How does Low oxygen brewing work with Aerating the wort?

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timsch

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I've seen threads on low oxygen brewing and the claims of superior beer. It's also been common practice, even required practice, to aerate the wort. How does this work? I've always poured wort back and forth between buckets to aerate it.
 
Aeration at the time you pitch yeast is the one time you want O2 in your process. The yeast need it during the growth phase. Splashing or pouring back and forth will put up to 8ppm O2 into your wort. Using pure O2 forced through a porous stone can add much more.

Any other time, you want to minimize oxygen ingress as much as possible.
 
Dry yeast don't need oxygen. Healthy wet yeast, pitched well, mob up oxygen within minutes, before it does much damage. I'm not sure which practices LODO brewers follow exactly, but I gather there's a preference for wet yeast, which I understand regardless.
 
I'd say plan to pitch acclimatised (at same temp as FV wort) wet yeast shortly after aeration. Consider aeration part of the pitching procedure rather than transferring wort to an FV, unless pitching soon after transferring the wort.
 
It'll be a struggle to transfer my wort from the keggle to buckets without splashing. THere's usually enough hops to plug up my auto-siphon before 2/3 of it is out. Whirlpooling hasn't worked for me, maybe due to the heating element in the bottom of the keggle. I've been scooping the remaining hop/wort into a stainless strainer above the bucket to drain out. Auto-siphoning with a paint strainer bag hasn't been effective for me.

My brews have been pretty decent, but never 'wow'.
 
Best lodo practice is to pitch then aerate. I have found if you pitch the appropriate amount of yeast for the temperature you will ferment at from a vitality starter it is sufficient without aeration at all, liquid or dry. Time to low kräusen, high kräusen and FG are the metrics I watch. Mashing for fermentability does decrease fermentation time for me when more simple sugars are available for the yeast early on.

Try different methods and see what flavors you end up with and if you are happy with them. My house ale and lager yeasts are quite happy from a vitality starter with zero aeration.
 
So I just finished a batch of Bohemian Pilsener. It's already splash aerated as of 1.5 hours ago. Wort is probably only around 70F now. I can pitch my 40F yeast now, or wait until wort is around 50F. Which is the lesser evil - elapsed time after aeration or pitching yeast into too warm wort?
 
Red over White said:
This crew might know a little about yeast Edward T Hammersmith.

Click to expand...

That's a little bit like saying, "listen to us, we're different". Marketing blah, blah, blah. It ignores groundbreaking omics science that clearly shows even a few °C is enough to push yeast metabolism away from fermentation to delay the process by hours. This guy reckons yeast eat each other when they warm up to pitching temperature? Maybe he needs to learn some basic time management skills? And some basic biology, too.
 
McMullan said:
That's a little bit like saying, "listen to us, we're different". Marketing blah, blah, blah. It ignores groundbreaking omics science that clearly shows even a few °C is enough to push yeast metabolism away from fermentation to delay the process by hours. This guy reckons yeast eat each other when they warm up to pitching temperature? Maybe he needs to learn some basic time management skills? And some basic biology, too.
Click to expand...


Your right, he's only is a professional yeast farmer, so he's gotta be blowing smoke. He clearly should listen to some random poster on HBT to know what's really up.
 
Red over White said:
Your right, he's only is a professional yeast farmer, so he's gotta be blowing smoke. He clearly should listen to some random poster on HBT to know what's really up.
Click to expand...
Don't worry too much about random posters on HBT. It's pretty basic biology, understood for decades and confirmed by groundbreaking research using some of the most sophisticated platforms ever engineered. I guess it's just not the same as a pro yeast farmer in a hairnet talking crap on YouTube 😉
 
McMullan said:
Don't worry too much about random posters on HBT. It's pretty basic biology, understood for decades and confirmed by groundbreaking research using some of the most sophisticated platforms ever engineered. I guess it's just not the same as a pro yeast farmer in a hairnet talking crap on YouTube 😉
Click to expand...

I am definitely interested in your sources, please post links for everyone to read and learn.
 
Red over White said:
I am definitely interested in your sources, please post links for everyone to read and learn.
Click to expand...
Anyone can do a search and read publicly available science databases these days. Why don't you let the pro hairnet guy know what you find? Do you need some keys words, like yeast, stress response, growth arrest, omics?
 
McMullan said:
Anyone can do a search and read publicly available science databases these days. Why don't you let the pro hairnet guy know what you find? Do you need some keys words, like yeast, stress response, growth arrest, omics?
Click to expand...

Please don't tell me that Google is your "groundbreaking research using some of the most sophisticated platforms ever engineered".
 
In John Palmers How to Brew he stresses the importance of not pitching warm and then decreasing the temperature because the yeast will feast and then become dormant and fall out of solution. To the contrary he also said it’s better to pitch cold yeast into warm wort than warm yeast into cold wort (cold shower shock). However he’s only talking about a few degrees difference not a 10+ degree difference.
 
Red over White said:
Best lodo practice is to pitch then aerate. I have found if you pitch the appropriate amount of yeast for the temperature you will ferment at from a vitality starter it is sufficient without aeration at all, liquid or dry. Time to low kräusen, high kräusen and FG are the metrics I watch. Mashing for fermentability does decrease fermentation time for me when more simple sugars are available for the yeast early on.

Try different methods and see what flavors you end up with and if you are happy with them. My house ale and lager yeasts are quite happy from a vitality starter with zero aeration.
Click to expand...
Another process I've seen in LoDO discussions is pitching the yeast first, then aerate with bottled O2 through a sintered stone. The thought is that doing it this way gives the O2 less chance to oxidize the wort, since the oxygen-hungry yeast will consume it as quickly as it is injected. I've done it both ways. It makes sense on the surface and the process isn't more or less complicated either way. That said, I have not detected a difference with either method in the finished beer.
 
Brooothru said:
Another process I've seen in LoDO discussions is pitching the yeast first, then aerate with bottled O2 through a sintered stone. The thought is that doing it this way gives the O2 less chance to oxidize the wort, since the oxygen-hungry yeast will consume it as quickly as it is injected. I've done it both ways. It makes sense on the surface and the process isn't more or less complicated either way. That said, I have not detected a difference with either method in the finished beer.
Click to expand...

If you are producing the type of beer that you and those around you enjoy, that's all that really matters.

I prefer not to use oxygen at all. The less moving targets I have, the better the repeatability I have.
 
McMullan said:
That's a little bit like saying, "listen to us, we're different". Marketing blah, blah, blah. It ignores groundbreaking omics science that clearly shows even a few °C is enough to push yeast metabolism away from fermentation to delay the process by hours. This guy reckons yeast eat each other when they warm up to pitching temperature? Maybe he needs to learn some basic time management skills? And some basic biology, too.
Click to expand...

Red over White said:
Your right, he's only is a professional yeast farmer, so he's gotta be blowing smoke. He clearly should listen to some random poster on HBT to know what's really up.
Click to expand...

I'd love to see somebody find the research that supports brewing yeast cannibalize each other. There are microbes with the ability to kill competitors to protect scarce resources but I've never seen mention of commercially available brewing strains doing that and killing competitors is not the same as eating them. Maybe he means cells die and release nutrients back into solution that other yeast cells uptake and simply explained it in an inarticulate manner.
 
Red over White said:
Please don't tell me that Google is your "groundbreaking research using some of the most sophisticated platforms ever engineered".
Click to expand...
Like I typed, science databases. Google Scholar, if you can"t find anything else.

Yeast go dormant when resources run out, like at the end of fermentation, when they flocculate, right? We use refrigeration to help preserve the integrity of organic matter, especially food, including dormant liquid food cultures such as yeast. When pitched into wort yeast express a shock response, regardless. Because of the new environmental conditions. It's easy to assess by measuring the 'lag phase'. A genuine lag phase in healthy yeast pitched at a suitable rate into fermentable wort doesn't last more than a few to several hours. If it does, there is something wrong, even if you accept it works for you. It's considered good practice to limit the shock by bringing refrigerated liquid yeast up to pitching temperature, which, for a few hours on brew day, isn't going to have any negative impact on viability or cannibalistic behaviour.
 
mashpaddled said:
I'd love to see somebody find the research that supports brewing yeast cannibalize each other. There are microbes with the ability to kill competitors to protect scarce resources but I've never seen mention of commercially available brewing strains doing that and killing competitors is not the same as eating them. Maybe he means cells die and release nutrients back into solution that other yeast cells uptake and simply explained it in an inarticulate manner.
Click to expand...

I believe his just talking about regular autolysis all of us brewers try to avoid in layman's terms.
 
McMullan said:
Like I typed, science databases. Google Scholar, if you can"t find anything else.

Yeast go dormant when resources run out, like at the end of fermentation, when they flocculate, right? We use refrigeration to help preserve the integrity of organic matter, especially food, including dormant liquid food cultures such as yeast. When pitched into wort yeast express a shock response, regardless. Because of the new environmental conditions. It's easy to assess by measuring the 'lag phase'. A genuine lag phase in healthy yeast pitched at a suitable rate into fermentable wort doesn't last more than a few to several hours. If it does, there is something wrong, even if you accept it works for you. It's considered good practice to limit the shock by bringing refrigerated liquid yeast up to pitching temperature, which, for a few hours on brew day, isn't going to have any negative impact on viability or cannibalistic behaviour. If you disagree with what is established knowledge in yeast biology, you'll need to offer more than the opinions of a yeast salesman talking crap.
Click to expand...

30 degrees like the OP asked isn't a big shock. -80C to room temperature is and it not only lives, but grows into the yeast we purchase. Dry yeast rehydrates and goes right to work, I'd consider that way more of a shock than 30°F difference between a starter and the wort, yet it does this seamlessly time after time and doesn't need a spa day.

When he is speaking about autolysis it seems to me that he is referring to keeping unopened pure yeast COLD from the manufacturer, not in our starters or wort.
 
His reasoning why temperature doesn't matter is that cryogenically preserved yeast cells get plated out by the afternoon? Frozen yeast are first shocked at 38°C, to spook them back to life, then cultured overnight, before being diluted then plated out for colony selection, a day or two later.
 
belgabrewing said:
I have been using olive oil for years. One drop off of a toothpick in 5 gallons of wort is all you need.

https://winning-homebrew.com/olive-oil-in-beer.html
Click to expand...
The math appears to be incorrect about how much to use. As stated in the article, 300 ml of olive oil was used in 168,000 liters of beer. To scale that to 5 gallons (18.9271 liters) solve
(300ml/168,000l)= x ml/18.9271l
(300*18.9271)/168,000=x
x=0.033798ml
The article states that 0.0000833 ml would be necessary.

Also, a drop is actually a unit of measurement in the metric system (unbeknownst to me previously) and 1 drop=(1/20)ml=0.05 ml. So about two-thirds of a drop.

If one were to use the 0.0000833ml value, that is 0.0000833/0.05=0.001666 which is 1/600th of a drop.

I bought a box of droppers off Amazon, I will have to check to see if any could measure that small amount. I will go read the actual reference too to see if I did something wrong or the article author left out or misinterpreted something.
 
O2 is more effective than olive oil. That was the final conclusion after testing. Only about 1/3 of O2 mopped up gets channelled into membrane potential for budding. At least some of the other 2/3 is promoting other apparently beneficial biological process(es). I suspect it simply boils down to a period of more efficient aerobic respiration under the circumstances 🤫
 
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McMullan said:
O2 is more effective than olive oil. That was the final conclusion after testing. Only about 1/3 of O2 mopped up gets channelled into membrane potential for budding. At least some of the other 2/3 is promoting other apparently beneficial biological process(es). I suspect it simply boils down to a period of more efficient aerobic respiration under the circumstances 🤫
Click to expand...
Whose final conclusion after testing are you referring to?
 
McMullan said:
The original dissertation that never got published after peer review 🤫
Click to expand...
It was a thesis that is linked in the article not a dissertation. Which illustrates why I asked, to be sure what specific publication you are referring to.

Next, scientific discussion is not conducted as a mystery. If you make a statement about the results of a study, it is expected that you cite the source, at least by author and year, with the full citation available upon request. That's your responsibility not the audience's. YOU wouldn't get past peer review with that kind of attitude.

So whose final conclusion after testing are you referring to?
 
Deadalus said:
It was a thesis that is linked in the article not a dissertation. Which illustrates why I asked, to be sure what specific publication you are referring to.

Next, scientific discussion is not conducted as a mystery. If you make a statement about the results of a study, it is expected that you cite the source, at least by author and year, with the full citation available upon request. That's your responsibility not the audience's. YOU wouldn't get past peer review with that kind of attitude.

So whose final conclusion after testing are you referring to?
Click to expand...
This is a home brew forum, not a science platform. I haven't submitted anything for peer review here. Reread the dissertation. Olive oil was associated with slower fermentation therefore not considered a viable alternative to O2, at least for commercial breweries. Conclusion: O2 is more effective. If olive oil works for you, as a home brewer, that's great. No one's saying you can't do what you want, are they?
 
McMullan said:
This is a home brew forum, not a science platform. I haven't submitted anything for peer review here. Reread the dissertation. Olive oil was associated with slower fermentation therefore not considered a viable alternative to O2, at least for commercial breweries. Conclusion: O2 is more effective. If olive oil works for you, as a home brewer, that's great. No one's saying you can't do what you want, are they?
Click to expand...
Today was the first I heard of it. I was more interested in why OO might be considered as a replacement. So I read the article, then parts of the 35 page thesis submitted by the candidate for MSc Grady Hull. The Word document is called OliveOilThesis.doc. The study has also been published in the the Technical Quarterly of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas in 2007. 45(2007) pp17-23. I can't guarantee it was blind peer reviewed as I don't have access to the journal but I expect it would have had at least some level of peer review.

Again though, without you providing the citation, it wasn't clear what results you were referring to. You also mentioned a 1/3 uptake of O2 immediately after (no paragraph break) which I didn't see mentioned by Hull. Maybe something you know but probably won't provide a citation for that an interested reader might be inclined to learn about.

One thing I did find interesting in the thesis was the increased esters with olive oil In some of my reading on yeasts and styles this might be a favorable outcome perhaps worth exploring.

The linked article by @belgabrewing does not include detailed citations. I did not find the find the Flavours in Beer pub nor the specific thread that the olive oil calculation may have come from to check the math.
 
That thesis (which is a dissertation) lacks a key control - a no O2/no olive oil batch. It is quite possible that such a batch would perform the same as the olive oil batch(es), which did ferment out more slowly. Oddly, I can't find a formally published version of that study. There does not seem to be a 2007 volume of MBAA Technical Quarterly. Given the lack of the critical control sample, it wouldn't surprise me if it never was published as I can't see any reviewer accepting the results.

Edit: it seems to have been published in 2008, not 2007, and I can't get access to it either. I'm shocked it was published.
 
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hopjuice_71 said:
That thesis (which is a dissertation) lacks a key control - a no O2/no olive oil batch. It is quite possible that such a batch would perform the same as the olive oil batch(es), which did ferment out more slowly. Oddly, I can't find a formally published version of that study. There does not seem to be a 2007 volume of MBAA Technical Quarterly. Given the lack of the critical control sample, it wouldn't surprise me if it never was published as I can't see any reviewer accepting the results.

Edit: it seems to have been published in 2008, not 2007, and I can't get access to it either. I'm shocked it was published.
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Sorry. I used one of the 8 references that cited it and they had it as 2007. Others have it as 2008. That journal goes back to at least 1964 however but they only went online in 2009 I think it said.

I get that it could be called a dissertation by calling it new research but the program at the university he attended is a one year program (currently), he had only 2 committee members, it was for a MSc, and it was 35 pages. I'm not going to bag on the guy but few academics are going to call that a dissertation.

It can be hard to get permission to run experiments on production lines where you are interrupting high volume production of goods.

Brad Smith at Beersmith blogged about it back in 2015 but a respondent noted he had the unit types mixed up which he fixed.
 
Deadalus said:
Sorry. I used one of the 8 references that cited it and they had it as 2007. Others have it as 2008. That journal goes back to at least 1964 however but they only went online in 2009 I think it said.

I get that it could be called a dissertation by calling it new research but the program at the university he attended is a one year program (currently), he had only 2 committee members, it was for a MSc, and it was 35 pages. I'm not going to bag on the guy but few academics are going to call that a dissertation.

It can be hard to get permission to run experiments on production lines where you are interrupting high volume production of goods.

Brad Smith at Beersmith blogged about it back in 2015 but a respondent noted he had the unit types mixed up which he fixed.
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, I am an academic scientist but given it was a research project towards completion of a graduate degree I would be forced to call it a dissertation or thesis, irrespective of my issues with the design and quality.

I understand the issues with experimental design in a production setting. What puzzles me is that the experiments comprise an interesting preliminary result that was never followed up on, at least that I can find, though I admit to not looking very hard. The experiment could easily have been scaled down and a set of proper controls included. With out it I don't put much faith in the olive oil thing.
 
Where I come from (the UK) it’s a dissertation, academically speaking. And thesis is reserved for a PhD submission. I find semantics thoroughly boring, personally. In my experience, when there’s no formal research following an interesting, potentially useful idea, it‘s because it turned out to be negative or otherwise inferior to already established practices. No one wants to do worse, do they? Unfortunately, negative results hardly ever get published, unless there’s a con involved.
 
McMullan said:
Where I come from (the UK) it’s a dissertation, academically speaking. And thesis is reserved for a PhD submission. I find semantics thoroughly boring, personally. In my experience, when there’s no formal research following an interesting, potentially useful idea, it‘s because it turned out to be negative or otherwise inferior to already established practices. No one wants to do worse, do they? Unfortunately, negative results hardly ever get published, unless there’s a con involved.
Click to expand...

This is my suspicion as well - any follow ups have been lost in the purgatory of negative results.
 

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