Alternate methods for oxygen scavenging mash water

[Owenbräu]

Yeast nutrient is loaded with dead yeast hulls as well.

[Natebriscoe]

It's my understanding that a form of steam injection is used to deoxygenate water for boilers. I know some distillers are using steam injection to heat their mashes.

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[Bilsch]

I had time to test the yeast oxygen scavenge technique in a batch of beer today. Decided to go with a hefeweizen the thought being, if it didn't work then maybe this style of beer might tolerate a little more mash oxidation then a clean lager.
Started with 7.25 gal of water @ 35c with a mineral profile of: 58 Ca, 6.9 Mg, 10.2 Na, 54 SO4, 75 Cl, 36.1 HCO3
Initial DO reading 7 mg/l
Added 10 g dry bread yeast, (Lessafre) and 10 gm DME. (somewhat lower amounts then the initial testing said were optimal)
No bisulfites were added at anytime in this process to keep this experiment purely about the yeast.
24 min - DO 1.31 mg/l
40 min - DO 0.41 mg/l
1 hr - DO 0.27 mg/l
1 hr 40 min - 0.31mg/l
Increase water temp to 44c and transfer with underletting to the grain. Was 40/60 pils/wheat (+6.5% C125) grain bill. The idea here being to dough in at a temperature where yeast would still be active, let it do it's O thing.. then ramp up to beta and alpha.
DO at transfer was 0.29 mg/l
5 min after mash in - DO 0.61 mg/l
15 min after mash in - DO 0.72 mg/l
29 min in - DO 0.62 mg/l (at this point the mash schedule the temp should have gone past the point yeast can survive)
55 min in - DO 1.26 mg/l (wondering if this was an anomalous reading)
65 min in - DO 0.74 mg/l
120 min in - DO 1.20 mg/l

At this point no more DO measurements were done as I had to concentrate on finishing the brewing. Similarly to previous LoDO batches with bisulfites in the mash water, I noticed really no malt aroma coming from the mash. The batch finished as expected with no detectable off flavors going into the fermenter. I draw no particular conclusions from the above data but simply submit it for the forums consideration.

[caedus]

What is that little thing coming off of of the tee to the right?

[Bilsch]

A small valve for pulling samples from an otherwise essentially closed system.

[Brody]

I did it as well (although with no meter to test) on a full batch using 1.6 grams per gallon of DME & bread yeast. I mashed in at 135f hoping the yeast would still be kicking for the same reason and ramped up instantly.

That was some murky strike water but I didn't notice any off flavors. Batch is fermenting away now during the ramp down phase.

[Bilsch]

Looked a lot like stagnant puddle water didn't it. More interesting though was the almost constant CO2 evolution that continued even after adding to the grain. The temperature rise also forced the solution to off gas and I could see the slight foam coming out on the space between the kettle and the mashcap. What a cool way of helping protect from oxidation. Another interesting thing to note was the lowered pH of the mash. It ended up 0.I5 lower then I expected from brunwater prediction and past experience. I assume it was carbon dioxide in solution because as the mash progressed the pH slowly increased pretty much back to the predicted pH value. Oh well.. nothing a couple hundred milliliters of sauergut couldn't fix. Now I need to figure out a way to inject it in the re circulation inline.

[Brody]

Yea, I couldn't even tell you pH. I always measure but this one read something insane (like the meter said 12 or something) so I figure it's time for a new one. Thankfully, I've brewed this recipe a few times now so I wasn't that worried. Taste and conversion were fine.

I've been buying cheap meters and treating them as semi-disposable. May just splurge for the Milwaukee or Extech.

[Bilsch]

Tapped the hefeweizen today from the yeast oxygen scavenger test and it came out great. I don't detect any off flavors or unusual aromas and am pretty happy with the result. This method is

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especially nice now that we are in the heat of summer and the less time steaming hot kettles of water sit in the kitchen the better.

[Brandon]