German Brewing

Maybe this insight helps...

Before I used pure oxygen and measured the levels with the DO meter, my fermentation was always a bit off. Once that uncertainty gone and the proper levels of oxygen introduced, my fermentation was always dead on with a noticeable improvement in Vsend (or EVG if you like, final apparent attenuation [FAA?]). You may also need to look into providing suitable nutrients. If you use Sauergut (and you should) then the nutrients are already in there.

One thing to ponder is why a lot of home-brewers always think of the mash at fault in the first instance. Bearing in mind that most of the work is already done by the maltster and your influence may be something like 30% at best, unless you dough in north of 72C it'll be very difficult to mess it up. Most of the time, the problems aren't with the mash, they are pretty much everywhere else

All our styles are impeccably fermented. It's on the fermentation aspect where a lot of attention is needed and where most improvements are possible. Here is a for those wanting to delve further into this fascinating topic (and are not German speaking). Of course, there are many other equally brilliant books, but this is the only one I know of available in English (apart from Kunze).

How you make your Sauergut is up to you. That's all I am prepared to tell

I like to make my sauergut with the same grist as the beer it's slated to be used in.

Having had my own attenuation issues, I took a mini mash to my friends lab and did accurate PH measurement whilst adding saurgut to adjust (even going so far as to centrifuge the samples before measuring, as the debris- husk particles, flour etc,were interfering with the reading (pushing it low))

I found I had to add WAY more saurgut than the mash PH caluclators were suggesting (based on an assumed 1.5 % lactic acid concentration of my saurgut). Perhaps my RO filter is a bit worn, and my water is buffering the acid more than expected, I don't know. Maybe I was incorrectly using the PH calculator.

I fermented out the lab mash, and got the highest attenuation I've ever seen, at 84 %, where I was previously stuck at 77%. Whether that is down to the saurgut's nutrient vaule, or correct PH, or both, I'm not sure. (mash temps and everything else was same I do at home). I'm yet to attempt a full sized batch of lager with this new information, but it scaled up well with my Hefeweizen.

Your sauergut probably was more like 0.8% acid. That's a far more typical value.

I find you make the Sauergut the day before then it's, like tech mention d, indeed at 0.8%. If you leave it for another 25 hours you can get to the max.

For what it's worth, most breweries have their SG at 0.8% since they draw it several times during the brewday whilst refreshing with first runnings.

Sauergut can be up to 5% of the total volume used.

I wonder whether you are using a pH meter?

But RO water would produce less bacteria, as water with buffering is a better growth environment. The recommendations from milk the funk is adding chalk to a lacto starter and decanting off it.


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