London Video Pride 220609

[mysterio]

Isn't Graham using some arcane colour formula from the 70s anyway?

[adm]

Lovely videos Chris - just one question.....

What happened to the soothing music? A nice bit of classical would make a cracking backing track.

[WishboneBrewery]

Grab yourself a nice free Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net Free Audio Editing, if you've not already come across it, and also download the Plugins http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/plugins for it, you might be able to mix some music up for the right length.
Matching music to video is a pain though, I made a huge DVD slide show of my 6 months of travel some years back and it did my head in!

[steve_flack]

Isn't Graham using some arcane colour formula from the 70s anyway?

There's a lot more to beer colour than the ingredients unfortunately. The pH of the boiling wort and the ferocity of the boil will affect the final colour for example. AFAIK none of the colour formulas I've seen take these into account (Graham's might I dunno). The formula are basically a kludge that take the MCU for the beer (which is a product of the ingredients' colour and the amounts) and then bungs it through another formula to get the beer color.

Morey's Formula
SRM = 1.4922 [(MCU) ^ 0.6859]

Daniels' Formula
SRM = (MCU * 0.2) + 8.4

Mosher's Formula
SRM = (MCU * 0.3) + 4.7

The mathematically inclined amongst you will note that the Daniels equation will not produce a beer lighter than 8.4 SRM and the Mosher formula less than 4.7 SRM. Both of which is clearly b*llocks as there are plenty of beers lighter than either of those. My app BeerAlchemy uses Morey's by default but gives you the rope of the other two if you really want them. (That's not to say Mosher's gives you the right answer either - it does seem reasonable though at least for the beers I brew).

I know Graham has posted about his formula in outline before but I can't recall if he's ever actually told us what he actually uses.

[steve_flack]

Bloody formulas

I believe Graham uses/used Colour = (Weight * EBC * 10 *OE) / Volume.

By OE do you mean extract?

[Graham]

BeerEngine and the recipe books use a purely linear method, but adjusted for mash efficiency. Twice as much dark stuff, twice as dark - simple as that. Adjusting for mash efficiency might be debatable, but I took the assumption that if you are going to lose extract due to poor efficiency, you'll loose colour too.

There is no way that IoB or EBC follows a power law like the Morey formula.

I have no idea what workers like Morey were up to, but at best it could be an attempt to match Lovibond with SRM, which are two entirely different scales that are not equivalent due to the series 52 colour glasses following an odd (1885) law. However, if that is the case, there are easier and more accurate ways of achieving the same thing. At worst it could be an attempt to match George Fix's Michelob dilution experiment, but the data is flawed because George Fix was using a photometer outside of its stray light specification, and came to the erroneous conclusion that beer colour is non-linear - which it isn't.

Anyway, that is irrelevant because I use IoB/EBC figures.

22 EBC might be a bit on the low side anyway - Pride is probably closer to 25EBC.

[steve_flack]

I've seen versions of color formulas that seem to use the individual extracts of the malts as the basis of how much colour they provide. This seems wrong to me as why should the potential extract of a grain have anything to do with how much colour you get out of it?

[Graham]

I've seen versions of color formulas that seem to use the individual extracts of the malts as the basis of how much colour they provide. This seems wrong to me as why should the potential extract of a grain have anything to do with how much colour you get out of it?

Seems wrong to me too, but perhaps it was/is a clumsy way of attempting to adjust for extraction efficiency.

I have always been a little uneasy about factoring in mash efficency, because there are circumstances that will affect efficiency that will not effect colour. However, I comfort myself with the assumption that the primary reason for poor mash efficiency is inefficient sparging, and that is likely to affect colour too.

[wetdog]

I think I'm going to look into this pump business. At the mo I'm lifting 5 gallons of wort/water on my own and while its not a problem for now, I'm thinking of getting into 10 gallon brews so might be a bit of a struggle.

What is the bore of your hop strainer? I'm using 22mm but I'm wondering if that might be too big

[196osh]

Nice video's Chris,

[wetdog]

It's 15mm OD there or there abouts. The draw back with using 22mm is that you loose any siphon effect once the level of the wort reaches the highest point where air can be admited, normally the top of the strainer.

That's what's happening. my strainer looks like yours, with holes drilled on the underside only. The sections are pushed together with a compression fitting behind the tap. I wonder if it will make any difference if I weld it all together....?

old picture

[Andy]

Great work Chris

[wetdog]

I've missed the obvious
I'll test it with plain, low fat water and see how it drains before I solder it to see if there is a problem with leakage

[Scooby]

Grand job Chris

I have a guy round at the moment doing some work for me, he's keen to brew since tasting my beer and seeing my set up. I think I'll get him to watch your video and then perhaps he'll give me a hand on a brewday.

I think I'm going to look into this pump business. At the mo I'm lifting 5 gallons of wort/water on my own and while its not a problem for now, I'm thinking of getting into 10 gallon brews so might be a bit of a struggle.

After years of lifting brews I had a couple of near misses, I then started jugging, I now use a pump to circulate and transfer wort in a batch sparge setup very similar to Chris's, I wish I had done it much earlier

[drmick]

Top videos Chris.

London Pride from GW book was my first AG, conversely to most mine came out darker than the real thing - not sure why, tasted fantastic which reminds me I need to make some more -might finish the keg off now.

In your video it looks like you are only adding challenger at the start of the boil, whereas the recipe calls for Target, Challenger and Northdown, also there is no mention of post boil aroma hops - I am sure this is down to brewing experience but what are the reasons for the changes? Being relatively clueless about brewing I'm keen to learn from the masters.