German Brewing

LODO noobie here, looking to try it out with my next brew of a Festbier on Sunday.

I brew relatively small 2.5 gallon batches so purchasing 2x or 3x WLP830 packs for a full-size big pitch is not cost prohibitive for me.

If you were me would you do that and pitch all packs w/o O2 or just pitch 1 or 2 packs and add pure O2? No preference?

Thank you all for the wonderful resource, it's a great distraction at work

I think yeast need oxygen for more than just reproducing - use some O2 (not necessarily pure O2 - aeration of some sort) regardless of your pitch rate. You'll still need at least 2 packs without a starter - maybe 3 depending on freshness. Remember to not oxygenate until AFTER the yeast is pitched though (I've been giving mine an hour or two with the yeast in before oxygenating).

So, in short, big pitch rate and oxygenation.

On the initial pitch you can get away with no oxygenation if the pitch is large enough.

Repitching will require some O2.

That's what I've gleaned from discussions on the topic at least.

[url]http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=118696/[url]

Interesting discussion. I've made some inquiry into the subject and am limited due to an all day appointment with army medical....ugh.