yet again, the results of this xBmt support the notion that fining with gelatin does not have an appreciably negative impact on aroma, flavor, or mouthfeel, though curiously, they also seem to show that gelatin may not perform its intended duty as well in beers brewed with a larger percentage of flaked oats. Fascinating!

As usual, I’m left with more questions than answers. Not so much about the impact gelatin has on beer quality, at this point, after so many experience confirming xBmt results, I’m comfortable accepting the fear of a negative effect is unfounded. Rather, the inability for gelatin to clear this particular beer is what interests me. What is it about flaked oats that makes it immune to the clarifying powers of gelatin? How much of the haze in popular commercial versions of NE-style beers is actually the result of flaked oats? Of the various examples I’ve tried, including Lawson’s Sip Of Sunshine and Treehouse’s Julius, there were some that had what I’ve always believed to be a yeasty component, a sort of grittiness that sticks to my teeth and makes them squeak. This is what I expect when I drink a hazy beer. Then again, there were others that, had my eyes been closed, I might have easily thought were as clear as the beers I prefer– clean, crisp, and even quite tasty.

When it comes to this newfangled style, it seems to me there’s more to it than just grist, chloride levels, and yeast alone, but rather the interplay of various factors that contribute to what has become a hot commodity among the craft beer drinking community. While my preference for clarity remains, perhaps as a manifestation of my own vanity, the results of this xBmt certainly made me reconsider some of the past judgments I’d made about hazy NE-style beers, which I suspect will allow me to evaluate them from an at least somewhat more impartial perspective.

If you’ve tried fining your NE-style ales with gelatin or anything else, particularly those including flaked oats in the grist, please share your experience in the comments section below!

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