Looking for a German Style Mentor

[Bilsch]

Next best to the moon would be a big purged glove box that fits your system. No meta no mashcaps. Man you could stir and splash, hell even use a drill mounted paint mixer as a mash paddle!
I like it.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

Next best to the moon would be a big purged glove box that fits your system. No meta no mashcaps. Man you could stir and splash, hell even use a drill mounted paint mixer as a mash paddle!
I like it.

And think about the cold side: fermenting, dry hopping, transferring and kegging or bottling in such a bubble...a dream. Wonder why no one of the homebrewing gear manufacturers has thought about such a thing yet. I would buy it immediately if I had the cash and the space and no family and no wife.

 

[Bilsch]

And think about the cold side: fermenting, dry hopping, transferring and kegging or bottling in such a bubble...a dream. Wonder why no one of the homebrewing gear manufacturers has thought about such a thing yet. I would buy it immediately if I had the cash and the space and no family and no wife.

Don't think I haven't thought about it because I already have one of these 200L dewars to bleed into the glove box to hold the purge.

But not counting the one time cost of the glovebox which could be easily built from aluminum panel.. the real kicker is the cost to fill the cylinder every 30 days with an inert gas like N2 or argon, because that is the max time till the liquid gas bleeds away, and you cant stop it. Also the full cylinder weighs 600 lbs. so not easy to send out for refills. Using compressed gas would be 4 times the cost making that even more crazy. So it could be done but in the end, probably cheaper to fly to Munich every couple months for a beer run.

 

[Pappers_]

IMO.. Munich, Pilsner and caramunich or carahell are the only malts you should need to make a good bock. Any more and you just muddy the flavor. The most important ingredient is process.

As with most beers and brewing, I think this is half right - yeast (ingredient) and it's management (process) are the single most important aspect of brewing. This is perhaps even more important for lagers. Tend to yeast and fermentation and you are at least 80 percent to your goal.

 

[Bilsch]

As with most beers and brewing, I think this is half right - yeast (ingredient) and it's management (process) are the single most important aspect of brewing. This is perhaps even more important for lagers. Tend to yeast and fermentation and you are at least 80 percent to your goal.

Totally agree with this. Although I consider yeast health/management part of process.

 

[Jeff...]

I close on a 20 acre farmette the end of June. I'll have my own dedicated winery/brewery and 4 sources of water on the property. A natural spring fed 2 acre pond stocked with fish, a deep ass huge rain water fed cistern, a deep fully functioning well and municipal water, RO filtered.

Wife wants a root/storm cellar right off the bat. I said sure, I'll dig you one no problem, as long as you will share it with my wines & lagers I'm going to dig it out in a north facing hill good 8' x 12' and at least 8' deep. Then lay in drain tile and pour it all in concrete.

 

[Pappers_]

I close on a 20 acre farmette the end of June. I'll have my own dedicated winery/brewery and 4 sources of water on the property. A natural spring fed 2 acre pond stocked with fish, a deep ass huge rain water fed cistern, a deep fully functioning well and municipal water, RO filtered.

Wife wants a root/storm cellar right off the bat. I said sure, I'll dig you one no problem, as long as you will share it with my wines & lagers I'm going to dig it out in a north facing hill good 8' x 12' and at least 8' deep. Then lay in drain tile and pour it all in concrete.

That sounds fantastic!

 

[Jeff...]

That sounds fantastic!

It will be nice...

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

After reading a few of these German brewing and LODO discussions, I felt compelled to write an e-mail to the Faculty of Brewing Sciences and Beverage Technology of TUM at Weihenstephan, in an attempt to see it a bit clearer for myself. They were kind enough to reply. Here in summary what they had to say about the subject:

- HSA is real (no surprises here).

- They would not state it clearly, but you can read between the lines that the usual suspect Bavarian breweries (Weihenstephan & Co.) are not degassing their brewing water. While this is also a possibility for breweries, they said that in most cases structural constructions in the brewhouse are cheaper and sufficient for taking care of HSA.

- These structural constructions and process steps involve e.g. the Vormaischer, filling vessels from below, and specific designs for the stirring elements and pipes. All this is well known to most of you, of course.

Please note that through this post I am not trying to debate against LODO at the homebrewing level. I kind of see the point that if you want to achieve the same low levels of hot-side O2 ingress as those industrial breweries through our minuscule and low-tech setups (with way higher surface-to-volume ratios) you might need to resort to water de-aeration, antioxidants and so forth.

 

[Die_Beerery]

After reading a few of these German brewing and LODO discussions, I felt compelled to write an e-mail to the Faculty of Brewing Sciences and Beverage Technology of TUM at Weihenstephan, in an attempt to see it a bit clearer for myself. They were kind enough to reply. Here in summary what they had to say about the subject:

- HSA is real (no surprises here).

- They would not state it clearly, but you can read between the lines that the usual suspect Bavarian breweries (Weihenstephan & Co.) are not degassing their brewing water. While this is also a possibility for breweries, they said that in most cases structural constructions in the brewhouse are cheaper and sufficient for taking care of HSA.

- These structural constructions and process steps involve e.g. the Vormaischer, filling vessels from below, and specific designs for the stirring elements and pipes. All this is well known to most of you, of course.

Please note that through this post I am not trying to debate against LODO at the homebrewing level. I kind of see the point that if you want to achieve the same low levels of hot-side O2 ingress as those industrial breweries through our minuscule and low-tech setups (with way higher surface-to-volume ratios) you might need to resort to water de-aeration, antioxidants and so forth.

I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.

I just got a more clear reply following my insisting second inquiry : They are not aware of any brewery degassing their water for the brewhouse. Degassed water is being used but only in the cold side (filtration, filling). Further: The antioxidant power of malt is already high enough, so that this really isn't a problem. You need to make sure that no vortex is being built, that would continuously introduce O2 into the mash. The most extreme measures he is aware of are the use of intert gases to cap the mash and the use of antioxidants (it is safe to assume that Weihenstephan and most other traditional bavarian breweries are not using those...for sure not antioxidants as that would go against the Reinheitsgebot).
Sorry for this somehow sloppy direct translation from German.

Now this guy is the technical director of the research brewery at TUM in Weihenstephan. They are directly associated to the Weihenstephan brewery... if this guy does not know what they are doing, then who does?

 

[Vale71]

I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.

You got a source for that? Last time I checked industrial process details are hardly "common knowledge". I certainly never heard it mentioned on TV.

 

[Die_Beerery]

You got a source for that? Last time I checked industrial process details are hardly "common knowledge". I certainly never heard it mentioned on TV.

Just my own two eyes on a closed late night tour with a master diplo brewmaster and teacher at W. I was probably just hallucinating, even though we had a specific discussion about it.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.

Btw I wasn't aware Weihenstephan had 2 production sites. Where is the second one located?

 

[Bilsch]

Further: The antioxidant power of malt is already high enough, so that this really isn't a problem.

Are you sure about your translation? That antioxidant is your beer flavor.

 

[Robert65]

Are you sure about your translation? That antioxidant is your beer flavor.

Precisely. The "malt antioxidants" are the very polyphenols and other compounds that constitute the flavor of malt, and that will be the last line of defense against intolerable staling in packaged beer. The goal therefore is to preserve them intact through the brewing and packaging process. It is further made perfectly explicit in Kunze -- whose work is of course descriptive of SOP in all German commercial breweries -- that ALL water, including mashing-in water, MUST be degassed. The only wiggle room offered is that in mashing-in water a maximum of 0.1 ppm oxygen may, in the worst case, be tolerated as the upper limit, whereas the absolute limit is 0.01 ppm on the cold side.

 

[Jeff...]

Well gents, I'm going to have to put my studies on hold for a while. I have a house, a wood shop to pack and move, along with my sawmill and skidsteer, turkeys, chickens, dogs and the wife.

We are moving about 3 miles further past Bum F Egypt than we are now. Off of 14 acres and on to 20 acres. This will be my last move, now we can focus on permanency.

 

[Bilsch]

I fired off my own letter to the Faculty of Brewing Sciences and Beverage Technology of TUM at Weihenstephan and asked about the discrepancy between the best practices outlined in publications like Kunze and the information they had given the other member of this forum who wrote.
They replied:

All that stuff we put in brewing books is just to sell more copies to the Americans at 170 euro a pop. We have attached a link to a video of how we actually brew here at Weihenstephan:


Freundliche Grüße
das Personal bei TUM at Weihenstephan


P.S. My German is a bit rusty so please excuse any errors in translation.

 

[Vale71]

It is further made perfectly explicit in Kunze -- whose work is of course descriptive of SOP in all German commercial breweries -- that ALL water, including mashing-in water, MUST be degassed. The only wiggle room offered is that in mashing-in water a maximum of 0.1 ppm oxygen may, in the worst case, be tolerated as the upper limit, whereas the absolute limit is 0.01 ppm on the cold side.

Could you please stop with this nonsense? There is no such thing as "SOP in all German commercial breweries". All that shiny equipment comes at a cost and German commercial breweries, like any other enterprise, have to be able to remain commercially viable. It doesn't matter what Kunze writes, if you go bankrupt you'll have to cease operations like many breweries have already done since the end of WWII. If you actually visited some of the older German breweries you'd be surprised at how basic their processes and equipment actually are.

BTW you mention degassed water on the cold side. Are you aware that in Germany it is forbidden to dilute beer after yeast has been pitched? You can only dilute wort before pitching yeast and you're certainly not going to use expensive degassed water to do that considering that you're about to actively oxygenate the resulting, diluted wort before pitching yeast.

 

[Vale71]

Btw I wasn't aware Weihenstephan had 2 production sites. Where is the second one located?

It's not really two sites. They have a commercial operation ever since the State of Bavaria took over the historic brewery and then they have the research operation as they are a University after all.

Even the commercial operation could be considered a "teaching brewery" as in Weihenstephan you need to have two years of practical experience following a specific curriculum (a "Praktikum") in order to be able to graduate. Having your own brewery comes in handy in that respect too.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

Are you sure about your translation? That antioxidant is your beer flavor.

I'm happy to let you translate it then:

"also ich kenne keine Brauerei die ihr Wasser für das Sudhaus entgast – wir machen das auch nicht und hatte auch noch keine Anfrage dazu. Das einzige entgaste Wasser kommt im Bierbereich (Filtration, Abfüllung) vor. Das antioxidative Potential des Malzes ist schon relativ groß, so dass es wirklich nicht das Problem ist. Es gilt zu vermeiden das sich zum Beispiel eine Trombe bildet, wodurch ständig Luft zugeführt wird.

Das „Extremste“ was ich so kenne ist Inertgas und es besteht die Möglichkeit noch Mittel zuzugeben, die antioxidativ wirken. "

For me also the part on the malt is quite clear.
Obviously this flies in the face of your convictions, so I can understand that you find it difficult to believe this.

 

[Nate R]

... Yup, that's about it for me on the LODO thread.
I tried.
I figured- hey, why not check it out? I like to read and learn stuff, especially about beer!!!
I'd heard the LODO section got a little rough at times... i figured, hey- why not? Maybe you might learn a tip that could help?
That old skool german brewing house video was awesome! Thanks for sharing @Bilsch !
I love reading about peoples opinions and first hand accounts of tours of German breweries. I didnt even know thinks like commercial oxygen scrubbers existed! Wow!!

But man oh man... what is up with the shade bein thrown?!?!
I guess my big boy pants just aren't big enough here.

I know this is off topic and probably innappropriate. I just don't get it.
Again- thats my fault only. Need my big boy pants i guess.

Maybe i'll wander back over again someday...
Cheers all.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

It's not really two sites. They have a commercial operation ever since the State of Bavaria took over the historic brewery and then they have the research operation as they are a University after all.

Alright, thanks for clarifying. I just wondered whether I missed something and they opened a new commercial operation during those last 6 years since I left Freising.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

Well gents, I'm going to have to put my studies on hold for a while. I have a house, a wood shop to pack and move, along with my sawmill and skidsteer, turkeys, chickens, dogs and the wife.

But man oh man... what is up with the shade bein thrown?!?!
I guess my big boy pants just aren't big enough here.

I know this is off topic and probably innappropriate. I just don't get it.
Again- thats my fault only. Need my big boy pants i guess.

Guys, I'm sorry if this thread has taken on a direction you don't like, I can understand that.
As stated before and as far as I am concerned, it is really not my goal to debate against LODO at the homebrewing level here... I did not try it myself so I have really no experience with it. I might even give it a shot someday, but for now my brewing time is really limited.

What I found doubtful are some of the claims put forth here, that German commercial breweries are doing this or that as absolute truths and common knowledge.
Well it seems those claims are at least not completely correct. Or I made this all up myself. Or the guy at Weihenstephan is outright lying to protect their industrial secrets, whatever.
I think I am now out as well here.

 

[madscientist451]

I'm bound and determined to learn how to brew a decent Traditional Bock. I've attempted a traditional Bock several times with various levels of success. All drinkable, but not close to authentic and what I've drank while visiting Germany.

Maybe I missed it, but did the OP ever say specifically witch "authentic" beers he was referring to?
Does authentic=industrial macro beer?

 

[Big Monk]

Maybe I missed it, but did the OP ever say specifically witch "authentic" beers he was referring to?
Does authentic=industrial macro beer?

It’s what most, but not all, people are referring to. It’s like when people say Belgian they either mean Trappist or Saison, even though there is a whole country worth of other beer there.

 

[Big Monk]

Could you please stop with this nonsense? There is no such thing as "SOP in all German commercial breweries".

Typically we are talking about the large scale German brewers here: W, Ayinger, Augustiner, Andechs, Hofbrau, Paulaner, Bitburger, etc. In these breweries, there is an SOP that includes the type of stuff Kunze and Narziss, etc. have talked about for years.

BTW you mention degassed water on the cold side. Are you aware that in Germany it is forbidden to dilute beer after yeast has been pitched? You can only dilute wort before pitching yeast and you're certainly not going to use expensive degassed water to do that considering that you're about to actively oxygenate the resulting, diluted wort before pitching yeast.

I don't think Rob was talking about dilution but rather stressing the point that all hot side liquor is de-gassed.

Just so people don't think i'm hardheaded, I don't even brew German lagers. I consume them and appreciate them for sure, but my real thing is Trappist ale. The low oxygen flavor is something I've factored into not only my tribute type beers but also my originals with fantastic results.

 

[Big Monk]

If history is any indicator of how these threads go, how the moderators tackle such threads, and how each other's patience are worth thin due to them, this might be the spot for everyone to walk away.

We've reached an impasse whereby we can't have a rational discourse about this anymore. On one hand we have a first hand account from Die_Beerery in which he virtually toured the production brewhouse of W with a brewmaster from W. On the other hand we have Taket_al_Tauro who contacted faculty at TUM and recieved some contrary information, presumably about the research brewery.

This is enough to firmly position those on opposite sides of the debate/discussion (I still consider this a debate discussion) solidly into their positions. This thread can go nowhere from here but down. To argue against either position at this point would be to dabble in conspiracy theory, ad hominems, etc.

We should keep trying to have rational, reasoned debate on this, but this thread is not the one to do it in. The OP has bowed out, we are off topic as it is, and there is almost no way to redeem it without all looking bad.

 

[Vale71]

Typically we are talking about the large scale German brewers here: W, Ayinger, Augustiner, Andechs, Hofbrau, Paulaner, Bitburger, etc. In these breweries, there is an SOP that includes the type of stuff Kunze and Narziss, etc. have talked about for years.

When someone writes about "all German commercial breweries" then I have to assume that is what they actually mean. Your trying to then narrow it down after the claim has been challenged repeatedly looks to me like an attempt to furiously backpedal and certainly does not increase the credibility of your side of the discussion. Anyway even if you narrow it down to the names you've mentioned your claim is still untrue because there is no such an SOP in Germany.

 

[Big Monk]

When someone writes about "all German commercial breweries" then I have to assume that is what they actually mean. Your trying to then narrow it down after the claim has been challenged repeatedly looks to me like an attempt to furiously backpedal and certainly does not increase the credibility of your side of the discussion. Anyway even if you narrow it down to the names you've mentioned your claim is still untrue because there is no such an SOP in Germany.

Read Post #108. This thread is a dead end.

I respectfully disagree with you on the points above and many other things of which i'm sure we'll meet again on. I also think that under circumstances where contention is not already built into the dialogue, we'd agree on a great many things.

 

[Lupulus]

I just got a more clear reply following my insisting second inquiry : They are not aware of any brewery degassing their water for the brewhouse. Degassed water is being used but only in the cold side (filtration, filling). Further: The antioxidant power of malt is already high enough, so that this really isn't a problem. You need to make sure that no vortex is being built, that would continuously introduce O2 into the mash. The most extreme measures he is aware of are the use of intert gases to cap the mash and the use of antioxidants (it is safe to assume that Weihenstephan and most other traditional bavarian breweries are not using those...for sure not antioxidants as that would go against the Reinheitsgebot).
Sorry for this somehow sloppy direct translation from German.

Now this guy is the technical director of the research brewery at TUM in Weihenstephan. They are directly associated to the Weihenstephan brewery... if this guy does not know what they are doing, then who does?

Hello there
I am afraid this brewer did not understand your question or is pulling your leg or is not really at Weihenstephan

Professor Narziss (TUM-Weihenstephan) (yes, the foremost authority in the beer world) and Werner Back state in Die Bierbrauerei 1.3.8.14
Water degassing
For brewing water, for mashing or sparging, degassing of the water is necessary.

ORIGINAL
Die Entgasung/Entlüftung des Wassers
Für das Brauwasser, sei es zum Maischen oder zum Auslaugen der Treber, wird in Hinblick auf eine sauerstofffreie Würzebereitung eine Entgasung des Wassers erforderlich.

The same information is of course in Künze or in the new Werner Back book.

Prosit!

 

[Lupulus]

When someone writes about "all German commercial breweries" then I have to assume that is what they actually mean. Your trying to then narrow it down after the claim has been challenged repeatedly looks to me like an attempt to furiously backpedal and certainly does not increase the credibility of your side of the discussion. Anyway even if you narrow it down to the names you've mentioned your claim is still untrue because there is no such an SOP in Germany.

If your argument is that the two major brewing textbooks in the brewing world, Narziss and Kunze, which as you know are German, are not truly SOPs, then I think you won the argument.
For this discussion, state-of-the-art knowledge and SOP seem to have the same meaning; but your disagreement is noted.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

Hello there
I am afraid this brewer did not understand your question or is pulling your leg or is not really at Weihenstephan

Hello,
Look, what else can I do... If anyone is interested please PM me, send me your e-mail address and I'll be happy to forward you the e-mail exchange I had with him. Then you are free to contact him.
And yes, this person is in charge of the research brewery, but I would assume that a person in this position must know the inner workings of more than a few commercial bavarian breweries fairly well (Weihenstephan first and foremost of course).
Of course he may be pulling my leg, who knows...although I'd be surprised...maybe I'm just ingenuous?

 

[passedpawn]

Is "degassing" as easy as just boiling the water? If so, I might give it a try next pilsner. Seems easy enough, really. Regarding capping the mash with CO2 etc, yea not going that far

 

[Vale71]

You guys keep giving The Book precedence over actual physical reality. Kind of reminds me of another book and other groups of clearly similarly minded people... Where in the book does it say that Narziß himself is going to be paying for the associated (considerable) costs? 'cause a brewery is a business and like in any other business the bottom line is what really matters.

BTW is the English translation your own or is it from the official English edition? I ask because the translation for "in Hinblick auf eine sauerstofffreie Würzebereitung" is strangely missing completely. A fact that, curiously enough, makes the statement take on an absolute value which it does not have in the original text. The missing part translates to "in order to achieve an oxygen-free wort processing". So what Narziß is really saying is "If and only if you require an oxygen-free processing then the use of degassed water is absolutely necessary both for mashing as well as for sparging". The statement points to the fact that untreated water inevitably contains large amounts of oxygen, so that the use of untreated water would render any other measure such as the use of a Vormaischer or the flooding of all vessels and pipes with inert gas rather pointless. To paraphrase, it would be akin to setting up a new burglar alarm when burglars have already emptied the house of all valuables.

Besides all that, your claim that anything you read in Kunze MUST be fully implemented in ANY German brewery is utterly ridiculous. That's a University level text, covering the subject as broadly as possible since it is supposed to support an equally broad education. In Kunze you'll even find practices that are strictly "verboten" in Germany like the use of unmalted adjuncts or forced carbonation and much more. Would you like to claim that German breweries are implementing those illegal (at least for them) practices because The Book says so or would you rather just choose at will the parts that only suit your agenda and support your unrealistic claims? Shall I go on?

 

[Die_Beerery]

Is "degassing" as easy as just boiling the water? If so, I might give it a try next pilsner. Seems easy enough, really. Regarding capping the mash with CO2 etc, yea not going that far

http://www.********************/brewing-methods/deoxygenation-revisited/
However, unless you cold side is flawless, don't bother worrying about the hot.

 

[Vale71]

Of course he may be pulling my leg, who knows...although I'd be surprised...maybe I'm just ingenuous?

Or maybe another someone will not concede defeat no matter how strong the evidence against his position might be?

So on one side we have someone who was trained professionally in Munich (no, not at W) and another someone who was trained at W and currently works there, both of whom have no clear agenda to defend, saying that what the other party is claiming is untrue.
On the other side we have that other party (with a by now more than obvious agenda) strenuously defending his claim against all contrary evidence and conveniently supporting it with a (presumably unsactioned) night visit where he claims that supporting information was whispered to him personally (which fact somehow turned said information into "common knowledge"??).

I think anybody can draw their own conclusions as there are more than enough facts to base said conclusion on...

 

[Vale71]

If your argument is that the two major brewing textbooks in the brewing world, Narziss and Kunze, which as you know are German, are not truly SOPs, then I think you won the argument.
For this discussion, state-of-the-art knowledge and SOP seem to have the same meaning; but your disagreement is noted.

Not trying to be argumentative here but yout last post really makes no sense to me??

 

[Vale71]

Is "degassing" as easy as just boiling the water? If so, I might give it a try next pilsner. Seems easy enough, really. Regarding capping the mash with CO2 etc, yea not going that far

Unfortunately it isn't. Once the water cools down (it has to if you're going to be using it for sparging or cold-side dilution) it will start absorbing O2 from the atmosphere. To avoid that you need to provide for an O2-free environment for the water to cool in. I think it's doable at the homebrew level using kegs and CO2 but it's still a bit more work than just boiling. It's also energy intensive but that's more of a concern for industrial operation and one of the reasons while they use technologies that allow the water to be degassed cold.

 

[Jeff...]

Unfortunately it isn't. Once the water cools down (it has to if you're going to be using it for sparging or cold-side dilution) it will start absorbing O2 from the atmosphere. To avoid that you need to provide for an O2-free environment for the water to cool in. I think it's doable at the homebrew level using kegs and CO2 but it's still a bit more work than just boiling. It's also energy intensive but that's more of a concern for industrial operation and one of the reasons while they use technologies that allow the water to be degassed cold.

I like the technique of turning mash / sparge water liquor by employing yeast and fermentables, essentially creating LODO water. When I get back to the point of brewing again, this is what I'm going to try.