[HBF] Skimming revisited

[Flannery, Phil]

Hallo leute,

Wir haben schon lange her nicht mehr uber skimming gestritten;-)  Al Korzons
von HBF hat dass geschrieben.  So wir brauchen nicht mehr abzuschopfen.

Brendan asks whether using the blowoff method of fermentation
affects the flavour (actually, I think hangovers were the
actual issue) of the beer.  Well, I did a test several years
ago and the results were published in Brewing Techniques,
although the test was funded by Zymurgy.  To make a short story
long, the bottom line is that a half dozen National or better
BJCP judges could not detect any significant difference in the
flavour of the various beers.  They were not told what the
difference was and only noted a slight difference in bitterness.

Actually the difference was measured by a lab and found to
be between 10 and 16% less IBUs when you blow off (or skim
or drop, by the way).  Other factors like protein content and
higher alcohols were also measured in the lab and they were
all nearly exactly the same between the blowoff and non-blowoff
batches.  Again: the only difference greater than 1% was in
the IBUs.

Back to sleepless father mode...

Al.