Inside the Factory - Guinness

Suppup · Feb 1, 2024

Suppup said:
Threads merged - Admin.

The BBC TV series “Inside the Factory” 8.5. Have made a one hour programme centred in & around the Dublin Guinness Factory. Aimed at a general audience it showed how production of the Stout has been scaled up to mega Litre proportions. The “mashing” of roast barley separately from the malt & the addition of hops was rather glossed over. I’d be interested if others have seen the show & what they took from it?

Oops! Apologies, quick search missed this thread.
Could it be that the separate treatment of the roast barley enables the pH of the malt mash to be better controlled? When I visited Ireland in 1981 I would alternate between draught & the “live” bottled brew. More to relieve the boredom than anything. Like many others I’d culture the yeast for home brewing.

Twostage · Feb 1, 2024

To restore some normality I'm going to be making a 12 litre batch tomorrow. I think its going to be quite simple. I was worrying about having to heat the sparge water and steep the black malt but there's only about 200g so I can just draw of a litre of the sparge water and steep it in there while I'm waiting for the boil and then pour it through a seive.

Twostage · Feb 1, 2024

The normality comment was a reply to @MashBag not @Suppup . Your post came in before I pressed send.

Northern_Brewer · Feb 1, 2024

Suppup said:
Oops! Apologies, quick search missed this thread.
Could it be that the separate treatment of the roast barley enables the pH of the malt mash to be better controlled?

As above - a major factor is waste disposal, animals won't eat spent grains with roast barley in them. Processing separately allows them to create two separate waste streams. Not such a factor at our scale, but a big one for them.

foxy · Feb 2, 2024

Northern_Brewer said:
As above - a major factor is waste disposal, animals won't eat spent grains with roast barley in them. Processing separately allows them to create two separate waste streams. Not such a factor at our scale, but a big one for them.

No one told my wife's horses that! They love roast barley. I think because it is unmalted and contains more protein, though I don't know if horses know that or they just like the taste?

Suppup said:
Oops! Apologies, quick search missed this thread.
Could it be that the separate treatment of the roast barley enables the pH of the malt mash to be better controlled? When I visited Ireland in 1981 I would alternate between draught & the “live” bottled brew. More to relieve the boredom than anything. Like many others I’d culture the yeast for home brewing.

I don't think it's the salts and pH, though it could also be about controlling the FG I am not sure, but definitely reduces the harshness.

marshbrewer · Feb 2, 2024

Animals will eat spend grains with roasted malts in them, I can personally testify to this as I used to feed my spent grains to pigs. I suspect the case is that as a product spent grains with no roasted malts have a higher monetary value as animal feed.

Sadfield · Feb 2, 2024

A bit like with beer, the sheep will have the pale, stripped out fodder they're given, rather than anything that might contain flavour........

...... Probably™.

hoppyscotty · Feb 2, 2024

Well the pig that gets the benefit of my spent grain will happily eat the 3% - 5% of black roasted malt when I brew any dark beers or stouts. He likes the spent grain from my Pale Ales just as much as the spent hops are usually included too.

Deadhead · Feb 2, 2024

Thinking like a process engineer here, maybe they use the base wort for many other styles. They can customise it at the end by steeping and adding hops.
Can make Stout, Extra Stout, Hop House Lager, Coffee Stout, whatever.

Like a giant bowl of shortbread. mix Start with plain. You can send down one conveyer belt and make chocolate chip. Send down another and you can make toffee chip. Send down another and you can make chocolate covered.

Caramel Ox · Feb 2, 2024

Deadhead said:
Thinking like a process engineer here, maybe they use the base wort for many other styles. They can customise it at the end by steeping and adding hops.
Can make Stout, Extra Stout, Hop House Lager, Coffee Stout, whatever.

Like a giant bowl of shortbread. mix Start with plain. You can send down one conveyer belt and make chocolate chip. Send down another and you can make toffee chip. Send down another and you can make chocolate covered.

That was exactly my thought when I saw it but I wouldn’t expect them to want that to be public as it seems very fake.

hoppyscotty · Feb 2, 2024

You can bet your bottom dollar they're not doing it to make the best beer. I like a pint of Guiness from time to time, but not sure it is a proper Stout. Boarding on a black lager as far as I'm concerned. At the end of the day they're all about selling volume so they need to make it quick and plenty of it and get it sold.

Chippy_Tea · Feb 2, 2024

like a pint of Guiness from time to time, but not sure it is a proper Stout. Boarding on a black lager

I think that is a good point i said in the Guinness thread that i didn't like the taste years ago when i was a larger drinker and i didn't like it last week when i tried it again yet i will happily drink other stout.

patto1ro · Feb 3, 2024

marshbrewer said:
Animals will eat spend grains with roasted malts in them, I can personally testify to this as I used to feed my spent grains to pigs. I suspect the case is that as a product spent grains with no roasted malts have a higher monetary value as animal feed.

That's definitely true and is why Truman mashed their roasted grains separately.

Jim Brewster · Oct 2, 2024

This is on again tonight. I think the bit about the high temperature at which they steep the roasted barley makes more sense this time, because they roast the barley on site and then add cold water to the kiln to halt the roasting process, which then ends up at 110C (I think thats what they said). I guess it's about a bakance of using the least amount of water and extracting the most from the roasted barley. They didn't say how long it is steeped for but I assume it takes place while it is transferred across site by tanker to the kettles. Goes against the method of avoiding steeping roasted grain too hot so as not to extract tannins.

The Guinness yeast being unusual in that it is POF+ Since I found this out I have been looking for those flavours. I think it's more detectable in the alcohol free version.

MisterMike · Oct 3, 2024

Hi folks very interesting topic, I don't know if you seen this guy on YouTube Graham Lawlor he does some great videos, I've tried this recipe with added lactic acid and served with beer gas 75/25 it came out fantastic, I've a second batch almost fermented out right now,
Well worth a watch roasted barley goes in at end of mashing.

Guinness clone

Twostage · Oct 3, 2024

Jim Brewster said:
This is on again tonight. I think the bit about the high temperature at which they steep the roasted barley makes more sense this time, because they roast the barley on site and then add cold water to the kiln to halt the roasting process, which then ends up at 110C (I think thats what they said). I guess it's about a bakance of using the least amount of water and extracting the most from the roasted barley. They didn't say how long it is steeped for but I assume it takes place while it is transferred across site by tanker to the kettles. Goes against the method of avoiding steeping roasted grain too hot so as not to extract tannins.

The Guinness yeast being unusual in that it is POF+ Since I found this out I have been looking for those flavours. I think it's more detectable in the alcohol free version.

Circling back to brewing this again is on my list. Yes, the POF+ flavour is definitely in the zero version (had some earlier in the week). For info I used Munich classic yeast which is POF+ when I made it.

Northern_Brewer · Oct 3, 2024

Jim Brewster said:
The Guinness yeast being unusual in that it is POF+

It's not that unusual, it's the default state of wild yeast and if you look at the Brewlab catalogue nearly half of their British yeasts have some kind of mention of phenolics. You can pick it up in a good pint of Harveys for instance.

Twostage · Oct 3, 2024

Northern_Brewer said:
It's not that unusual, it's the default state of wild yeast and if you look at the Brewlab catalogue nearly half of their British yeasts have some kind of mention of phenolics. You can pick it up in a good pint of Harveys for instance.

It was a bit of a hunt to find a POF+, Diastatic- yeast to try and match the Guinness strain.

Northern_Brewer · Oct 3, 2024

Twostage said:
It was a bit of a hunt to find a POF+, Diastatic- yeast to try and match the Guinness strain.

Fermentis T-58 is a useful one in these situations, it's a cousin of Windsor that's mildly phenolic. Like Windsor the attenuation isn't great, so it's probably best blended with something like Notty to get the attenuation up.

Also worth poking around the Brewlab slopes - looks like Malt Miller may be giving up on them but something like Scottish Borders would work?

Twostage · Oct 3, 2024

Northern_Brewer said:
Fermentis T-58 is a useful one in these situations, it's a cousin of Windsor that's mildly phenolic. Like Windsor the attenuation isn't great, so it's probably best blended with something like Notty to get the attenuation up.

Also worth poking around the Brewlab slopes - looks like Malt Miller may be giving up on them but something like Scottish Borders would work?

The Munich worked fine, I'd probably use it again.

Inside the Factory - Guinness

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