Vitamin C - The Game Changer?

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seatazzz said:
Does anyone have any formula for how much AA to add to, say, a 12oz bottle filled from the keg? Just ordered mine the other day and I've got a competition coming up, sending an IPA and a Pale that I want to stay fresh and hoppy.
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A recommendation I have seen is 3g per 5 gallons. That would equate to 0.06g per bottle (5 gal = 640 oz = 53.3 bottles, 3g / 53.3 = 0.56g) . While I have a scale that claims to measure to 0.01g precision, it needs about 0.1g before it moves from 0.0g. You might be able to mix up a solution, say 0.6g to 10mg 10mL water, and add 1mg 1mL of solution to the bottle. I would hope the AA addition would do more good than the little bit of water would do harm.

If you don't have a precision scale...then I would go with the "a pinch" recommendation...or maybe 1.42 smidgens. ;)
 
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CascadesBrewer said:
A recommendation I have seen is 3g per 5 gallons. That would equate to 0.06g per bottle (5 gal = 640 oz = 53.3 bottles, 3g / 53.3 = 0.56g) . While I have a scale that claims to measure to 0.01g precision, it needs about 0.1g before it moves from 0.0g. You might be able to mix up a solution, say 0.6g to 10mg water, and add 1mg of solution to the bottle. I would hope the AA addition would do more good than the little bit of water would do harm.

If you don't have a precision scale...then I would go with the "a pinch" recommendation...or maybe 1.42 smidgens. ;)
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I don't have a precision scale, so I think I'll go with the pinch...BTW, how many smidgens in a tad?
 
@CascadesBrewer

Good luck dissolving 0.6g of AA in 10mg of water! and then adding 1/610 of that mixture to a bottle.

I think just waving the opened jar of AA near the bottle should dose you right.

Can't stop chuckling thinking of how you'd do that.
 
DuncB said:
@CascadesBrewer

Good luck dissolving 0.6g of AA in 10mg of water! and then adding 1/610 of that mixture to a bottle.

I think just waving the opened jar of AA near the bottle should dose you right.

Can't stop chuckling thinking of how you'd do that.
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Probably thinking grams of water? 10mg of water =~10µL (depends on temp, but close enough for our estimations), which requires laboratory pipettes to measure.

You could do easily do 6g to 100mL water (or 0.6g to 10mL water), then add 1 mL with a dosing syringe.
 
Miraculix said:
Yes, this is basically where it all started, and to my knowledge, why AA has been kind of ditched by the lodo folks, because of gut feelings without much proof behind it. Don't get me wrong, I am not claiming to have the answer to the question of the degration over time at mashing and/or boiling temperatures, but my gut feeling tells me, that at least a part of the AA survives these steps while already providing protection during these steps. So whos guts are right? We don't know, that is why gut feelings do not bring us an inch further here I'm afraid.
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This where people have to step up and do some side by side brews and see for themselves. Then share the information with everybody knowing it is subjective but data nonetheless. You will not get numbers or anything traceable. Just flavor and aroma differences. This is and has been a very tough subject to talk about. Until you try and experience for yourself, it is easy shun other ways. Grain is cheap. Brew two, three or four batches of the same beer knowing you will dump most of it. Who cares? At least you will discover what makes a difference and what does not for your time and enjoyment.

Discussing it (oxidation) over and over with some throwing arrows is not very productive in comparison to discussion actual experiments and experience. I think your thread has stalled until folks get brewing!
 
About 30 years ago the old man who showed me how to homebrew put ascorbic acid in his sparge water. he told me it was to lower the PH. This was to keep the grain husk from buggering the beer. I never was sure what that was, but all I know was I didn't want buggers in my beer! I now think he was talking about tannins.
 
KyBeer said:
About 30 years ago the old man who showed me how to homebrew put ascorbic acid in his sparge water. he told me it was to lower the PH. This was to keep the grain husk from buggering the beer. I never was sure what that was, but all I know was I didn't want buggers in my beer! I now think he was talking about tannins.
Click to expand...
I had a buggered beer once... Never again.
 
I bottle directly from the fermenter and add sugar solution direct to bottle to lessen introduce of oxygen.
Using a syringe is PITA, so I built an auto dosing machine that can dose programmed amount of liquid, which is usually sugar solution.
Dissolving AA in the sugar solution is a simple solution, although I just upgraded my dosing machine to be able to dose two type different solutions at the same time. It would be easy to compare the effect of AA by just dosing some of the bottles.
AA is on the way to my home, although hoppy beer is like 2 months later in my schedule.
Let's keep this thread alive and share the result.
 
cmac62 said:
All I know is AA appears to work in reducing oxidation of hops. A little in the mash, a little in the boil and a little more when kegging/bottling seems to keep the hop flavor and aroma around longer. I currently have a keg of IPA that has been pouring for 2 months and the hops are still popping. I know this was not the case prior to using AA and some other stuff. :mug:
Click to expand...

What’s a “little”? Like to give this a try.
 
When are you adding the AA? What is the O.G. of your wort when you package the wort? I've only used AA in the 2nd sparge to lower the PH to prevent tannin extraction.
 
KyBeer said:
About 30 years ago the old man who showed me how to homebrew put ascorbic acid in his sparge water. he told me it was to lower the PH. This was to keep the grain husk from buggering the beer. I never was sure what that was, but all I know was I didn't want buggers in my beer! I now think he was talking about tannins.
Click to expand...
What was the dosage used when adding only to the sparge?
 
4 mg per 5 gallons or there abouts. We would add to get the PH to between 5.2 and 5.1 but not below 4.8. I don't think it matters much. when I've forgot to add it the beer taste good still.
 
Miraculix said:
Yeah.... Does not really make sense if you ask me.
Click to expand...

Well, it does make a bit of sense. Apologies if this sounds patronizing, but I'm trying to put it in the most accessible terms I can. Science stuff follows, so skip if you don't care.

A molecule is "oxidized" when it gives up an electron. In turn, something is "reduced" when it grabs that electron that is given up. We call these redox reactions. In brewing, the side of this equation that involves grabbing the electrons (i.e the oxidizer that becomes reduced) and that people tend to concern themselves with often involves oxygen (though it isn't strictly so). For lack of a better way of putting it, we can combat the oxidizer by adding in a decoy reducer that really wants to be oxidized (i.e. the decoy really wants to give up its electron(s)). Ascorbic acid and Na/K metabisulfate are examples of this kind of decoy. These can pump electrons into the redox cascades nullifying the oxidizer and thereby protecting the compounds that we don't want to be oxidized. The difference is in the case of Na/K metabisulfite as a decoy its oxidation substantially and irreversibly changes its structure, so it can no longer participate in any meaningful reactions. Ascorbic acid, however, is oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid, which compared to its parent molecule only lacks some electrons (and accompanying protons). Dehydroascorbic acid can act as an oxidizer, accepting electrons from easily oxidized compounds and thus being converted back to ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid are what is called a redox pair.

Here is this is the thing I question about the "super oxidizer" issue. In redox pairs, when something is a good reducer, which ascorbic acid is, the other part of the pair is a sucky oxidizer i.e. dehydroascorbic acid (one can even look up the redox potentials here, but that is getting a bit over the top...). The only way you could end up with a "super oxidizer" issue is if you added a crap ton of ascorbic acid then horrifically oxidized the whole thing so that all of the ascorbic acid was converted to dehydroascorbic acid. You would then have crap ton of a lousy oxidizer in there, which could in theory cause problems. The only time I could realistically see this being an issue is if a ton of ascorbic acid was used on the hot side, it survived the mash/boil, the wort was heavily aerated with pure O2, and the yeast was super slow starting and didn't rapidly consume the O2.
 
tracer bullet said:
I found this old thread interesting, it's a very short read. Not sure if it helps here or if more has been learned since. AJ Delange discussed it and typically I consider him a trustworthy source.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/ascorbic-acid-super-oxidizer.655210/
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IMHO...

It's referring to the Fenton (and Fenton-like) reactions when metal (iron, copper, nickel, etc...) ions are present.

It seems that if those metal ions are not bound and dropped from solution using tannic acids the AA will oxide the metal ions (metal reacting with an acid) in a reduction-oxidation or redox reaction. The metal ion which oxides in the presence of AA will then donate electrons back to the AA giving the AA the potential to start another redox reaction thus creating a "super oxidizer".

If there are negligible or no metal ions in the water, barley malt and yeast then the oxidization/reduction cycle does not occur.

This is the basis around products like Antioxin SBT which contain gallotannins, metabisulfites and ascorbic acid. The tannins bind and drop the metal ions, so they don't interfere with the AA, while the sulfiltes and AA hang around seeking to react with free oxygen molecules before that oxygen can bind with and oxidize desirable wort compounds.

Much of this is also driven by the presence of lipoxygenases in malt. The lipoxygenases are catalysts which form oxides in the presence of the fatty acids in the malt. Thus drove the "invention of" LOX-less barley malt, etc... It also is one of the main reasons to reduce the amounts of trub and teig in the wort (to lower the fatty acid content).
 
As a microbiologist turned biochemist I have found this thread really interesting. It has made me go off and learn more about these redox reactions than I thought I ever would. I did indeed find literature evidence that ascorbic acid can initiate Fenton reactions that result in the formation of highly reactive oxygen species. As far as I can tell, however, ascorbic acid is the initial reductant that is converted to dehydroascorbic acid. It is not converted back to ascorbic acid, so it is not a perpetual cycle of super oxidant formation - it does have an end point, which is likely limited by the amount of ascorbic acid and free metal ions available. An important point is that I also found papers reporting that the same Fenton reactions also seem to be initiated by metabisulfite. How important are these reactions relative to more typical (and likely prevalent) oxygen mediated oxidations in home brewing? I don't know, but it does explains the motivation to use metal chelators like Brewtan B in combo with anti-oxidants.

As aside, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I am not sure the LOX-less barley was designed directly in relation to general unwanted redox reactions. My understanding was that lipoxygenases use O2 as a substrate in a reaction that modifies unsaturated fatty acids (yes, it would be an oxidation, but an ultra specific one). The modified products are what degrade into trans-2-nonenols, which are kinda gross. So its not directly an unwanted oxidation issue - its a very specific one - though an O2 scavenger would prevent this from happening.
 
hopjuice_71 said:
Well, it does make a bit of sense. Apologies if this sounds patronizing, but I'm trying to put it in the most accessible terms I can. Science stuff follows, so skip if you don't care.

A molecule is "oxidized" when it gives up an electron. In turn, something is "reduced" when it grabs that electron that is given up. We call these redox reactions. In brewing, the side of this equation that involves grabbing the electrons (i.e the oxidizer that becomes reduced) and that people tend to concern themselves with often involves oxygen (though it isn't strictly so). For lack of a better way of putting it, we can combat the oxidizer by adding in a decoy reducer that really wants to be oxidized (i.e. the decoy really wants to give up its electron(s)). Ascorbic acid and Na/K metabisulfate are examples of this kind of decoy. These can pump electrons into the redox cascades nullifying the oxidizer and thereby protecting the compounds that we don't want to be oxidized. The difference is in the case of Na/K metabisulfite as a decoy its oxidation substantially and irreversibly changes its structure, so it can no longer participate in any meaningful reactions. Ascorbic acid, however, is oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid, which compared to its parent molecule only lacks some electrons (and accompanying protons). Dehydroascorbic acid can act as an oxidizer, accepting electrons from easily oxidized compounds and thus being converted back to ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid are what is called a redox pair.

Here is this is the thing I question about the "super oxidizer" issue. In redox pairs, when something is a good reducer, which ascorbic acid is, the other part of the pair is a sucky oxidizer i.e. dehydroascorbic acid (one can even look up the redox potentials here, but that is getting a bit over the top...). The only way you could end up with a "super oxidizer" issue is if you added a crap ton of ascorbic acid then horrifically oxidized the whole thing so that all of the ascorbic acid was converted to dehydroascorbic acid. You would then have crap ton of a lousy oxidizer in there, which could in theory cause problems. The only time I could realistically see this being an issue is if a ton of ascorbic acid was used on the hot side, it survived the mash/boil, the wort was heavily aerated with pure O2, and the yeast was super slow starting and didn't rapidly consume the O2.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t make sense for home brewers to claim AA (DHA) acts as an oxidant, let alone a super one, when, as you point out yourself, it does so very poorly. If others wish to conjure up ideal conditions for it to occur in malted barley worts they first need to demonstrate said conditions actually exist in malted barley worts.
 
hopjuice_71 said:
As a microbiologist turned biochemist I have found this thread really interesting. It has made me go off and learn more about these redox reactions than I thought I ever would. I did indeed find literature evidence that ascorbic acid can initiate Fenton reactions that result in the formation of highly reactive oxygen species. As far as I can tell, however, ascorbic acid is the initial reductant that is converted to dehydroascorbic acid. It is not converted back to ascorbic acid, so it is not a perpetual cycle of super oxidant formation - it does have an end point, which is likely limited by the amount of ascorbic acid and free metal ions available. An important point is that I also found papers reporting that the same Fenton reactions also seem to be initiated by metabisulfite. How important are these reactions relative to more typical (and likely prevalent) oxygen mediated oxidations in home brewing? I don't know, but it does explains the motivation to use metal chelators like Brewtan B in combo with anti-oxidants.

As aside, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I am not sure the LOX-less barley was designed directly in relation to general unwanted redox reactions. My understanding was that lipoxygenases use O2 as a substrate in a reaction that modifies unsaturated fatty acids (yes, it would be an oxidation, but an ultra specific one). The modified products are what degrade into trans-2-nonenols, which are kinda gross. So its not directly an unwanted oxidation issue - its a very specific one - though an O2 scavenger would prevent this from happening.
Click to expand...
It is a bit weird to focus on lipoxygenases when life is generally a bag of redox reactions. They have a product to market and sell, I guess.
 
hopjuice_71 said:
Well, it does make a bit of sense. Apologies if this sounds patronizing, but I'm trying to put it in the most accessible terms I can. Science stuff follows, so skip if you don't care.

A molecule is "oxidized" when it gives up an electron. In turn, something is "reduced" when it grabs that electron that is given up. We call these redox reactions. In brewing, the side of this equation that involves grabbing the electrons (i.e the oxidizer that becomes reduced) and that people tend to concern themselves with often involves oxygen (though it isn't strictly so). For lack of a better way of putting it, we can combat the oxidizer by adding in a decoy reducer that really wants to be oxidized (i.e. the decoy really wants to give up its electron(s)). Ascorbic acid and Na/K metabisulfate are examples of this kind of decoy. These can pump electrons into the redox cascades nullifying the oxidizer and thereby protecting the compounds that we don't want to be oxidized. The difference is in the case of Na/K metabisulfite as a decoy its oxidation substantially and irreversibly changes its structure, so it can no longer participate in any meaningful reactions. Ascorbic acid, however, is oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid, which compared to its parent molecule only lacks some electrons (and accompanying protons). Dehydroascorbic acid can act as an oxidizer, accepting electrons from easily oxidized compounds and thus being converted back to ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid are what is called a redox pair.

Here is this is the thing I question about the "super oxidizer" issue. In redox pairs, when something is a good reducer, which ascorbic acid is, the other part of the pair is a sucky oxidizer i.e. dehydroascorbic acid (one can even look up the redox potentials here, but that is getting a bit over the top...). The only way you could end up with a "super oxidizer" issue is if you added a crap ton of ascorbic acid then horrifically oxidized the whole thing so that all of the ascorbic acid was converted to dehydroascorbic acid. You would then have crap ton of a lousy oxidizer in there, which could in theory cause problems. The only time I could realistically see this being an issue is if a ton of ascorbic acid was used on the hot side, it survived the mash/boil, the wort was heavily aerated with pure O2, and the yeast was super slow starting and didn't rapidly consume the O2.
Click to expand...
Even in this context, it doesn't make sense. First the ascorbic acid gets oxidised. Then it can oxidize itself some other molecules. However, these molecules must be even more easily oxidised then ascorbic acid for this to happen. But these molecules that are even more easily oxidised then the sacrificial substance itself, in this case ascorbic acid, are long gone as these are oxidised first, prior to the ascorbic acid being oxidised.
 
Miraculix said:
Even in this context, it doesn't make sense. First the ascorbic acid gets oxidised. Then it can oxidize itself some other molecules. However, these molecules must be even more easily oxidised then ascorbic acid for this to happen. But these molecules that are even more easily oxidised then the sacrificial substance itself, in this case ascorbic acid, are long gone as these are oxidised first, prior to the ascorbic acid being oxidised.
Click to expand...

Yes, you are exactly right, though there is the consideration of amounts/concnetrations of the species and the equilibria that are formed. Anyways, I guess out of all my blithering we agree and I was just trying to make the point that a ton of dehydroascorbic acid could act as an oxidizer, but I really don't see this as likely in a practical sense. The Fenton reaction makes more sense, and it would theoretically be relevant in the sense that the reactions could linger long after any O2 is removed by boiling or by yeast, but I really have no idea how prevalent it might be. To me its just interesting theory - I have no experience with the relevance of these reactions to brewing, or anything else for that matter.
 
If one had a metal ion rich water this could be tested. I know there are iron bacteria that combine iron or manganese and oxygen to form rust. This condition occurs in lots of wells. Since water conditioning is so prevalent maybe it goes unnoticed. It was prevalent on the farm I grew up on and would clog pipes and turn sinks and showers rust color. Water didn't taste too bad though... o_O

Edit - Manganese apparently behaves differently than Iron, Copper and Nickel in Fenton reactions

Manganese complexes and the generation and scavenging of hydroxyl free radicals - ScienceDirect
 
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hopjuice_71 said:
Yes, you are exactly right, though there is the consideration of amounts/concnetrations of the species and the equilibria that are formed. Anyways, I guess out of all my blithering we agree and I was just trying to make the point that a ton of dehydroascorbic acid could act as an oxidizer, but I really don't see this as likely in a practical sense. The Fenton reaction makes more sense, and it would theoretically be relevant in the sense that the reactions could linger long after any O2 is removed by boiling or by yeast, but I really have no idea how prevalent it might be. To me its just interesting theory - I have no experience with the relevance of these reactions to brewing, or anything else for that matter.
Click to expand...
Yes, I completely agree.
 
seatazzz said:
I don't have a precision scale, so I think I'll go with the pinch...BTW, how many smidgens in a tad?
Click to expand...

Approximately 5.
20220206_094759.jpg
 
Just one for the record, just bottled an American lager, 30% corn, rest pilsner, 15 ibus, 3470 and Imperial harvest in the mix (Imperial was old, wouldn't kick off), no late additions, bittering only. Nowhere to hide for off flavours (that was my intend), tasted really good already out of the fermenter. Has about 4% abv. No Off flavour, No Almond, nothing bad at all. Pretty refreshing already, tbh. 3.5g AA per 20l again, pre mash.

Fermented at 15c.
 
pocketmon said:
I bottle directly from the fermenter and add sugar solution direct to bottle to lessen introduce of oxygen.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that does ultimately lessen the introduction of oxygen. What I observe when transferring to a bottling bucket is if I look at the fermenter wrong, a cloud of yeast results.
So you're just being really careful not to disturb the cake when you bottle? I know yeasts are different and some pack well and some don't--I've used a lot of different ones but they all seem to want to "jump up."
The only reason I don't move to that method is that I like the speed of adding the sugar to the beer prior (keeps the bottling day down to about six Ben Folds' songs). Not all of us can make a machine for dosing. Very impressive.
There are more than a few brewers I've come across that still add the priming sugar solution to the fermenting vessel and then bottle. How that doesn't churn up stuff, I don't get it. I'm gracious about it, it's all good.
I guess, when it's all said and done, I'm not that worried about oxygenation.
Cheers.
PS I realize that was a very long post. You should see me go when I've had two beers!
PSS. I just noticed that your Avatar isn't Pokemon!!!
 
MaxStout said:
Might need a set of those. But it's missing the skosh spoon. I like the long handles, look to be at least 1/4 cubit in length.
Click to expand...
A cubit is the length to elbow crease of an ancient desert dweller. But how much is a might (mite)?
Is it even volume, or perhaps distance/a unit of time- or used for both, like the modern parsec?
I feel like it is probably the liquid measurement of a leisurely flask pour.
 

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