Talk Beer Homebrew Club Competition - Saison - Head Count and General Overview

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Will you be participating in the TBHC Saison Competition


  • Total voters
    26
  • Poll closed .

Beerontwowheels

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This poll is open to members of the Talk Beer Homebrew Club. If you are not a member,please do not vote (your vote will not be counted). PM me if you wish to join the club.

This thread is to discuss everything related to the TBHC Saison Competition. Please use the poll to indicate if you plan on submitting a saison so we can get an early head count. Your votes will help with planning and logistics for the competition.

Here's some general reminders to read before you vote:

1) All submissions need to be delivered to the hub (Zapy) by June 27th.
2) All entries should be bottled using 12oz/375ml bottles. C&C or capped is up to you.
3) You must provide a FedEx/UPS Label within your box so it can be returned to you.
4) You must judge each beer & return scores to the competition organizer (me) by the deadline (TBD)
5) Instructions for labeling your bottles will be available once we have a final list of participants.
6) Once we have a final head count, the number of bottles necessary for submission will be announced. You should be prepared to send up to 12 bottles out. If you don't have that many bottles available, contact me. We may have to wait list you to see how many bottles are necessary.

I'll post more guidelines in this thread as necessary. This is what I could think of at the moment.

I do not want to deter anyone from entering this competition. but I'm geniunely hoping entries top out at 13 people. If we have more than that we need to all come together and figure out shipping logistics and judging.

If you have any questions about the competition, post 'em here. We can address them as they come in.

Cheers guys!
 
I do not want to deter anyone from entering this competition. but I'm geniunely hoping entries top out at 13 people. If we have more than that we need to all come together and figure out shipping logistics and judging.

If you have any questions about the competition, post 'em here. We can address them as they come in.

Cheers guys!

Just thinking about the multiple etries per person factor here. For the sake of simplicity, would it be smart to say for this first competition, keep it to 1 entry per person?

Im glad im not the hub, surely id **** it up and send beers to the wrong people. I think ive already got this mentally ****ed up in how it could work for multiple entries.

This is my thought process...everyone get ready for a laugh. To dumb it down, if there are 5 people participating but 1 person wants to enter 2 beers. That person would need to send in 8 total beers (4 of each entry.) However, everyone else only sends in 4 total beers but the folks who only sent in 4 will have 5 beers to judge while the guy who sent in 2 entries will have 4 beers to judge.
 
Just thinking about the multiple etries per person factor here. For the sake of simplicity, would it be smart to say for this first competition, keep it to 1 entry per person?

Im glad im not the hub, surely id **** it up and send beers to the wrong people. I think ive already got this mentally ****ed up in how it could work for multiple entries.

This is my thought process...everyone get ready for a laugh. To dumb it down, if there are 5 people participating but 1 person wants to enter 2 beers. That person would need to send in 8 total beers (4 of each entry.) However, everyone else only sends in 4 total beers but the folks who only sent in 4 will have 5 beers to judge while the guy who sent in 2 entries will have 4 beers to judge.

For simplicity's sake, we are sticking to 1 entry per person. If we have fewer than 13 competitors, we can use a lottery to determine, who, if anybody, is permitted to submit more than 1 entry. Also, see here. ;)

And yeah, Zapy has his work cut out for him.
 
For simplicity's sake, we are sticking to 1 entry per person. If we have fewer than 13 competitors, we can use a lottery to determine, who, if anybody, is permitted to submit more than 1 entry. Also, see here. ;)

And yeah, Zapy has his work cut out for him.
You know...ive honestly thought ive read every reply about this across all the threads but somehow missed that particular post. Thanks for making me feel like a tool.

Reporting myself.
 
probably going to vote to wait till next time as I don't have many bottles to send out (I brew small batches...)
 
Do we have a deadline for entering? I am definitely interested but just had something come up on my planned brewday so I am not sure if I will get a brew in on time.
 
Do we have a deadline for entering? I am definitely interested but just had something come up on my planned brewday so I am not sure if I will get a brew in on time.

I'd say May 10th is a good deadline to get in on this. If you haven't brewed by that date, I doubt you'd have a beer ready and delivered by June 27th.
 
I'm putting an "extra" (commercial bottle) in my box for you volunteering to be the hub without the threat of water boarding. I suggest everyone else do the same, this guy is doing the most work.
True, but Zapy is also saving a **** load in shipping! ;) Dem hub benefits!
 
Anal retentive engineers... gluttons for pain right?

I'm more than happy to take care of this, plenty of basement space to organize everything. Also happen to live at the crossroads of america so shipping is not going to be rapey.

It'll be fun for me. Just got to make sure I drive around with the live yeast sample boxes, don't want to upset fedex
 
Anal retentive engineers... gluttons for pain right?

I'm more than happy to take care of this, plenty of basement space to organize everything. Also happen to live at the crossroads of america so shipping is not going to be rapey.

It'll be fun for me. Just got to make sure I drive around with the live yeast sample boxes, don't want to upset fedex

Yeah, I think twelve sloshing boxes might tip them off. Good idea.
 
I'm trying to decide if I want to brew a new batch or just bottle the fourth incarnation of my sour saison that's been aging for about 12 months... May have to pull those gooseberries out of the freezer for this one
 
I'm trying to decide if I want to brew a new batch or just bottle the fourth incarnation of my sour saison that's been aging for about 12 months... May have to pull those gooseberries out of the freezer for this one

You should send a mixture of both so we can all wonder why our notes for your bottles are completely different. 'Exquisitely clean saison, bone dry with notes of clove, bubble gum and peppercorns' vs. 'Surprisingly tart and full of funk, clearly a masterpiece born from years of experience working with yeast and bacteria.' srs.
 
You should send a mixture of both so we can all wonder why our notes for your bottles are completely different. 'Exquisitely clean saison, bone dry with notes of clove, bubble gum and peppercorns' vs. 'Surprisingly tart and full of funk, clearly a masterpiece born from years of experience working with yeast and bacteria.' srs.
Hahaha

I'm expecting more like, aroma - reminicent of a sweaty mouse that has rummaged around a field of manure for three days
 
To those who cork and cage bottles of homebrew, do you own a floor corker or is there an easier (reads cheaper) alternative to cork bottles?
 
To those who cork and cage bottles of homebrew, do you own a floor corker or is there an easier (reads cheaper) alternative to cork bottles?

I've only corked once, but I just rented a floor corker from my homebrew shop for 10$ (3 day rental). If you have that option available, I would recommend it. Worked like a charm and I don't need to store that big old thing in my medium sized 2 bedroom townhouse.
 
To those who cork and cage bottles of homebrew, do you own a floor corker or is there an easier (reads cheaper) alternative to cork bottles?
My buddy corks some of his homebrew and said he tried to save some money by getting a hand corker instead of a floor one... Apparently it was a huge mistake to try and save money. I asked him why and this was his reply "short story it's that hand cork requires two people and its easy to push cork in too far. With floor ones, once you figure out what setting gets the cork where you want it you can leave it that way and it'll be perfect always"

Take that FWIW
 
To those who cork and cage bottles of homebrew, do you own a floor corker or is there an easier (reads cheaper) alternative to cork bottles?

the easiest/cheapest alternative is to simply not do it.

just for shits and giggles i cork and cage 6 or 8 bottles of every batch i brew. those are typically large format bottles i take places to share. some people think its all cool and fancy but in hindsight, its an extra unnecessary expense (corks and cages are not that cheap and reusing them is a failure.)

only reason i have a floor corker is because i was gifted one from an old head when I first got into homebrewing. i purchased 15 carboys from him and he was like, yo take the rest of this **** with ya.
 
Sounds like the most efficient use of funds to reuse 750 bottles is to get a bench capper and the larger bottle caps...
 
Sounds like the most efficient use of funds to reuse 750 bottles is to get a bench capper and the larger bottle caps...

I went through a corking phase, but as others have said, it's expensive and a PITA. Floor corker is the only way to go, the portugese model isn't that expensive, but I've become the custodian of my clubs and not actually bought one. I think there is a plastic model that also caps that works ok for occasional corking, but I can't recall the make. As you said, the 29mm caps 750s are the cheapest way to go. It's another penny or two a bottle instead of fifty cents, but it's also less fun to open. I've been experimenting with corking and capping, I think the #9 wine corks may work and those are about half the price of beer corks.
 
So I voted no, but you can switch mine to yes. I've decided to just brew a clean saison and not add any wild yeast/bacteria, so I be able to turn around a saison by the end of June.
 
So I voted no, but you can switch mine to yes. I've decided to just brew a clean saison and not add any wild yeast/bacteria, so I be able to turn around a saison by the end of June.
Excellent news! If everyone pulls through, we're looking at 14 competitors right now. We have another few days on the poll and everyone has until May 10th (Official Deadline) to enter.

We'll take a final head count on June 1st to see if anyone is dropping out. That head count will establish the number of bottles everyone is committing to sending out. Depending on the final number of competitors, we may need to have a discussion of how to handle logistics. Just 'spitballing' here, but if we have 16+ plus competitors, we might want to consider splitting into two groups. We'd still be 'crowning' one champion. Feel free to share your thoughts on this...
 
Just finished up 6 gal of what's to be a hop-tarted wheat saison (I think?, we'll see what happens to it)

I'm down with the 2 groups or just grab bag it (say 16 peps, ship 12 get 12 different back, that way you always get 12 ratings and don't get sandbagged by all European judges)
 
Just finished up 6 gal of what's to be a hop-tarted wheat saison (I think?, we'll see what happens to it)

I'm down with the 2 groups or just grab bag it (say 16 peps, ship 12 get 12 different back, that way you always get 12 ratings and don't get sandbagged by all European judges)

I like the twelve shipper idea no matter the number of entries. Maybe do something like drop the lowest and highest scores for each beer. Each beer would have ten individual ratings to average out to a final score. Then rank each beer against the field to determine a winner. In the event of a tie...we can look to the scores that were dropped as a tie breaker somehow.

I like, I like...
 
If it's not too complicated, it would be cool if the judges average score weighted their individual scores.

I don't math good, so if that's a PITA, I understand.
 
If it's not too complicated, it would be cool if the judges average score weighted their individual scores.

I don't math good, so if that's a PITA, I understand.

Normalizing the scores shouldn't be too much of a problem. That should help smooth out some of the tougher/easier judges.
 
Thinking about it some more though we need to be careful on how we normalize the data because it can also drop the average on what was a really good field.
 
Thinking about it some more though we need to be careful on how we normalize the data because it can also drop the average on what was a really good field.
Does anyone have a preferred or tried and trusted method? We should try to walk this through over the next 2 - 3 weeks.
 
Well looks like we'll have more than 12 people in. Since the field is not going to be judged by everyone, if you throw out the top and bottom score, you still end up with 10 scores a piece.

In my case I don't really care about the scores so much, I'm more interested in the feedback. Also interested in how we calculate the scores because of the anal retentive engineer thing, but not so much for the beers but because I like playing with numbers
 
If we're concerned about the scores, should we maybe just have everyone rank the 10 beers they receive and their top gets 10 points and least favorite gets 1 point? That way it doesn't matter if some people are really nitpicky with scores, others very generous. A thought, but like Zapy, I don't care as much, as I'm way more interested in getting feedback from 10 other homebrews who are interested in saisons.
 
If we're concerned about the scores, should we maybe just have everyone rank the 10 beers they receive and their top gets 10 points and least favorite gets 1 point? That way it doesn't matter if some people are really nitpicky with scores, others very generous. A thought, but like Zapy, I don't care as much, as I'm way more interested in getting feedback from 10 other homebrews who are interested in saisons.

Yeah I thought about the ranking, but I've never really liked how my terrible beers (kidding... i think) only get one less point than a beer that is by far an above better than any of the swill I make :p

In the end I think that it'll average out over as many people as we have scoring

Also seems like I'm arguing with myself, not uncommon.

"Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling in the mud with a pig. After a few hours, you realize that he likes it."
 
If we're concerned about the scores, should we maybe just have everyone rank the 10 beers they receive and their top gets 10 points and least favorite gets 1 point? That way it doesn't matter if some people are really nitpicky with scores, others very generous. A thought, but like Zapy, I don't care as much, as I'm way more interested in getting feedback from 10 other homebrews who are interested in saisons.
Only issue with this is it'll take multiple nights to sample all beers. It'll be hard to judge some in order of preference from days/weeks ago.
 
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