How To Do A Forced Diacetyl Test | The Malt Miller Home Brewing Channel

welcome back to the Mt Miller YouTube channel today we are looking at one of the pitfalls whilst brewing beer because we're about making your beer better we're taking a look at dietal [Music] [Music] James we are just coming up to competition season and actually we've done quite a lot of competitions here now yeah yeah we we've uh run some with our friends over at elusive we have one that we're judging very soon with burning sky and yeah we've been able to go along and judge in some of the other bigger competitions that happen throughout the year here in the UK one of the biggest faults that we pick up in beer that's sent into us competitions is dial yes absolutely now many of you will have experienced dietal uh even if you're not entirely sure what it is I'm sure you will have experienced it it's that moment when you crack open a beer and rather than being hit with those beautiful malt flavors and hop Aromas actually you hit with where those Originals instead buttery kind of but kiss corn yeah yeah now Dietl presents itself in beer in this way you know it can often give like we've said those buttery kind of sweet notes like choring but also like a slickness in the mouth as well kind of oiliness actually that is kind of at very very low levels you just get that slickness and then once it becomes more pronounced you get that fullon butter popcorn yeah uh will say one thing in certain beer Styles an amount of dietal is acceptable yeah yeah very low levels in some some Czech loggers uh some British beers esbs you know best bitters um a small amount is acceptable yeah however when it gets out of control or when it's in a be style that is definitely not acceptable yeah like a big hoppy New England IPA or a West Coast it's just destructive completely ruins what you intended as a brewer luckily though we're going to go into some detail about how you might be able to uh work through the problem or negate the problem entirely but before we do that let's just take a very quick look at what dietal is come in James what is dietal we need the technical details okay I don't profess to know this subject entirely however Dietl is a organic compound that's produced by yeast okay there's actually a precursor that's produced by yeast called Alpha aceta lactate well done now what's important to not is that actually it's there's kind of a life cycle with Dietl as well so um it gets produced through throughout fermentation by the yeast but then afterwards the yeast actually consumes it and removes it so there is a a life cycle to it okay um which means if we know this and we know how to check for it we can actually uh avoid it showing up in our finished beers okay important things to remember though it is a byproduct of fermentation of yeast activity that's going to be important as we get further into this topic of conversation okay it's also a sneaky little bugger because you can have a keg full of beer or beer in a fermenter that you are taste in and it actually tastes okay you package it yep you then send it off to a competition yeah yeah and then you get notes from the judges saying it's got di in it and you're saying well it's not got di in my keg but you can taste it in the packaged beer yes uh and you're being very kind I am because actually we've all had this happen to us and I had it happen to me only last week uh where I had packaged up some beer for something we're working on and gave it to some people that I wanted to try uh the beer we actually tried it the evening before and it was fantastic it was banging um just in the short time frame of about 12 hours uh in the package dietal had formed and we opened the beer poured it and it was like weather's Originals yeah and it was it was absolutely crushing we uh passed for test so imagine getting that feedback sheet back that Rob just referred to but in person from people that you really admire that's kind of how it went and that don't hold back which is great that's what we need you may find that there are times when you send beer off to be package uh to be judged at a competition that you've already packaged and you get your feedback sheet through and it says that there's dietal present that means that something has gone wrong either at packaging stage or when you had thought you had finished fermentation so what we need to do is understand first of all whether our beer has dial present in it and what we're going to do now is take you through the steps of how to perform a forc dietal test on beer that is yet to be packaged okay now we need a couple of items so we're going to gather those together and then we're going to talk you through exactly how to do the process because it is incredibly easy but could save you all those vital points on your score sheets now to perform the forc stal test on your beer is actually very straightforward you don't need a h huge amount in the way of equipment you need a vessel that you can put a few liters of hot water in that's about 65 de C you could even do it on a source P that's on the hob so you can keep the temperature bumped up if you need to and then you need something to put your beer into these reagent bottles are absolutely perfect for it but actually so are killer jars that you might have home or the other brand mason jars really anything that can be sealed yeah sealed and that isof be resistance to heat so jam jars great opportunity to reuse some of those but yeah like you said these reagent jars are perfect for it now in there we've got a sample of around about 200 mil of beer and all we have to do is pop it into the warm water and what that's going to do over the course of the next 15 to 20 minutes is speed up the conversion of the precursors to formation of Dietl so if the precursors are there this will make the diasil become prevalent in this short space of time and it's purely a sensory test so we are going to be tasting and primarily smelling the the beer yeah so what we have to do now is leave this for 15 minutes and then come back remove it from the hot water leave it to cool down okay that's really important and we've found that whilst we've been experimenting for this test if you don't let it cool back down to room temperature it's a failed test yes it needs to cool back down to room temperature Y and then we'll be able to move on to seeing whether we've got any dial present in this beer Rob we have completed the technical part of our forced Asal rest so our reagent jar has been setting that warm water bath for a good 15 to 20 minutes and then we've taken out of the bath let it cool down to room temperature now this is the moment of truth we're going to open the jar and we're going to have a sniff ready I am that's got too I believe the word is honken now your sensory uh analysis of this needs to be twofold right so you need to give it a smell and give it a taste wty wors originally yeah have a go you're making me taste this aren yeah have a go it's really important actually if you know somebody that is hyper sensitive to diol because actually it is a scale and some people are more susceptible to it than others if you're able to give them a sample Rob is one of those very people yeah and actually one sniff of it and that's like it it completely ruins it it yeah now there is also that slickness there oiliness and it's almost like the Hop character is trying to run away from the Dietl so it's a shocker James it is actually so this beer is already kegged already carbonated there's nothing we can do about it at this stage because the mistake has been set way back in the process which is why it's so important to do this diet rest whilst the beers still in the fermenter so we can actually do something about it yes now dial can be formed uh at two points really during your fermentation process the first is during primary fermentation as you draw to the end now this is when it's important to do this force dietal test before you move on to any other step in your fermentation process so when you hit the end of fermentation or so you might think perform this test if you gain a positive result in terms of dietal what you need to do is leave it again for another 24 to 48 hours before you then retest to see whether the dial has been cleaned up by the yeast as part of that natural process and life cycle that we've already talked about what temperature we leaving it at it's going to depend on the style of beer that you producing for ALS you probably want to raise the temp from where you are by 1 or 2° so that might be from 18 to 20 if you're already at 20 it might be to 21 or 22° but you don't need to ramp it quite as far as you might think if you're producing a large and this shows up in uh your tests you want to raise it a few more degrees maybe four or five degrees for a day or two or with logger be really patient and just leave it at that same temperature for as long as you can that's why for some logger Styles like Czech uh style loggers 3 months maturation gives the yeast plenty of time to clean up after itself so the second point where a diet can be formed in your beer is at dry hop in and actually I feel that this is the biggest this is the biggest one because we add the Hops in at dry hop and then a small amount of refermentation happens yeah and that causes issues how do we get around that well there's a there's a few different ways to approach this uh one big one which I'll come on to uh right at the end but actually there's two other ways one is don't add your dry hops until you've passed the dietal uh rest and you've done a soft crash so you've brought the temperature of your beer uh in the fermenter down to about 154 maybe 16° then move on to dry hop because you will have dropped a lot of the yeast out of suspension by doing that you need to make sure if you can to draw the yeast off before you add your dry hop but by doing it at that temperature and removing the yeast you're going to limit any chances of uh that formation taking place also with this method you want to then make sure that you leave your hops in contact for your lotted contact time which might be a couple of days then get rid of them then leave it again for a little bit more maybe another 24 hours before you move on to packaging okay now the other method that we've seen some breweries use uh is actually once you've done your dry hop cap the tank and leave it leave it yeah you know leave it alone maybe for as long as a week right because you're letting hop Creek take place you're letting any refermentation take place and you're also letting the dial get chewed up by any yeast that's prevalent in the tank throughout that process as well so coming on to the final way that we can really avoid this really Troublesome area in breu especially if you're into making large kind of hoppy ipas and PS is by adding uh uh an enzyme into your Brewing process called ALC now ALC is something that we sell um but it's widely used in the commercial Brewing practices as well because of its ease of use and to bypass that whole kind of troublesome area that I've just touched on it stops the precursor for dial forming so it stops the end product of dial being in the beer yeah so it's an enzyme that works to uh change the way that yeast interacts and production of that precursor that then goes on to create the um off flavor that we all know and love as Dietl now it's weird because di actually is is a product that is used in food manufacturing for creating some of those buttery kind of butterscotch flavors but for us we want to get rid of it so actually using ALC can be a really easy uh way to just avoid that problem alog together and now we've seen various different ways of using it as well in some of the commercial breweries commonly it would be added into the fermenta uh when you add your yeast but we've also seen breweries adding it at dry hop as well so that they're kind of trying to negate both opportunities for diol to be formed and I think that's a really interesting approach and something we're going to be experimenting with here at Mt Miller HQ I also think that this die at the force DIC test should be a routine that you do on every single beer it should just be part of the Brewing process and something that definitely we will be taking on yeah absolutely and also thinking about going right back to the beginning those of you that are entering competitions you know you might not choose to do this process on every single beer you brew whilst we would encourage you to do it we also think that if you're going to be entering a competition you want to give yourself the best possible chance of getting great feedback and possibly placing in that competition then you need to make sure you're managing dietal as best as you possibly can so this extra step in your Brewing process it's nice and easy it's quite straightforward to do but actually it's guaranteeing that the beer that you package is going to be the best beer possible and actually that's a really important thing because it's by the time you've got to the fermentation stage you've already put a lot of work time and energy into doing that this small process can help just knowing that the beer that you're packaging whether it's competition or giving away for friends or just beer for drinking is going to be the best possible beer that you can brew and that's so important now if you found this video informative please make sure that you subscribe to our Channel you hit the bell for notifications and of course give this video a thumbs up cuz that really helps us on our Channel you can also follow us on Facebook Instagram and Twitter and as ever have a great Bree cheers

Channel: The Malt Miller - Home Brewing Channel

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Keywords: Homebrew, Beer, homebrew beer, keg, mini keg, small keg, beer dispense, hops, grain, malt, yeast, how to brew, homebrewing, beer, craft beer, IPA, Lager, English Beer, beer at home, home bar, cask beer, beer fridge, brewing, brewer, regulator, kveik, fermenting, mash tun, kettle, liquor tank, New England IPA, NEIPA, Belgian Beer, fermentation, home brew store, make beer, malting, malt extract, unitank, conical fermenter, fermenter, how to make beer, brewery, make beer at home, kitchen brewery

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Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 02 2024