Brewing a Bavarian Helles

[Kit_B]

[JayR]

Good afternoon all,

This is my first post here-- I hope that I'm not adding this information to the wrong thread but I wanted to first of all thank the team here for sharing all of the work you have done to define this process and the controls required to keep o2 at bay, and second share a brief summary of my very recent experiences with LODO brewing.

Over the past few months I've been given some guidance from a member here -- Ancient Abbey (thank you sir) around improving my beers through limiting oxidation in my process. In the past I have had some successes with some of my brews, and I have been happy with my results-- but I have never been able to produce a German Lager with the same kind of flavor that I get when trying authentic versions from across the pond. I realize after reading here today I have been looking for "IT." I've also come to realize that the resources available in the homebrewing community (up until recently) don't have the information I need to get where I want to go. I've made some process improvements based on guidance and I have seen improvements but I haven't captured that elusive element that I want in my beer.

Fast forward to this past weekend-- like many others I found a copy of your paper on line and since I had some time to kill on Sunday I elected to incorporate a few of the elements I had read about that I had not yet become aware of or previously tried into my brew day. One small issue-- the beer I had ready to make was an ESB rather than a Helles. However, after reading and absorbing the information provided by the team here I was confident I would have drastic improvements in my beer so I thought I should proceed with the attempt.

I had already eliminated splashing/dumping/agitating prior to this brew day, and I had begun preboiling my strike water for the last few batches. For this last brew session I incorporated SMB into my strike/sparge water at the recommended rate from your paper, and also added an insert to my cooler MT to float on the mash to limit surface area in contact with air. I also greatly reduced the intensity of my boil (subsequently reducing the amount of H2O boiled off). A third improvement I added was to greatly reduce the flow rate for my pump for every transfer step to barely a trickle of liquid. Finally, when making the yeast starter for this particular brew (WLP002) I had doubled it planning to make two separate beers. However I elected to lower the fermentation temperature and pitch the entire double starter for this batch.

So... obviously not a Helles or even a German lager (I hope you will humor me with this), but the additional process improvements I incorporated were astounding! The first noticeable difference-- after mashing in I smelled NOTHING... none of the aromas that I have become used to experiencing during this part of my brew day.... I would have been sorely disappointed if I wasn't also aware that this meant those flavor compounds were not being oxidized and instead were contained within the wort I was producing. And the flavor was so different than any wort I have ever made! This carried through the boil and went into the fermenter. I have some time to plan forward to secondary/packaging to make certain I don't introduce o2 and lose those flavors, I'll be working diligently on this part.

In summary-- I realize this is only one person's subjective opinion and isn't scientific evidence. With that said, I will never go back to producing wort without these controls in place. I don't yet know But the most exciting thing for me to consider is that I still have room to further improve-- removing copper from my process for example, as well as determining how to successfully package.

Thank you again for your efforts and for sharing your work! Prost!

[Bryan R]

[Brandon]

Yeah, I have a hard time with going back. I dig the lighter color and fresher flavors. I'm curious to keep hearing folks experiences with better oxygen management.

[bjanat]

I assume the big German breweries all minimize O2 in their water. I'm having a six month old Korbinian right now, nice aroma, and a clean, crisp and rich flavor. I'll definitely try this method with a doppelbock soon.


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[Techbrau]

[pinto]

I was listening to a Beersmith podcast today with Dr Charlie Bamforth. The subject was the boil. But at 41:15, he mentions ascorbic acid in the mash to reduce oxidation. http://beersmith.com/blog/2016/03/01/bo ... dcast-121/

Any one do any experiments using ascorbic acid instead of/in addition to SMB?

[caedus]

Ascorbic acid is a common anti-oxidant, however I would imagine that it would create off-flavors or drop the pH further than SMB, leading to it being less than optimal. However a combination of Ascorbic and SMB could be pretty awesome.

[Brandon]

Maybe in the mash, don't put it in the keg. I'm curious to see what Charlie's team comes up with for the mash-side. I've listened to that podcast 2-3 times now. Interesting.

[Techbrau]

The biggest issue is what's left over after the ascorbic acid does its job. Upon oxidation, ascorbic acid turns into a compound called dehydroascorbic acid, which is actually pretty unstable and reactive in beer. It can cause problems down the line in the finished beer, actually becoming a potent oxidizing agent itself.

The really nice things about sulfite are:

1. It works quickly - oxygen is scavenged by sulfite faster than it can damage the wort
2. It turns into sulfate (SO4) upon oxidation, which most people add to their brewing water anyway
3. Any excess is either blown off by the boil or fermentation, or alternatively is taken up by the yeast who actually use it as a nutrient.

We've measured the final sulfite levels in lodo beers using test strips (I think Ancient has posted pics of this somewhere), and they're approximately on par with what you would measure in a bottle of commercial beer.