First Experience in LoDO BIAB

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I'm still getting my regular BIAB process down, as I'm still a newb. Made my first ever lager this past weekend, and I admittedly did a few things to minimize HSA, but probably not enough to be meaningful. (I just tossed in a campden tablet before mash, and minimized boiling). ...still have a copper chiller. And my grain was milled by LHBS a week before. I don't get why this topic creates so much angst. I mean, isn't the decoction debate kind of the same thing? I don't see such nastiness on that topic.

I'm glad these guys wrote "the paper". I go to Germany a few times a year for work, and love Dunkel, Kolsh, and Helles. If my beer is close enough, I'll stick with my mediocre DO process....if not, I'll move the process in the LODO direction...I'm grateful there is a roadmap, and grateful for this thread to tweak our bag processes

By the way, a question....how are you managing the boil? Open with simmer? Partially covered? Reduction from standard 90 to 60 min on lagers? I'm worried about DMS and off flavors from lid condensation in a partial covered situation. I think they said not to worry, but I'm honestly too inexperienced to know best way to manage this.

Im all for scientific rigor at work...but beermaking is supposed to be fun, no?
 
Tommydee said:
I don't see such nastiness on that topic.
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Really shows a lot about people....

Tommydee said:
By the way, a question....how are you managing the boil? Open with simmer? Partially covered? Reduction from standard 90 to 60 min on lagers? I'm worried about DMS and off flavors from lid condensation in a partial covered situation. I think they said not to worry, but I'm honestly too inexperienced to know best way to manage this.
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60 minute low intensity boil. I've converted all my longer boils down to 60 down as it's plenty. I do it with the lid off. I'm pondering going down to 45 since i've had no issues what so ever.

Tommydee said:
Im all for scientific rigor at work...but beermaking is supposed to be fun, no?
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What about drinking great beer isn't fun?

LoDO is more work. Obviously if you don't want any extra work, then the process isn't for you. Just move on and keep doing it your way. You can make good beer without it. But there is a difference.... I don't like the extra work but i find the product is sufficiently different in a positive way that i wouldn't think to do it any other way now.
 
I'm intrigued enough by this to want to give it a try on my 1 gallon system, however I don't have all the required gear.

One issue is no kegs, I bottle condition. Someone said above that the bottle conditioning fermentation will scavenge some of the oxygen so that is not a show-stopper.

Next thing is that my main BK has a copper immersion chiller built in. With 1 gallon batches I can chill to mash temps in the sink and not use the copper chiller, but that BK is out.

So I'll have to mash/boil in a different kettle. I have one which is just a plain kettle - but isn't big enough for a no-sparge BIAB. Is there a way to LODO BIAB sparge (lift the bag gently into another pot of LODO water) or should I just go get a bigger pot? I also have a plastic drink cooler I could mash in, however I would then need to rack into the BK and that may be a problem. It seems like LODO is best done with no-sparge BIAB to reduce the wort handling. I'm not hugely concerned about efficiency on a 1 gallon batch.

And finally what happens to the drips from the bag when you remove the grain from the mash? I guess dripping into the wort is a bad idea, do you place the bag in a bucket and collect there then rack into the BK, or just forget about using that wort in the LODO brew and collect it for a starter or something else?
 
schematix said:
60 minute low intensity boil. I've converted all my longer boils down to 60 down as it's plenty. I do it with the lid off. I'm pondering going down to 45 since i've had no issues what so ever.
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Unrelated to LoDO but I stopped doing 90 min boils long ago. I'll do 60 min with pilsners based recipes and I've gone as low as 30 min on 2-row based recipes. Never noticed DMS.

Interesting topic nonetheless.
 
schematix said:
Really shows a lot about people....





What about drinking great beer isn't fun?

I was referring to the implied expectation that new suggested methods MUST be supported by correlated DO data and triple blind trials, or else we should flame the contributors. I'm happy to do the extra work if my tastebuds tell me to.

As far as minimizing work, interested to explore N2 bubbling during mash and cooling/cold side transfers (Via SS sintered stone wand used now to oxygenate wort for fermentation) prekegging for us BIABers. I just need to find some time to do the math on N2 consumption volumes and ensure no safety/economic concern assuming reasonable kitchen ventilation. Then, propose a 5 gallon experiment to someone with a DO meter. We need to find a BIABer on this forum that has a DO meter that we can crowdfund!
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The paper, section 2.4 Mashing, mentions "no-sparge". Are we calling "no-spage" in this case full volume mash? So, for a BIAB full volume mash, should the SMB dose be at 55 mg/l ? Has anybody managed a lower dose that worked well?
MS
 
1MadScientist said:
The paper, section 2.4 Mashing, mentions "no-sparge". Are we calling "no-spage" in this case full volume mash? So, for a BIAB full volume mash, should the SMB dose be at 55 mg/l ? Has anybody managed a lower dose that worked well?
MS
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Yes, I would say in this case you can consider "no-sparge" the same as "full volume mash".

For no-sparge, full volume mash, BIAB I've been using ~30 mg/l for ales and ~40 mg/l for lagers. However, even at reduced rates, some ale strains have not been able to "deal with" the excess sulfites resulting in what folks refer to as "sulfur bombs" (i.e. beers with lots of bad sulfury aromatics). The typical american chico strain DOES "deal with" sulfites so it's always a safe choice.
 
How did the beer from the OP turn out?? I just want an op-ed not a PhD thesis about how it tasted!
 
catsnbeer said:
How did the beer from the OP turn out?? I just want an op-ed not a PhD thesis about how it tasted!
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Ok. Here goes. Sorry this took a while, been out of town the last few weeks.

At the last report, I had transferred from my conical to the keg - I added some priming sugar to the conical and waited until fermentation restarted before I transferred into the CO2 purged keg. I then put some CO2 pressure on to make sure the keg sealed and I put it aside for a week or so. I then put it on serving gas in my fridge.

On to the tasting!

The first thing that hits is the hops - really strong pineapple and citrus (tangerine) notes plus a little bit of mango. That isn't too surprising since it is hopped with Mosaic and Citra.

Then you can pick up the malt. The malt bill was 6 lbs each of Maris Otter and 2 Row and 1.2 lbs of corn sugar. I can easily pick out the biscuit-iness of the Maris Otter.

All-in-all this turned out really good. And before WWIII breaks out over homemade beer, I'm not saying it's good because of LoDO. I'm simply (for now) saying that this is one of the best beers I've made.

What I'm looking for will come in a few weeks. My problem is that I can make decent IPAs that are good for a few weeks and then the hops just drop off of a cliff. For example, I made an non-LoDO IPA on January 2nd. On January 30th, the keg was tasting great. By February 5, it was good. By the 10th, it was tolerable - the hop aroma and flavor were pretty much gone. Since this LoDO batch was kegged on January 29, I'm looking for those great flavors to last more than 4 weeks. I'll let folks know by mid-March if the shelf-life is improved. I hope it will be since that is essentially what NaMBS is supposed to do.

Anyway, the experiment continues and I will report back in.

Here's a picture. And it is a NE style IPA so it is supposed to be cloudy.

PlinyTheMiddleAged

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1487558633.202976.jpg
 
So what's a good guesstimate for grain absorption for biab *no squeeze*?

How long did ya let the bag drain?
 
thekraken said:
So what's a good guesstimate for grain absorption for biab *no squeeze*?

How long did ya let the bag drain?
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I set mine to 0.10 gal/lb using a Wilserbrewer bag and a ratchet pulley. Let the bag drain, dangling an inch or less from the top of the wort, until just before a boil was achieved, Hit my volumes consistently.
 
This may sound obvious, but LoDO following fermentation will keep an NEIPA intact hop flavor wise for months. The malt taste is what is preserved by being careful with O2 on the front end. After oxidizing several NEIPA batches trying to bottle I got religion and went full tilt preventing O2 from touching the beer past day 2 of fermentation with excellent results.
 
JoeMamasIPA said:
This may sound obvious, but LoDO following fermentation will keep an NEIPA intact hop flavor wise for months. The malt taste is what is preserved by being careful with O2 on the front end. After oxidizing several NEIPA batches trying to bottle I got religion and went full tilt preventing O2 from touching the beer past day 2 of fermentation with excellent results.
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Please feel free to stop by and tell my kegs that!

Cold side O2 control definitely helped (and I am fanatical about it) - decent hoppy IPA flavors went from a few days to one or two weeks. I'm guessing that what was happening on the hot side destroyed my pre-fermentation hop additions. Perhaps with both hot side and cold side O2 control, shelf life will improve again.

Time will tell.
 
Thought I would add to this with my first experience. I currently have a keg that I am priming with corn sugar which I tried LODO methods on. I noticed some of the differences outlined by the OP. Was very interesting to see. The only issue I have is post mash I noticed a sulfur flavor, and now post fermentation I notice strong sulfur aroma and flavor (before adding priming sugar). Using a no sparge BIAB setup, I targeted 40ppm for a brown ale. I added a little over 1 gram of SMB to 7.5 gallons of strike water which was boiled and chilled (copper wort chiller). I milled my grain into my bag and then lowered it gently into the pot. I stirred gently as well. Does it appear I might have used too much SMB for my system, or is this normal? The beer post fermentation was at 8 days after pitching. I normally transfer 7-10 days and have not experienced this before. Only thing I can think of is SMB, or maybe it hasn't had enough time yet. I would like to brew a lager next but think I may need to back off the SMB to 25ppm.

EDIT: Should add I use RO water with calcium chloride and control my mash pH with acid malt.
 
Could someone kindly point me to a list of the best practices for achieving LoDO? Maybe it's out there and I just missed it with all of the discussions, side arguments, etc.

Thanks!
 
oujens said:
Thought I would add to this with my first experience. I currently have a keg that I am priming with corn sugar which I tried LODO methods on. I noticed some of the differences outlined by the OP. Was very interesting to see. The only issue I have is post mash I noticed a sulfur flavor, and now post fermentation I notice strong sulfur aroma and flavor (before adding priming sugar). Using a no sparge BIAB setup, I targeted 40ppm for a brown ale. I added a little over 1 gram of SMB to 7.5 gallons of strike water which was boiled and chilled (copper wort chiller). I milled my grain into my bag and then lowered it gently into the pot. I stirred gently as well. Does it appear I might have used too much SMB for my system, or is this normal? The beer post fermentation was at 8 days after pitching. I normally transfer 7-10 days and have not experienced this before. Only thing I can think of is SMB, or maybe it hasn't had enough time yet. I would like to brew a lager next but think I may need to back off the SMB to 25ppm.

EDIT: Should add I use RO water with calcium chloride and control my mash pH with acid malt.
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What was your yeast? Did you happen to use one of the yeasts listed here? http://www.********************/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9
 
I couldn't view the list without logging in, but I used bells yeast. Should have been a healthy starter but maybe not a good choice for this application?
 
hio3791 said:
Could someone kindly point me to a list of the best practices for achieving LoDO? Maybe it's out there and I just missed it with all of the discussions, side arguments, etc.

Thanks!
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hio,

I don't know if there is a complete list of LoDO practices (and if there is, it's probably pretty extensive - I've seen posts where folks are pre-flushing all lines with CO2 before priming pumps for example). But I can describe what steps I took - some of which are not unique to LoDO. Keep in mind that I BIAB and don't sparge. And I use a stainless steel immersion chiller (copper is a no-no).

1. Pre-boil mash water for about 15 minutes to drive off dissolved O2.
2. Condition grain
3. Mill grain in a CO2 rich environment. Mill directly into my grain bag. (I trickle in CO2 into a bucket that holds my grain bag and mill straight into that)
4. Cool strike water to strike temp using SS IC
5. Add salts, acids, and NaMBS (I use 50 ppm or about 0.19 grams per gallon of strike water).
6. Slowly lower grain bag into strike water and stir gently - you don't want to whip a bunch of air into your mash
7. Float a mash cap on top of your mash. It's basically a floating lid that minimizes the exposure of the wort to air. I use a big piece of tin foil shaped to fit my kettle.
8. Mash as usual
9. Boil - when the mash is over, start the boil. I bring it up to full boil to get a good hot break, then throttle way back to barely a simmer. Recommended boil off rates are about 8% - not sure that I get that low.

I think the only other thing that changes is pitching yeast. After cooling to pitch temp (again, without copper), pitch yeast and then aerate. Don't aerate prior to pitching yeast. The yeast will pretty quickly scavenge the added O2 for their own needs before it can damage the wort.

That's all the hot side practices that I use. It might seem like a lot, but it isn't. The biggest hurdles are stainless steel immersion chiller (cost), pre-boiling strike water (time), and the cost of NaMBS (not much). And frankly, I think grinding the grain while minimizing exposure to O2 is probably overkill, but CO2 is cheap and I have a few bottles sitting in my garage - it's easy so I did it.

Let me know if you have any questions.

PlinyTheMiddleAged
 
Thanks, this is a really nice summary amidst the pages of flaming and debate. I'm doing a Pliny the Elder (not middle aged) clone next, so I'm tempted to try these techniques, but with copper chiller. Maybe dip the chiller in a bucket of water so that copper oxide dissolves there and not in the wort, then Fast transfer to pot for premash and post boil chills....

I'm pretty happy with my first Munich Helles, and I didn't do all this stuff, so not sure yet. I also don't have a mill since I've been happy with the convenience of my LHBS doing this step. Should I sparge CO2 through the grain bag, or is it too late if the ground grains have been sitting around for a day or so? On second thought, I'll pass, focus on cold size LODO, drink fast:tank: I'll probably do a pilsner in a month or so, make me an ugly junk corona mill. I'll certainly bookmark your post for when I take a crack at this.

Interested if anyone thinks the steps are worth the trouble prior to getting at least a mill, or perhaps both a mill and SS chiller. I'm thinking not worth it till I at least get the mill, but probably yes after mill while waiting for a SS chiller on Craigslist.


PlinyTheMiddleAged said:
hio,

I don't know if there is a complete list of LoDO practices (and if there is, it's probably pretty extensive - I've seen posts where folks are pre-flushing all lines with CO2 before priming pumps for example). But I can describe what steps I took - some of which are not unique to LoDO. Keep in mind that I BIAB and don't sparge. And I use a stainless steel immersion chiller (copper is a no-no).

1. Pre-boil mash water for about 15 minutes to drive off dissolved O2.
2. Condition grain
3. Mill grain in a CO2 rich environment. Mill directly into my grain bag. (I trickle in CO2 into a bucket that holds my grain bag and mill straight into that)
4. Cool strike water to strike temp using SS IC
5. Add salts, acids, and NaMBS (I use 50 ppm or about 0.19 grams per gallon of strike water).
6. Slowly lower grain bag into strike water and stir gently - you don't want to whip a bunch of air into your mash
7. Float a mash cap on top of your mash. It's basically a floating lid that minimizes the exposure of the wort to air. I use a big piece of tin foil shaped to fit my kettle.
8. Mash as usual
9. Boil - when the mash is over, start the boil. I bring it up to full boil to get a good hot break, then throttle way back to barely a simmer. Recommended boil off rates are about 8% - not sure that I get that low.

I think the only other thing that changes is pitching yeast. After cooling to pitch temp (again, without copper), pitch yeast and then aerate. Don't aerate prior to pitching yeast. The yeast will pretty quickly scavenge the added O2 for their own needs before it can damage the wort.

That's all the hot side practices that I use. It might seem like a lot, but it isn't. The biggest hurdles are stainless steel immersion chiller (cost), pre-boiling strike water (time), and the cost of NaMBS (not much). And frankly, I think grinding the grain while minimizing exposure to O2 is probably overkill, but CO2 is cheap and I have a few bottles sitting in my garage - it's easy so I did it.

Let me know if you have any questions.

PlinyTheMiddleAged
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Tommydee,

I just did a LoDO Blind Pig last Friday - kind of Pliny the Elder's little brother from Russian River. I ended up low on my og as a result of being too gentle with my post dough-in stirring. But whatever, I'll have beer. And based on the LoDO Focal Banger inspired beer (not quite a clone due to not having the right grains at the LHBS) that I'm drinking now, it should be tasty!

If the Blind Pig works out, then a Pliny the Elder (or maybe even a Younger) may be in the works for me soon. Best of luck with yours!

PlinyTheMiddleAged
 
hio3791 said:
Thank you for summarizing!
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I hope it helps you. I am getting improved shelf-life on my IPAs. I'm still enjoying a NE IPA style after nearly 6 weeks on tap. My last IPA that was not LoDO was good for about 3 weeks and then it was NOT good. And I can't drink that fast.

PlinyTheMiddleAged
 
I have been following the LoDo thread with some interest. I think there's a lot of good information from both sides of the debate in there.

These are my concerns as it pertains to BIAB:

1) Time. Pre-boiling the mash water and then chilling will add significantly to my brew day. My understanding is that you should avoid stirring, which is what makes an immersion chiller so effective. I estimate my immersion chiller works 2-3 times as fast when I stir the wort the whole time it's running. Additionally, chilling after the boil will take much longer without stirring.

2) Water. I already use a lot just chilling my wort after boil. If I also have to chill my mash water down to my mash temp, and I can't stir while my chiller is running, I'm going to go through 4-5 times as much water to run my immersion chiller. I already feel a little wasteful running my immersion chiller for 10-15 minutes.

3) Cost. In my experience, thoroughly stirring the mash is necessary to achieve good conversion efficiency in a BIAB system. This seems to be mirrored by the OP who saw a decrease in his conversion efficiency. If I can't stir the mash, I'm going to need to use a bit more malt to compensate. LoDo practices also call for a very gentle boil. If my boiloff rate isn't as high as it normally is, I'll again need to add to my grain bill in order to hit my OG.

4) I bottle. As much as I try to avoid it, bottling is always going to introduce some oxygen. I'm curious if this would undo many of the benefits of minimizing hot side aeration.

If LoDo brewing produces better beer, it may well be worth the extra trouble. It's great that there are a growing number of people giving it a shot and I'll be following their results with curiosity. For now I'm sitting on the sidelines undecided about whether it's worth the extra effort :)
 
Epos7 said:
I have been following the LoDo thread with some interest. I think there's a lot of good information from both sides of the debate in there.

These are my concerns as it pertains to BIAB:

1) Time. Pre-boiling the mash water and then chilling will add significantly to my brew day. My understanding is that you should avoid stirring, which is what makes an immersion chiller so effective. I estimate my immersion chiller works 2-3 times as fast when I stir the wort the whole time it's running. Additionally, chilling after the boil will take much longer without stirring.

2) Water. I already use a lot just chilling my wort after boil. If I also have to chill my mash water down to my mash temp, and I can't stir while my chiller is running, I'm going to go through 4-5 times as much water to run my immersion chiller. I already feel a little wasteful running my immersion chiller for 10-15 minutes.

3) Cost. In my experience, thoroughly stirring the mash is necessary to achieve good conversion efficiency in a BIAB system. This seems to be mirrored by the OP who saw a decrease in his conversion efficiency. If I can't stir the mash, I'm going to need to use a bit more malt to compensate. LoDo practices also call for a very gentle boil. If my boiloff rate isn't as high as it normally is, I'll again need to add to my grain bill in order to hit my OG.

4) I bottle. As much as I try to avoid it, bottling is always going to introduce some oxygen. I'm curious if this would undo many of the benefits of minimizing hot side aeration.

If LoDo brewing produces better beer, it may well be worth the extra trouble. It's great that there are a growing number of people giving it a shot and I'll be following their results with curiosity. For now I'm sitting on the sidelines undecided about whether it's worth the extra effort :)
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I just recently completed a batch and will answer this with my experience:

1) Yes, pre-boil sucked. However, there is a yeast scavenging method I will use next that looks like it takes an hour to complete with no boiling or chilling.

2) See 1

3) I did not experience a decrease in my conversion by gently stirring. I crushed tight in a bag, lowered the bag in the water gently, and then gently stirred to mix it and avoided splashing. The gentle boil means less boil off, which would also mean less water needed to hit target gravity. Just change the setting in your calculator. I'll note here that this helped me because I was boiling off too much based on what I read. Now I mash in less water so I don't have any more spills over my kettle when pulling the bag.

4) I keg so can't help here, but I think it might be better since the yeast will be scavenging oxygen as it consumes priming sugar? So maybe a good thing.

I'm currently conditioning my keg but don't think I recognized the benefits because I used too much SMB for my system (40 PPM full volume for an ale) or the yeast I used did not clean up very well. Hopefully the final conditioned product is good, but I think this one will just be a learning experience.
 
Epos7 said:
I have been following the LoDo thread with some interest. I think there's a lot of good information from both sides of the debate in there.

These are my concerns as it pertains to BIAB:

1) Time. Pre-boiling the mash water and then chilling will add significantly to my brew day. My understanding is that you should avoid stirring, which is what makes an immersion chiller so effective. I estimate my immersion chiller works 2-3 times as fast when I stir the wort the whole time it's running. Additionally, chilling after the boil will take much longer without stirring.

2) Water. I already use a lot just chilling my wort after boil. If I also have to chill my mash water down to my mash temp, and I can't stir while my chiller is running, I'm going to go through 4-5 times as much water to run my immersion chiller. I already feel a little wasteful running my immersion chiller for 10-15 minutes.

3) Cost. In my experience, thoroughly stirring the mash is necessary to achieve good conversion efficiency in a BIAB system. This seems to be mirrored by the OP who saw a decrease in his conversion efficiency. If I can't stir the mash, I'm going to need to use a bit more malt to compensate. LoDo practices also call for a very gentle boil. If my boiloff rate isn't as high as it normally is, I'll again need to add to my grain bill in order to hit my OG.

4) I bottle. As much as I try to avoid it, bottling is always going to introduce some oxygen. I'm curious if this would undo many of the benefits of minimizing hot side aeration.

If LoDo brewing produces better beer, it may well be worth the extra trouble. It's great that there are a growing number of people giving it a shot and I'll be following their results with curiosity. For now I'm sitting on the sidelines undecided about whether it's worth the extra effort :)
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Here's my response to stirring with low oxygen brewing (copy/paste):
I'm a gentle stirrer. I gently stir just after dough-in (i.e. lowering BIABag into pot), mid-way through long rests, and during step ramping. The dough-in stir is the most thorough because I'm equalizing temperature across the entire mash but my effort and vigor are minimal to avoid aeration. During 30 minute rests I will stir at the mid-point just to move things a little. During the step ramps I also stir to keep the mash equalized in temperature; again, slow but deliberate every couple minutes. My goal is to never have grain tough the liquid surface, but I'm not perfect.

I erroneously tried one batch with just a minimal gentle dough-in stir and that was all - I took a 20%+ hit to efficiency. That's when I learned something :D
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http://www.********************/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77&start=10#p888

I will add to that: Stirring is acceptable, but the goal is minimal splashing/aeration while stirring. This is very easy to accomplish - stir slow and with minimal effort. Also, stirring with your chiller is also acceptable - same minimal aeration goal - and I stir my IC while chilling. Lastly, preboil and wait time adds about 30-35 minutes to my brewday. Edit: This is all from my perspective, of course.
 
OP giving a status report.

I'm now 7 weeks since brew day (6 weeks since kegging). Color is a nice light yellow/golden color. Flavor is still a nice bright pineapple-y flavor but it is starting to fade a little.

Given that I used to get 3 or 4 weeks until the hops dropped off severely (like good one day and not the next), and I'm now at 7 weeks and the hops are still very much present, I'm pretty pleased. Plus, I'm keeping a nice light color. Formerly, I'd brew an IPA and enjoy it for a week or two and then it'd turn into an amber that'd I'd slog through until the keg blew. If I can brew an IPA and enjoy it until the keg is empty, I'll be happy.

This is going in the right direction. After trying for 5 years to brew an IPA that was decent for more than a few weeks, I'm on to something.

PlinyTheMiddleAged
 
Keg is empty! Time for a quick recap.

I brewed this simple NE IPA on Jan 22 and kegged on Jan 29. A full 8 weeks after kegging, the beer was still quite good. There was no slight darkening with time that I had previously experienced. Hop flavor and aroma really stuck around - there was very little fade that I had in the past. Previously, the hops would be gone extremely quickly.

I'm pretty happy with the results. Shelf life was as long as I needed it to be (drained the keg over a two month period and enjoyed it to the end). For a simple process, it gave me what I was looking for.

More experimentation with this process will follow. And, if you are at all interested in trying LoDO practices, I suggest that you try them out.

PlinyTheMiddleAged
 
I'm sorry if this has already been asked/answered. So how are you accounting for the sodium metabisulfite in your water profile? Has anyone created a spreadsheet for it?
 
thekraken said:
I'm sorry if this has already been asked/answered. So how are you accounting for the sodium metabisulfite in your water profile? Has anyone created a spreadsheet for it?
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From a simplistic, ballparkish standpoint, I feel it can be looked as as having these modifications to water mineral levels:
-Increase sodium (+6-9ppm Na @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
-Increase sulfate (+18-29ppm SO4 @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
-Lower pH (~0.03-0.05 pH is lowered @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)

As for a spreadsheet: BigMonk had created a spreadsheet for it ("Water" was it's name), but it has since been pulled from distribution for unknown reasons. There was also a more fully-featured brewing spreadsheet by the same person that allowed for complete recipe formulation, but I believe it was also pulled at the same time. My understanding was that they became too hard to manage with too many variations being requested. I don't know if any future release of either spreadsheet is pending - I get the feeling that it's not.
 
stpug said:
From a simplistic, ballparkish standpoint, I feel it can be looked as as having these modifications to water mineral levels:
-Increase sodium (+6-9ppm Na @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
-Increase sulfate (+18-29ppm SO4 @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
-Lower pH (~0.03-0.05 pH is lowered @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)

As for a spreadsheet: BigMonk had created a spreadsheet for it ("Water" was it's name), but it has since been pulled from distribution for unknown reasons. There was also a more fully-featured brewing spreadsheet by the same person that allowed for complete recipe formulation, but I believe it was also pulled at the same time. My understanding was that they became too hard to manage with too many variations being requested. I don't know if any future release of either spreadsheet is pending - I get the feeling that it's not.
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Thanks, stpug.

I did a little searching and the lodo paper does say 100 mg/l SMB = 24 ppm sodium and 76 ppm 'sulfur compounds'
I found somewhere else that says to use a dosage of 55 mg/l for no sparge brewing, so that's 13.2 ppm sodium and 41.8 ppm sulfur compounds

Your range of 25-40 ppm is much lower than the rates ive seen before, no?
 
thekraken said:
I did a little searching and the lodo paper does say 100 mg/l SMB = 24 ppm sodium and 76 ppm 'sulfur compounds'
I found somewhere else that says to use a dosage of 55 mg/l for no sparge brewing, so that's 13.2 ppm sodium and 41.8 ppm sulfur compounds
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Based on some quick head-calcs, those values seem to jive with what I posted previously (ballparkish, anyway). Close enough for beer anyway :D

thekraken said:
Your range of 25-40 ppm is much lower than the rates ive seen before, no?
Click to expand...

In regards to metabisulfite dosage rates, I would agree that my range (25-40ppm SMB or KMB) is a bit more on the conservative side, but it's for good reason - to avoid sulfur bomb beers. It's not actually "my range" as much as it is a range that has been found to be fairly trouble-free from the numerous folks brewing low oxygen beers (ales and lagers), and the values we all seem to have in common for trouble-free beer. The 25ppm end is for ales, while the 40ppm end is for lagers; but, again, it's pretty much YMMV so it may be an extra 5-10ppm is needed for a loose system, or 5-10ppm less for a tight system. My advice would be to start low (25/40) and work up, not the other way around (unless you don't mind dumping some beer or waiting months for them to pass their sulfury stage). I would also advise referring to the list of yeast strains that have had success/failure in low oxygen brewing because it may help you avoid a potential pitfall. It can be found on the ******************** website in the forum.
 
PlinyTheMiddleAged said:
Keg is empty! Time for a quick recap.

I brewed this simple NE IPA on Jan 22 and kegged on Jan 29. A full 8 weeks after kegging, the beer was still quite good. There was no slight darkening with time that I had previously experienced. Hop flavor and aroma really stuck around - there was very little fade that I had in the past. Previously, the hops would be gone extremely quickly.

I'm pretty happy with the results. Shelf life was as long as I needed it to be (drained the keg over a two month period and enjoyed it to the end). For a simple process, it gave me what I was looking for.

More experimentation with this process will follow. And, if you are at all interested in trying LoDO practices, I suggest that you try them out.

PlinyTheMiddleAged
Click to expand...


From those symptoms - hops dropping out quickly and the beer darkening - it sounds very much like you were experiencing oxidation during packaging; in your case kegging. Glad to hear you figured it out - oxidized beer sucks especially when it's an IPA
 

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