Are People Still Using the Baker's Yeast Method?

[Bassman2003]

Hello,

I am researching LODO and am trying to find a way to not have to pre-boil 10 gallons of water. My brew days are long enough without needing to wait for more stuff to come up to temperature!

I have read about people dosing with baker's yeast and dextrose but that was a year or two ago. Is this method considered out dated or is it viable?

Thanks.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Lodo is superstition. Brew your beer the normal way as it has been done for thousands of years. Dont fall for the scientology lodo nonsense. If you feel compelled to evacuate any oxygen from your brew water, why not evacuate it from your grain? How can you do that? Or better yet, why don't you grow and malt and then crush your grain in a vacuum? It's pointless.

 

[GoeHaarden]

Hello,

I am researching LODO and am trying to find a way to not have to pre-boil 10 gallons of water. My brew days are long enough without needing to wait for more stuff to come up to temperature!

I have read about people dosing with baker's yeast and dextrose but that was a year or two ago. Is this method considered out dated or is it viable?

Thanks.

I've read it too, and I was also curious. I also read that in order to get the lowest dissolved O2 with this method you have to wait an hour (maybe I'm mistaken!?). Which is longer than heating to boil and cooling for me, so I never tried it. Curious to see who has done it and what the effects are...

 

[GoeHaarden]

Lodo is superstition. Brew your beer the normal way as it has been done for thousands of years. Dont fall for the scientology lodo nonsense. If you feel compelled to evacuate any oxygen from your brew water, why not evacuate it from your grain? How can you do that? Or better yet, why don't you grow and malt and then crush your grain in a vacuum? It's pointless.

Can I just ask what the purpose of this post was? Not constructive to the question at hand...some comments are best left unsaid!

 

[mongoose33]

Lodo is superstition. Brew your beer the normal way as it has been done for thousands of years. Dont fall for the scientology lodo nonsense. If you feel compelled to evacuate any oxygen from your brew water, why not evacuate it from your grain? How can you do that? Or better yet, why don't you grow and malt and then crush your grain in a vacuum? It's pointless.

I am not a member of a cult.

 

[Iseneye]

Nice post Jay. Hope you felt better after that.

I use yeast scavenging and there are a few guys on the low oxygen forum who use it as well. People have done tests with DO meters showing it works. I kept on missing strike temp using heat and cool and didn't like the extra water and propane used so changed to yeast method.

 

[mongoose33]

Nice post Jay. Hope you felt better after that.

I use yeast scavenging and there are a few guys on the low oxygen forum who use it as well. People have done tests with DO meters showing it works. I kept on missing strike temp using heat and cool and didn't like the extra water and propane used so changed to yeast method.

Would you explain exactly how you do it?

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your replies except the first one

Science tells us that limiting O2 is beneficial to beer at all stages of the brew process outside of the beginning of fermentation. As a homebrewer, we are often limited by time and equipment. I have a HLT which has an electric heating element so I can not put an immersion chiller in it. My mash/boil kettle is on a 3500w induction burner, so bringing things up to boiling is not exactly the fastest thing ever.

For me to do LODO, I would need a way to have the water pre-treated in a bucket I could start my brew day with. The yeast scavenging approach seems to sort of fit this bill. I would appreciate details if you can on this method and how it works.

Thanks!

 

[Jayjay1976]

So use bakers yeast to deplete the brewing water of oxygen, then underlet said O2-free water into a bed of crushed grains and as it slowly displaces the atmospheric air as the level rises, your carefully de-oxygenated brew water immedately picks up oxygen again from the massive surface area of the grain and husks. IMO, this entire practice is like holding your breath as you drive across a bridge, thinking it will make you lighter and avoid the bridge collapsing.

Proof? Nobody so far has amassed a pile of awards for brewing exceptional beers with their lodo practices. If any of you have, feel free to post evidence below.

To the OP, don't bother wasting time trying to remove O2 from your brew water. Unless you need to make mineral or pH adjustments, dont worry about your water at all. Have a nice brew day.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your post. No problem if you think LODO is too difficult to achieve at the homebrew level. I agree. It seems like an impossible task. The only problem is, I am experiencing some oxidation in my beers when they are in the keg for a few months. I am looking into keg priming instead of force carbing which would be pretty easy to do. But am also exploring the hot side.

My proof is German beers. They taste different. I also notice the goodness fading in homebrew where LODO is supposed to keep the goodness around longer. So the flavor might be subjective, the time the beer tastes fresh is less subjective.

But, it is not right are argue in this forum when we come here to seek information.

 

[MrPowers]

I'm using the yeast deox method right now, doing 10 gallon batches as well. Doing no sparge it's much easier to consistently hit strike temps with the yeast method for me.

Currently, my process is:

Start with all strike water in boil kettle. Add dextrose and yeast at a rate of approx. 2g/gallon. Stir in to disperse.

Wait 1.5-2 hours, usually just enough time to measure out all salt/hop additions and weigh out grain.

As I'm milling the grain, I'll start heating the boil kettle to strike temp. Once I'm up to strike temp, I will dose the strike water with SMB/KMB, wait approx. 5 minutes, then underlet the full volume into the mash tun.

I haven't been brewing LoDo for too long, but I've had good results using this general method.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your input. I have a question:

If I made up this solution in 5 gallon buckets, how much damage would I do by either pouring it in the mash tun or gently transferring it to the mash tun? Basically, can I get away with handling the treated water this way or is it just counter productive?

Can this be made the night before as well?

Thanks!

 

[MrPowers]

Thanks for your input. I have a question:

If I made up this solution in 5 gallon buckets, how much damage would I do by either pouring it in the mash tun or gently transferring it to the mash tun? Basically, can I get away with handling the treated water this way or is it just counter productive?

Can this be made the night before as well?

Thanks!

I don't think I don't think you would be able to make it the night before or just dump it in without adding a significant amount of DO.

Check this thread out for some more information: http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=891

 

[Iseneye]

I don't think I don't think you would be able to make it the night before or just dump it in without adding a significant amount of DO.

Check this thread out for some more information: http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=891

Yeah HBT is notably anti-LODO as seen by Jay's comments. All of the good detailed information and actual helpful posters are over at low oxygen brewing forum.

 

[GoeHaarden]

Thanks for your input. I have a question:

If I made up this solution in 5 gallon buckets, how much damage would I do by either pouring it in the mash tun or gently transferring it to the mash tun? Basically, can I get away with handling the treated water this way or is it just counter productive?

Can this be made the night before as well?

Thanks!

The best way to transfer with the least amount of O2 pick up would be to underlet, and not dumping it in. Regardless how gentle, you would probably undo what you achieved initially.

As to making it the night before, I saw a graph (somewhere) on the yeast method where someone measured the DO in time intervals. Once the lowest DO is achieved it starts to increase back to baseline over time. Thus, I think somewhere around an hour is the sweet spot (if I'm remembering correctly), but I have no way of verifying this...

 

[Iseneye]

From the other forum:

“Started with 7.25 gal of water @ 35c with a mineral profile of: 58 Ca, 6.9 Mg, 10.2 Na, 54 SO4, 75 Cl, 36.1 HCO3

Initial DO reading 7 mg/l

Added 10 g dry bread yeast, (Lessafre) and 10 gm DME. (somewhat lower amounts then the initial testing said were optimal)

No bisulfites were added at anytime in this process to keep this experiment purely about the yeast.

24 min - DO 1.31 mg/l
40 min - DO 0.41 mg/l
1 hr - DO 0.27 mg/l
1 hr 40 min - 0.31mg/l

Increase water temp to 44c and transfer with underletting to the grain. Was 40/60 pils/wheat (+6.5% C125) grain bill. The idea here being to dough in at a temperature where yeast would still be active, let it do it's O thing.. then ramp up to beta and alpha.
DO at transfer was 0.29 mg/l”

So as stated above, 2 hrs should do it.

I find boiling then cooling unappealing because I have no way to control the cooling. The last time I tried it I boiled then cooled too much, had to heat back to strike, and ended up missing my infusion temp. I tend to have much more control heating vs cooling.

 

[Hopalong]

Really, LODO can be called a myth in the majority of the homebrew hobby because homebrew is usually pounded down in eight weeks or so and deterioration of the final product caused by oxidation isn't noticeable.
When the infusion brewing method is used, water at a high temperature is kinda slopped into the tun, and when malt is dumped in, the temperature during the rest is very close to the temperature at which mash holds the maximum amount of oxygen and hot side oxidation occurs during the one hour rest. It is connected with off flavors associated with homemade beer. Flavors caused by oxidation, sherry, cardboard, etc., are at the far end of the scale and since home made beer never lasts too long, the flavors don't have time to set in. It is a myth in infusion brewed, homemade beer, pounded down in eight to 10 weeks. That's one of the reasons why it is recommended to pound down homebrew in eight weeks or so.
Single infusion brewing usually skips the Beta rest. Beta is responsible for conversion when it converts simple sugar into complex sugar and when that happens the beer requires secondary fermentation which adds risk of oxidation. To reduce the risk of oxidation and to reduce the time it takes to make homebrew, the Beta rest is skipped in recipes. The complex sugar needed in ale and lager, maltose and maltotriose do not form which makes oxidation more of a myth in homebrew because ale and lager are made with complex sugar, not only from glucose, the primary sugar in malt released by Alpha during saccharification in the 150F range.
Since, ale and lager are made with maltose and maltotriose, secondary fermentation is required and a long aging cycle is needed to allow yeast to wipe out maltotriose, reducing the chance of oxidation is important. The finest ale and pils are aged for months and any risks associated with oxidation have to be reduced or the beer would oxidize.
Myth, no myth, depends on the brewers interpretation of ale and lager.

 

[MrPowers]

@Die_Beerery
Care to chime in here?

 

[Iseneye]

If you want experienced viewpoints and scientific discussion based on brewing literature go to the other forum. HBT specifically made this sub forum for LODO discussion and since most posters on HBT are anti-LODO no productive discussion can be made. Most of the anti-LODO people who say it doesn't do anything haven't had a LODO beer.

 

[mongoose33]

Really, LODO can be called a myth in the majority of the homebrew hobby because homebrew is usually pounded down in eight weeks or so and deterioration of the final product caused by oxidation isn't noticeable.
When the infusion brewing method is used, water at a high temperature is kinda slopped into the tun, and when malt is dumped in, the temperature during the rest is very close to the temperature at which mash holds the maximum amount of oxygen and hot side oxidation occurs during the one hour rest. It is connected with off flavors associated with homemade beer. Flavors caused by oxidation, sherry, cardboard, etc., are at the far end of the scale and since home made beer never lasts too long, the flavors don't have time to set in. It is a myth in infusion brewed, homemade beer, pounded down in eight to 10 weeks. That's one of the reasons why it is recommended to pound down homebrew in eight weeks or so.
Single infusion brewing usually skips the Beta rest. Beta is responsible for conversion when it converts simple sugar into complex sugar and when that happens the beer requires secondary fermentation which adds risk of oxidation. To reduce the risk of oxidation and to reduce the time it takes to make homebrew, the Beta rest is skipped in recipes. The complex sugar needed in ale and lager, maltose and maltotriose do not form which makes oxidation more of a myth in homebrew because ale and lager are made with complex sugar, not only from glucose, the primary sugar in malt released by Alpha during saccharification in the 150F range.
Since, ale and lager are made with maltose and maltotriose, secondary fermentation is required and a long aging cycle is needed to allow yeast to wipe out maltotriose, reducing the chance of oxidation is important. The finest ale and pils are aged for months and any risks associated with oxidation have to be reduced or the beer would oxidize.
Myth, no myth, depends on the brewers interpretation of ale and lager.

I'm afraid that this is not completely accurate. Much of what LODO does is enhance the malt flavors on the hot side; yes, control of oxygen after fermentation is important, but that's not what I'd refer to as "low oxygen BREWING." That's low oxygen on the cold side, which many/most? brewers have at least somewhat a handle on.

The point of LODO brewing on the hot side is to enhance malt flavors. If you have never done it, or had a beer done that way, then you have no reference against which to compare non-LODO beer.

I'm building an electric brewing setup right now in part so I can control the oxygen on the hot side even better than I do now. The result is very clear. Whether it's worth the effort is a different question.

I preboil my strike water; I'm setting up a system with a counterflow chiller that will allow me to drop that boiled water to strike temp and control it to within a degree or two. Further, I'm working on a RIMS system so I can recirculate wort and do so in an environment that is as low-oxygen as I can get it.

So--oxidation bad, and that certainly is part of what LODO brewing is concerned about. But it's a lot also on the hot side. The first time I tasted wort as it went into the boil kettle after doing LODO to produce it, I was shocked at how sweet and good and flavorful tasted. It's actually something people can test just by doing a small mini-mash with LODO techniques compared to one without. The difference is very noticeable.

I have a Czech Pils on tap right now. The flavor is more intense, deeper, and pils-like than any pilsner I've ever had, ever. Nothing is even in the ballpark. Whether you would like it, or feel it's worth the extra effort--that I can't say. All I can say is I'm redoing my entire brewing setup to accommodate LODO brewing.

 

[Bilsch]

[QUOTE="Bassman2003, post: 8376951, member: If I made up this solution in 5 gallon buckets, how much damage would I do by either pouring it in the mash tun or gently transferring it to the mash tun? Basically, can I get away with handling the treated water this way or is it just counter productive?
Can this be made the night before as well?
Thanks![/QUOTE]

It's my experience that you'd be ok treating it the night before. If you can underlet gently into the mashtun that's the way to go.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thank you for your replies. I will have to look at my setup and see if this is at all possible on the hot side. On the cold side, I plan on getting a spunding valve and naturally carbonating my kegs. So that should be an improvement towards storage oxidation.

As a side note, I tried to join the forum over at Low Oxygen Brewing but never received the e-mail to verify the account. Checked in spam as well.

 

[soccerdad]

Yeah HBT is notably anti-LODO as seen by Jay's comments.

I know what you mean. I live in the south and on occasion I see the Confederate Battle Flag on a license plate or t shirt. From that I deduce that everyone here reveres the Battle Flag. Even the blacks, latinos and lesbians. Everywhere below the Mason Dixon. Everyone.

 

[mongoose33]

Water is going to absorb O2 from the atmosphere. I don't think you'd gain as much letting the water sit overnight unless you either used a cap on the water (similar to mash cap or lauter cap) or filled the headspace completely with CO2 and sealed it with something. In either case I doubt you'd be transferring O2-free water. I've read someplace that the ability of water to hold O2 is inversely proportional to temp, i.e., boiling temps get rid of it, and the lower the temp, the more readily water will absorb it.

For that reason I like the boil it method then cool it approach better, as after I cool to strike temp (about 160 degrees) I'm not giving the water much time to absorb O2--into the mash tun it goes, underletting the grain.

Now, having said that--one reason we use sodium- or potassium-metabisulfate is to act as an oxygen scavenger, so it may not matter a lot if the water sat overnight as long as it was capped somehow. The water going into my mash tun isn't perfect, I'm sure, which is why the K-meta.

*********

How to cool that water has been an issue for me. I have a moderately-sized SS immersion chiller that I've used to bring the preboiled water down to strike temp. But it's hard to dial that temp in very closely as I've been using a Blichmann Hellfire burner which transfers residual heat from the burner to the kettle as it's cooling. I've made it work, but it's inelegant in terms of its precision. More than once I've overshot on the downside and had to restart the burner to bring it back up.

I'm switching to an electric brewery in part to control all this better. I've bought a SS counterflow chiller that I will use to bring that boiling strike water down to proper temps; by running the water through the lines while boiling I should purge the lines of air, and then I hope I can, while the water is recirculating, dial in the temp by controlling the chilling water going through it. We'll see. Hasn't been done yet, but in my mind's eye, this solves exposure to atmosphere as much as possible, should get me close to desired temp, and then when transferring to mash tun with pump, I should have cleared lines.

The other reason for electric brewing is to do a RIMS system to control mash temp. I'm not quite as concerned about nailing strike temp exactly because this should allow me to fine-tune that. I hope.

Those are the plans, in an attempt to further refine how I get that O2 out of the hot side.

PS: I've only been doing LODO stuff for about 9 months. I'm not expert, not by a long shot, so if anything I've written above is mistaken, please correct me. I think it's correct, or I wouldn't have written it, but doing LODO isn't a trivial exercise. At least, it hasn't been for me.

 

[Die_Beerery]

@Die_Beerery
Care to chime in here?

NOPE! I am done caring about having to defend this method. The information is out there.. Try it, don't try it, knock it, praise it... It doesn't affect me in any way.

As a side note, I tried to join the forum over at Low Oxygen Brewing but never received the e-mail to verify the account. Checked in spam as well.

Fixed and replied.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks Mongoose. Great info. Will continue here and on the other forum once I get some time to think over my setup.

 

[Dog House Brew]

I can’t imagine anyone dissing LODO. You don’t have to try it. It is everyones prerogative. Don’t say it is crap, because it isn’t. I changed my entire brewery to reduce 02. Probably won’t be 100% LODO, but will greatly reduce the amount of 02. I appreciate the work and shared information from the LODO community. I get the defense burnout. I can’t wait to brew on the new rig. It has been far too long. Kind of feels new again. Thanks.

 

[schematix]

I save myself a good bit of time by bringing the strike water to near boil the night before and holding the temp a few degrees off.

When it’s time to start the day I crank the power to 100%, mill the grains into the MLT, co2 purge the mlt from below. while it’s purging I’m finishing the 5 minute preboil. The chilling takes no time at all since it’s from boil to ~150F. Once it’s chilled to strike minus 3F i dough in through RIMS set to desired strike temp.

Added time for the preboil, chill and underlet is about +20 minutes from commonly espoused methods.

 

[murphyslaw]

I save myself a good bit of time by bringing the strike water to near boil the night before and holding the temp a few degrees off.

When it’s time to start the day I crank the power to 100%, mill the grains into the MLT, co2 purge the mlt from below. while it’s purging I’m finishing the 5 minute preboil. The chilling takes no time at all since it’s from boil to ~150F. Once it’s chilled to strike minus 3F i dough in through RIMS set to desired strike temp.

Added time for the preboil, chill and underlet is about +20 minutes from commonly espoused methods.

Thanks for this. Preboiling has seemed to me a major time commitment, but this makes perfect sense.

 

[MSK_Chess]

Probably the most vociferous critics of LODO are the ones who have never studied the literature. Lets get some scientific facts straight. Oxygen has the second-highest electronegativity of all reactive elements, second only to fluorine. It wants all the electrons, and it will take them whenever it can! I have yet to read a valid argument of why we should not take a holistic approach to oxygen ingress by employing various simple methods and techniques. Comments like, 'its a myth', 'it doesn’t matter', 'you cannot tell the difference anyway', are unscientific. Kunze, Bamford and other have elucidated on the subject and the consensus is that oxygen is bad for your beer. Now we can argue over degree if you like but its an established scientific fact. From the oxidation of lipids in the mash right through to the oxidation and polymerisation of polyphenol/protein complexes in the finished product. Take measures to reduce oxygen ingress and you will preserve flavour. We spend a lot of time and money on making beer, especially highly hopped beers and it makes absolute sense to limit oxygen ingress. Why? because oxygen for hops is deadly!