Bottling a lodo helles
Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 3:16 pm
One of the most difficult phases for controlling oxidation and flavor stability is bottling and packaging. When using the spunden method, it largely eliminates that problem. However, there are times when you need to bottle, like when sending off for competitions, freeing up keg space, etc.
Here is one of my early lodo helles batches (100 mg/l SMB) where I measured sulfite at different stages. The first is after EVG was hit post-spunding on February 27th. I bottled that helles for some comps on April 15th, and set some back to evaluate at a later date to see how my bottling method faired. Well, I guess today is that later day. The second photo is from today, a few days over one month after bottling. (btw, goat was our code for SMB).
I bottled using a MoreBeer couterpressure filler (CPF) with a 3 way valve. Bottles were sanitized, rinsed with helles, flushed with CO2, pressurized with CO2, then beer coming in pushed the CO2 out and was capped on foam. All rubber o-rings in the system were prepped with keg lube as well. That's about as good as I can do.
The initial measurement was between 25-50 ppm (I also originally compared this to a non-lodo helles I had cold fermented and spunded.)
After sitting in a bottle for a month in a walk-in cooler, the reading was 10-25 ppm.
Here is how the beer looks today. On a scale of 1-10 for freshness and lingering malt, it originally was a 9-9.5. Now, I would put it at a solid 7.5-8. The residual sulfites seem to be doing their job, and clearly not all of the oxygen was removed during bottling. At the same time, it's not expected that all of the oxygen collided in solution with sulfites; it's bound to be random and some of the malt compounds would certainly be oxidized as well, which explains the loss of fresh, lingering malt. I will say, this beer has taken 5 medals so far and is headed to the NHC finals. Take it for what its worth.
Here is one of my early lodo helles batches (100 mg/l SMB) where I measured sulfite at different stages. The first is after EVG was hit post-spunding on February 27th. I bottled that helles for some comps on April 15th, and set some back to evaluate at a later date to see how my bottling method faired. Well, I guess today is that later day. The second photo is from today, a few days over one month after bottling. (btw, goat was our code for SMB).
I bottled using a MoreBeer couterpressure filler (CPF) with a 3 way valve. Bottles were sanitized, rinsed with helles, flushed with CO2, pressurized with CO2, then beer coming in pushed the CO2 out and was capped on foam. All rubber o-rings in the system were prepped with keg lube as well. That's about as good as I can do.
The initial measurement was between 25-50 ppm (I also originally compared this to a non-lodo helles I had cold fermented and spunded.)
- Helles sulfite strip @ spunding.jpg (27.46 KiB) Viewed 8712 times
After sitting in a bottle for a month in a walk-in cooler, the reading was 10-25 ppm.
- Helles sulfate strip @ 1 month.jpg (163.97 KiB) Viewed 8712 times
Here is how the beer looks today. On a scale of 1-10 for freshness and lingering malt, it originally was a 9-9.5. Now, I would put it at a solid 7.5-8. The residual sulfites seem to be doing their job, and clearly not all of the oxygen was removed during bottling. At the same time, it's not expected that all of the oxygen collided in solution with sulfites; it's bound to be random and some of the malt compounds would certainly be oxidized as well, which explains the loss of fresh, lingering malt. I will say, this beer has taken 5 medals so far and is headed to the NHC finals. Take it for what its worth.
- Helles Bottled 1 month.jpg (183.57 KiB) Viewed 8712 times
