German Brewing

Jeez my back hurts. I gotta do something about it - hate the doctor.

Brewed the Koelsch I listed on Reddit this morning. Hit great numbers for O2 along the way, and pH was perfect. Big sloppy hot break in the kettle. I did have a boil over, but I pushed the limit (no silicon). Will post up the final datapoint along the way. Pitching 5L starter (decanted) from 2 packs of Wyeast 2565.

Plan to ferment at 58F and crash at full attenuation and lager. Will play around with more traditional ferments next round.

On the plus side, one of my helles batches came out really well - drinking the flat sample right now. So it will be kegged tomorrow. Sadly the LODO overdose got dumped, but I got greeted by two young deer that wanted to graze the compost pile.

Great about the Kolsch! Bummer about the back...I'm in the same boat (perhaps different issue though), I was out cutting up trees and bushes and chipping this morning. Now I can't move. haha

Overdose? Too much smb?

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Yeah Mike... I made a farting onion helles. I added the full volume dose to both the strike and sparge water. So double. and if I believe my notes, a third dosage because I forgot I already added the sparge dose, so in a 12 gallon batch I put about 19 grams for 16.5 gallons liquor. Not so good. So that LODO/non-LODO helles comparison was blown. I will say the O2 was exceptionally low throughout the process

Great. Are you going to spunden it?

Planning to spunden one keg of each (I have two spund valves) and let them lager for a while. Probably not the helles - it is not LODO, but by far the best one I have ever brewed (very careful handling without MBS). Excited to brew a LODO helles now. The koelsch will have to stand in for the meantime.

Here's the data on the LODO today. Clearly some work needs to happen on knockout to fermenter. Going to revise the whole pump/chiller system. The wort needed to cool in the freezer to pitch temps, and picked up some atmospheric O2. Took about 5 hours to chill. Just pitched at 58F with a 5 minute O2 injection.

RO Collection, no SMB 4.6 ppm
Pre-boil (transfer) 5.4 ppm
Boiled Liquor (transfer) 0.54 ppm
Grain-in (O2) 0.99 ppm
Grain-in (pH) 5.58
Grain-in (adjust) 5.49
Sacc Step, 158F (O2) 0.70 ppm
Sacc Step, 158F (pH) 5.35
Sparge Liquor, 170F (O2) 2.56 ppm
Sparge Liquor, 170F (MBS, O2) 0.92 ppm
Boil, after Sparge (O2) 0.73 ppm
Boil, after Sparge (pH) 5.34
Knock Out (O2) 0.21 ppm
Knock Out (pH) 5.18
In Fermenter (O2) 0.98 ppm
In Fermenter (pH) 5.19

Thoughts?

I should add - wort is characteristic of the LODO wort - grainy sweet floral pilsner, with 5% carahell, strong honey component, and with the carafoam, a bit of grape nuts. Distinct notes of each malt. I am pretty excited to taste this after primary!

Wow, I'm impressed (and encouraged) to see that you only picked up 0.7ppm O2 during a slow-chill.

I did sparge the fermenter with CO2 before knockout, and then sealed it during chilling. It sucked in the lid a bit - so air rushed in when I went to pitch and aerate. Not sure how much CO2 was left in the conical headspace (4 gallons or so) by the end of the knockout.