Brewing a Bavarian Helles

[KenLenard]

Okay, this is good stuff. Thank you all very much for the quick and thoughtful replies. My question came from the idea that with all of the splashing I have done in my past brewdays, you would think that my beer would be horrible. But it sounds like "a lot of splashing will slightly ruin your beer" and also "just a little bit of splashing will slightly ruin you beer". It's clearly not on a linear scale otherwise my beers would be undrinkable. My beers can always improve but they're not undrinkable.

[Kit_B]

Yeah...Once you taste what we're talking about, you're really going to go:
"Holy Crap! I REALLY need to figure out how to keep this!"

[Bryan R]

Its not about ruining your beer, its about ruining IT. You can brew perfectly fine oxidized beers, hell most styles are formed around oxidized examples. One you do it you will realize what we say, and you will never drink an oxidized beer again.

[Roachbrau]

See, that's the thing right there, Ken. "Ruining" is subjective - if you lose that beautiful fresh, clean flavor by oxidizing the wort or beer... it can still taste like the best craft or homebrew beer ever. BUT if your goal was to preserve that elusive flavor - the infamous "IT"... yes, it's ruined.

[Owenbräu]

I think we have all had the same experience where close is no longer good enough.

[KenLenard]

Right, right, right. In all the excitement I forgot that we are trying to preserve "it" which we have been talking about for a long time. Okay, thanks again for all the help... I have been monopolizing this thread with my questions and I appreciate the answers. I'm going to concentrate on making my first attempt at this and I will keep everyone posted on the outcome.

[Brandon]

"it can still taste like the best craft or homebrew beer ever" - absolutely. But, like some kind of weird drug addition, you want more and better! I always think this is what happened between Plzn, Munich and Vienna back in the day...a race to nail it.

[KenLenard]

[Brandon]

I have entirely stopped brewing American styles. I only want Helles, Pils and Dunkel, brewed this way. Mostly Helles. I just brewed some Porter and in March some APA...I'm done with those malts and over the top hops. You're just like me, Ken (and we've talked about this before). We can brew some that are close, and it used to drive me nuts. Why isn't it the same? What am I missing. Mine was always flat, kinda stale, cloying caramel tasting. Great next to other homebrew, same as American craft brew...but not close to the real thing.

[Roachbrau]

Wait until you've figured out your low o2 process... then brew some low o2 American craft styles

Hoppy styles in particular are mind blowing