Interesting German Brewing PDF

[techbrau]

I agree with that sentiment. I expect that the most delicate, malt focused beers have the greatest probability of benefiting from LoDO. I'm not sure if I can get there, but I'm willing to try. I think the recommendations from that paper have a decent amount of scientific support and are worth exploring. I'm searching for ways to get closer to that LoDO condition to see if it makes a difference in my light lagers.

Lodo has made every single style we've tried it on significantly better, from pale ale to rauchbier to Hefeweizen to dunkel and onwards.

I'm planning on switching gears and spending the summer brewing Lodo British ales since my warm ground water makes it harder to chill low enough for lager.

I understand why some people have expressed the sentiment that Lodo is only good for light lagers, because to suggest otherwise has some serious implications not only for homebrewers but also for the entire craft beer industry. I think it's best if people try Lodo for themselves on their favorite styles to see if it's what's right for them. All I can say for myself is that no matter the style of beer, I will always choose clear, strong, and fresh malt flavors over muted, muddy, and stale malt flavors.

 

[BrunDog]

Yeah it doesn't jive for me that it would be appropriate for some styles and not all styles. This is not a hops or roast malt question, it's an oxidation question, which applies to all compounds, independent of style.

I brewed a repeat pale ale today... And the whole time I realized how many parts of the process that would need to be refined to accommodate LODO. This would not be easy!! But I will do the tests!

 

[govner1]

I shared this information with my local homebrew guru and brewery consultant. Here is his feedback:
" Wow, how to respond. Can you imagine trying to teach this to everyone. I guess this is why we use so many specialty malts in our recipes to make up what we loose from the base malts due to the oxygen present in our brewing techniques. I can see a whole series of new problems this creates for home brewers starting to try these processes, also brew day just grew by 2 extra hours per batch. This has come up before and I think my conclusion for the home brew world is; we are talking about such a small amount of oxygen that is so hard to control that in the end we just ignore it and find ways to get our flavors back using specialty malts and some of the techniques I talked about the other night with mash temp control. I dont think it is realistic or practical to teach this, however, I think all advanced brewers should know this and understand this effect of oxygen on wort production.
I might play with the idea in the future to see if the subtle differences in malt character is worth all the xtra work.
I think it was Randy Mosher that said " making really good beer is easy to do, understanding it is nearly impossible" or something similar to that.

FYI;The Campden tablets sold in the homebrew shops today are Potassium metabisulfite not sodium."

 

[techbrau]

Awakening your understanding of oxygen in brewing is a lot like when Neo chose the red pill over the blue pill in The Matrix. So I agree with you that these methods are not for everyone.

We debated for a long time about whether or not to open this Pandora' Box to the community. It is clearly a very controversial issue and we did not want to attempt to force everyone to conform to our practices. In the end, we decided to release the information and let people decide for themselves. The reason is because there is a glass ceiling limiting how good your beer can possibly be if you pay no mind to oxygen. We didn't discover the basic science behind this fact, and it's been known in professional circles for decades. For whatever reason, homebrewers (and craft brewers) have completely ignored it. What we did is come up with a method for oxygen control that is suitable for homebrewers and guarantees that you will achieve the low oxygen flavor, provided you follow our procedure exactly.

Taking the red pill is where advanced homebrewing begins.

 

[The_Bishop]

And that is where you piss everyone off and shut down reasonable discourse on the subject because you're getting on the 'holier-than-thou, we have the secret to the *best* beer ever' horse again.

 

[techbrau]

It's not a secret.

We gave you the information freely with no expectation of any kind of reward. We're not asking for donations, we're not marketing books, t-shirts, brewing equipment, software, or any products of any sort. We don't put ads on our website or forum, and we're not running a podcast full of commercials. We put the information out there in the open for whoever wants to give it a try.

A dozen people worked together for nearly a year to put together the information in the pdf, which was freely given to you and everyone else on a silver platter. If the suggestion that said information will improve your beer pisses you off, that's your problem.

Nobody is forcing you to change the way you brew. Nobody forced you to read the pdf, to read this thread, to post in this thread.

As far as Lodo goes, we gave you the tools you need to do it if you so choose. You have the power to make your own choices. Do it or don't do it. I don't care how you brew.

 

[ncbrewer]

techbrau: Thanks for putting this information out, and welcome to HomeBrew Talk. This may be a problem we weren't aware of, and the solution seems to be somewhat inconvenient - An Inconvenient Truth.

 

[ajdelange]

For whatever reason, homebrewers (and craft brewers) have completely ignored it.

That's not entirely true. Some of us were aware of it and I think I mentioned that Sean Franklin at Rooster's in Harrogate was trying to do it way back when, well when he was in Harrogate.

But that's not really why I am responding but rather to appeal to you not to let the sore heads get to you. Please continue to publish what you have found and experienced and if you can't entirely contain your enthusiasm - well we understand that (or some of us do). This isn't the JASBC and we understand that. It's not hard to tell who is sincerely interested in getting at the truth and who is interested in making noise. Best to ignore the latter.

 

[GotPushrods]

Wow... read a lot on many forums now. I guess I don't quite get the nasty snaps at people who are simply asking for triangle test results. (No, not everyone here is nasty, many are quite polite, but this is being discussed on a number of forums right now). I understand that not everyone comes from a scientific or academia background, but it's just common sense to perform a test that determines if it actually makes a difference in the finished beer. I think we can all agree that's the whole point to this.

Anyone who thinks you can say "yeah I really noticed a difference" is kidding themselves. And I don't care about the smell of the wort or a DO reading at some point in the process. FINISHED BEER ASSESSMENT. I just can't believe so many people have spent so much time on this and have yet to perform triangle tests. If it really is working, then the triangle will confirm this. (Of course I'd like to see at least a dozen triangles with about 20+ tasters each) When you purposely make a paper look all "science-y" with subjective claims (without many numbers or graphs in it), then pepper a few references at the end that don't necessarily backup the exact process... I'm sorry it's just not a scientific paper. Even if I agree with the basic premise.

Now before I get my head bit off... I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here. I probably take more effort to reduce O2 throughout the process than many people, I am well aware of it's implication in my own brewing. Especially shelf life (that's what led me down the road). I think if this were presented as a subjective internet post and just asked for feedback there would be a lot less bickering. Maybe it's a language barrier thing, I dunno, but the German Brewing people are completely misunderstanding the critiques to this and getting their panties in a twist.

 

[The_Bishop]

I'd like to clarify my earlier statement.

What strikes me as 'wrong' is how you phrased your comment, "The reason is because there is a glass ceiling limiting how good your beer can possibly be if you pay no mind to oxygen."

This implies that everyone else is 'doing it wrong.' It comes across as elitist and implies that the many fine homebrewers here with years of experience don't know what the hell they're doing and that anyone who doesn't mash according to your steps must, by extension, ignore oxygen uptake anywhere else in the process. I can assure you, this is not the case.

Saying things like, "Taking the red pill is where advanced homebrewing begins." imples that everyone else who doesn't follow "our procedure exactly" is doing it wrong and isn't an 'advanced homebrewer.' This attitude doesn't encourage discussion.

You want to be taken seriously? Get off your high horse. Brew a beer using your 'procedure', all the way to completion. Then have it sampled by impartial judges and see what the feedback is. As had been said several times in this thread alone, the low oxygen steps you are taking may not mean much of a difference when you get to a finished product.

 

[techbrau]

That's not entirely true. Some of us were aware of it and I think I mentioned that Sean Franklin at Rooster's in Harrogate was trying to do it way back when, well when he was in Harrogate.

But that's not really why I am responding but rather to appeal to you not to let the sore heads get to you. Please continue to publish what you have found and experienced and if you can't entirely contain your enthusiasm - well we understand that (or some of us do). This isn't the JASBC and we understand that. It's not hard to tell who is sincerely interested in getting at the truth and who is interested in making noise. Best to ignore the latter.

Thanks for the kind words AJ. We do plan to continue publishing further work on the German Brewing website.

 

[Bilsch]

Being a fairly recent convert to the LODO method I see both sides of this issue pretty well. The impasse comes because none of the authors of the paper are willing to make a batch of oxidized beer, and have it tested, simply to prove that there is something to the LODO method. And why should they? As was mentioned above, there is absolutely nothing in it for them to prove it to the non-believers. Besides maybe the joy of dumping the rest of the test batch down the drain.

Shortly after finding the GBF forum, and starting down the LODO path.. the members warned me that I should drink up whatever beer was in the pipeline before my first LODO batch was done. The red pill analogy is spot on. Not only does it ruin the palate for your own experiments in oxidized malt bitterness, suddenly there is a LOT of craft beer you can no longer force yourself to swallow. Once you’ve done it there is no way back to drinking the past.

And finally, I just don’t understand why this is all has to be so hard. Do the LODO minimash experiment. Its a couple hours out of your life and a few bucks to see for yourself. Use your own taste buds and your own nose. Shouldn’t you trust that more than some strangers with three cups in their hands?

 

[ajdelange]

No problem with anything you said until:

Shouldn’t you trust that more than some strangers with three cups in their hands?

No. You really cannot trust yourself because of cognitive bias and that is exactly why we have triangle tests and double blind ones at that (remember Kluge Hans). This is, of course, more important to a commercial operator than a home brewer because we could argue that a home brewer who thinks he has found brewing nirvana will enjoy his beer more henceforth and shouldn't be disillusioned by the likes of us with our significance tables.

See #18 for my tale of professional brewers and BJCP Master judges tasting things that were not there because of cognitive bias.

 

[Bilsch]

No problem with anything you said until:

No. You really cannot trust yourself because of cognitive bias and that is exactly why we have triangle tests and double blind ones at that (remember Kluge Hans). This is, of course, more important to a commercial operator than a home brewer because we could argue that a home brewer who thinks he has found brewing nirvana will enjoy his beer more henceforth and shouldn't be disillusioned by the likes of us with our significance tables.

I understand the science behind that but on the other hand, with all due respect, no one can decide what I like better then I can. In 31 years of brewing many many things have been tried in an effort to improve my brewing process. Some had a positive effect, some just the opposite. Regardless where I read about about any new and improved process, they are subject to scrutiny until it passes the taste test. Sadly though few new methods actually work as advertised. However if they do improve the process then it's adopted, if not move on.

So it seems, for those who have not tried LODO, there are two paths forward.
1) Try it for yourself or
2) Wait until someone else does it, has it properly judged and then recommends to you what you should do.

 

[govner1]

Awakening your understanding of oxygen in brewing is a lot like when Neo chose the red pill over the blue pill in The Matrix. So I agree with you that these methods are not for everyone.

We debated for a long time about whether or not to open this Pandora' Box to the community. It is clearly a very controversial issue and we did not want to attempt to force everyone to conform to our practices. In the end, we decided to release the information and let people decide for themselves. The reason is because there is a glass ceiling limiting how good your beer can possibly be if you pay no mind to oxygen. We didn't discover the basic science behind this fact, and it's been known in professional circles for decades. For whatever reason, homebrewers (and craft brewers) have completely ignored it. What we did is come up with a method for oxygen control that is suitable for homebrewers and guarantees that you will achieve the low oxygen flavor, provided you follow our procedure exactly.

Taking the red pill is where advanced homebrewing begins.

You can always tell a German but you can't tell him much!

 

[ajdelange]

I understand the science behind that but on the other hand, with all due respect, no one can decide what I like better then I can.

True but I think the guys here are saying they want some assurance that more than the placebo effect is at work here. I cannot honestly say that I personally would want to be undeceived or not in a case where I thought I was making better beer. I guess, being the geeky science type I am I would especially as part of the joy of brewing for me is sharing what I hope is the best beer I can make with others.

 

[The_Bishop]

AJ said it better than I did. Sometimes I get too snarky for my own good.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

I feel like I am in a Religious forum where the theology was just turned upside down.

Anyways, interesting stuff. Keep up the discussion. I'm not sure I can implement everything recommended, but it makes me realize how much oxygen I am introducing during my process. Maybe focusing on what I can do easily now will make a BETTER beer, but not the BEST beer that is the focus here.

 

[techbrau]

Full disclosure, I actually am a real scientist who authors real research papers for my day job.

The change I've been seeing in the homebrewing community in the past few years worries me. It's getting to the point where you can't talk about anything without having people scream at you for a triangle test (as if they gave you a grant to fund your research). How do you know anybody actually did a triangle test and didn't just make the numbers up?

The real problem is this though: If you want to have real, meaningful results then you need to be a lot more rigorous than the homebrewing "experiments" I've seen published online. You need to have a REAL peer review system in place with qualified reviewers (that means PhD).

Case in point, a well known homebrew blogger published an experiment today which compared beers fermented in plastic vs glass to see if oxygen diffusion through the plastic was a problem. Except he didn't measure oxygen ingress anywhere. I am 99% certain that whatever differences may have existed in the DO levels between the beers in the fermenter were completely trumped by oxygen trapped in the keg headspace when he racked. Of course, he didn't measure the dissolved oxygen in the beer pre-racking, he didn't measure how much headspace there was in the kegs or how well they were purged, and he didn't measure DO levels in the kegged beer which would tell him how much oxygen he actually picked up just from racking. How can he compare oxygen uptake in a plastic vs. glass fermenter if he's going to butcher the whole experiment by massively oxidizing BOTH batches when racking to kegs? A single shotglass worth of air trapped in the keg contains enough oxygen to raise the DO level of the entire batch by 0.22 ppm (commercial standards are below 0.1 ppm). It is EXTREMELY difficult to purge bottles or kegs that well, and at the commercial scale bottles are often vacuum purged 2 to 3 times before filling in order to hit this DO target. These are the kind of experimental flaws that a real peer review process reveals, and papers flawed to that degree are usually rejected from publication. But because he calculated some p-values and posted some data it appears to be "science-y" enough for laypeople with no actual scientific training to accept it. "Sloppy citizen science" experiments ruined by poor process control are the real pseudo science, not the pdf we published. We never claimed to be doing original research, and we justified the most critical aspects of our process with citations to textbooks containing references to real peer reviewed publications. What we posted amounts to a recipe and some process suggestions. We didn't include triangle tests because we wanted people to actually try it for themselves, instead of just taking our word for it.

If you want the discourse in the homebrew community to be driven by hard science, that's fine. Just realize that the standards are going to have to be far higher than they currently are for all of the triangle testing to mean anything at all. At that point, we might as well all start submitting to JASBC.

If that sounds like too much, then consider relying on your own experience and your own tastebuds. Give yourself triangle tests - that's a great way to prove to yourself that process or ingredient differences on your system are meaningful to your palette, as long as you fully understand where you did and didn't sufficiently control your process. But please don't accept anything that any random person posts on the Internet as gospel just because they included some data. You don't know how well their process was controlled, you don't know how well the palettes of the tasters on the panel match your own, and you don't know if the data was just completely made up (I'm not specifically accusing anyone of making up data. But as triangle testing catches on more widely it is bound to become a concern).

 

[The_Bishop]

You cannot 'triangle test' yourself. You know what the testing parameters are, and are subject to confirmation bias.

Also, nice inclusion of a slap towards Brulosopher. You are not understanding the point of his experimentation, which is to see if there was a discernable difference *to tasters* in the finished product fermented in two different vessels, not a direct measurement of DO in the final product. The fact that it's not 'peer reviewed' by PhD wielding brewing scientists does not take anything away from the results. In fact, Brulosopher states many times on his site that these are simple tests to test specific parameters and not to be held as some sort of game changer for brewing.

I'd also like to point out that while your information is interesting, beer (and other fermentable beverages) have been made for long before there were DO meters, or many of the other items we have access to today. I believe that you are getting a bit hung up on minutiae, in a search for 'perfection' in eliminating O2 in the process prior to boiling. The problem with that is what may be perfect to you may not be to someone else, and the parameter you are trying to change may not translate into an improvement all the way out in the finished product.

In regard to: "But please don't accept anything that any random person posts on the Internet as gospel just because they included some data. You don't know how well their process was controlled, you don't know how well the palettes of the tasters on the panel match your own, and you don't know if the data was just completely made up."

Yet here you are, asking everyone to do that very thing with your 'paper'. In fact, some folks have poked holes in your process. You have provided no 'peer review.' You've provided no evidence that your process produces a better final product than what thousands of brewers have done before. Your test mash 'experiment' doesn't only alter *one* variable. You are altering the mineral profile and the chemical makeup of the mash water, which could have other ramifications in the mashing process which could be causing some of the results you claim, not the 'oxygen scrubbing' of the sodium metabisulfite. A difference in wort may not translate to a discernable difference in the finished beer.

Nobody has asked for 'hard science.' This is beer, it's as much 'art' as it is 'science.'

I'm all for advancing knowledge in *any* field. I think your interpretation of the information you picked up from the Kunze book is worthy of consideration, and will result in me trying to find ways to minimize O2 ingress pre-ferment, but I don't think I'll be taking at as far as some of the advocates on the german brewing site have.

The claims that 'All other beers are garbage' in comparison strikes me as very, very far-fetched, bordering on hyperbole. (link)

I also take issue with following statement from your paper: "Simply put, you cannot make a proper Helles without employing a low oxygen brewing process."

I'm pretty sure that way back in 1894 when Spaten Brewery in Munich first brewed the beer, they didn't use your LODO process. If you want to be completely pedantic about it, your take on the beer is not 'to style.'

 

[rabeb25]

Until you try the mini-mash, full batch or read the references.. You have as much hearsay as the next. I pointed you to the "science" and you chose to have an excuse of why not to read it(which is perfectly fine mind you)... So thereby to me you don't have a horse in this race IMO. If you read the books, and/or performed a proper assessment I would certainly entertain whatever you had to say.

I agree on the triple blind, stand on your head close one eye while spinning water torture tests.. they are truly pointless in this case. It's so black and white, I refuse to waste my time even entertaining it.

Oh, and you are wrong on the Helles comment. In the late 60-70's they discovered o2 and its detrimental effects, and they did major brewery overhauls because if it. That is where Narziss and Kunze arose from. SO, the style changed after the brewery changes were made. Today's beer is much different than late 1800's beer(pre 70's beer in Germany), in all parts of the world... Thanks modern science.

 

[catsnbeer]

Isn't this debate exactly how the scientific process works ... as pseudo-y as energetic banter via a homebrew forum might be?

-Techbrau and his crew brewed up some beer using a method based on a concept/theory/idea/something they read etc, documented their process, and said hey we think this beer is really great, lets tell the homebrew community about this method and see what others experiences are.

-They then share their process/ideas/observations with the homebrew community, who then points out flaws in there study, suggests changes, pokes hole etc. Gradually people will become interested, try it for themselves, and continue the debate/sharing of information and/or observations if the process is a significant advancement to this crazy hobby. If it is not, then this method will likely fizzle away.

I think this dialogue is great so long as it stays on the subject matter.

Galileo spent the last 10 years of his life on house arrest because he pissed the church off so much by endorsing the idea the earth revolved around the sun.

 

[Bilsch]

I guess, being the geeky science type I am I would especially as part of the joy of brewing for me is sharing what I hope is the best beer I can make with others.

I think that is the exact reason the GBF paper was posted. Don’t we all primarily come here to get tips, tricks and learn better brewing processes and also share those we have discovered with other beer geeks? I just don’t see why so many are paralyzed to inaction, some even working hard to persuade others to apathy, because the proper peer review wasn’t competed. The papers authors aren’t advocating attempting amateur brain surgery on your children. There really isn’t anything to lose by trying a mini mash test.

While I am now a member of the GBF forum, I wasn’t around when they were working on the LODO process and perfecting their work around. For me personally the revelation that HSO was in fact a thing I should be worried about had a huge impact on the quality of my beer. I feel a certain amount of evangelism on this topic because of how much of an improvement it made. And I wonder how many others out there are fighting a similar battle and could also benefit from adopting some or all of these processes. There are certainly other brewers in this country, both professional and hobbyist, who already know what a positive impact reducing oxidation of the mash has on the final product but choose to keep it mum. The members at GBF could have gone that route and kept it as an advantage, instead they elected to share. I would like to take the opportunity to formally thank the old guard at the GBF for sharing their findings which have helped me so much.

 

[mabrungard]

Don’t we all primarily come here to get tips, tricks and learn better brewing processes and also share those we have discovered with other beer geeks? I just don’t see why so many are paralyzed to inaction, some even working hard to persuade others to apathy, because the proper peer review wasn’t competed. The papers authors aren’t advocating attempting amateur brain surgery on your children. There really isn’t anything to lose by trying a mini mash test.

Agree! Another important point is that LoDO offers the opportunity to produce a different beer character and quality. Please notice that I didn't say that it was necessarily 'better'. We know that we can make pretty good beers without LoDO, but I concede that we might find that the methods might make beers better in some ways. I think this is worth exploring.

 

[rabeb25]

We know that we can make pretty good beers without LoDO, but I concede that we might find that the methods might make beers better in some ways. I think this is worth exploring.

Everyone we brought in to try the "system" said they same thing about making great beer already. The next day they were dumping all the beer they had to make room. These were not shoddy brewers, these were the best of the best. So when you say that I say back to you

Your revelation will come soon

 

[catsnbeer]

@Bilsch I am interested in trying this method out - can you describe your current process? I have read the document, just am curious to hear how others are implementing.

 

[rabeb25]

@Bilsch I am interested in trying this method out - can you describe your current process? I have read the document, just am curious to hear how others are implementing.

http://forum.germanbrewing.net/index.php
under equipment, there are examples of low O2 setups.

 

[Bilsch]

@Bilsch I am interested in trying this method out - can you describe your current process? I have read the document, just am curious to hear how others are implementing.

I’m not the best one to ask about the finer details of this process as I’m relatively new to LoDO and still learning. I did model my system after pictures of some I saw on the GBF forum and asked lots of questions. Everyone there was very helpful and eager to help with my rebuild. I had a lot to change going from a modified BIAB using two kettles and splashy ladled transfers, to a manually controlled direct fire recirculated setup. I did use the same kettles but had to buy a pump, hoses, assorted fittings, false bottom and a stainless immersion chiller. I guess it probably cost me about $425 all told to get changed over but I’m sure it could be done for way less if one was crafty. Those who already use RIMS, HERMS or have a pump and a couple kettles are probably already 80% of the way there.

My old mashing system, if you could call it that, seems to have been designed to get just as much oxygen dissolved into the wort as possible and the beers from it were a study in what the Germans call malt bitterness. And that’s a pretty apt description of the off flavor in my opinion. There is a lot said about oxidation causing cardboard flavors but never really got that. Instead just a lingering bitterness on the back of the tongue something like tannins or a dull hop bitterness but not pleasant. You can definitely mask this taste pretty effectively with the use of lots of roasty grains, big doses of hops or other flavorings, spices etc. But being a fan of lighter malty beers made that not really an option for me. I chased this off taste for years making a myriad of changes but nothing really helped until LoDO. Interestingly I used to be a big fan of decoction but in retrospect that was probably making the problem even worse. At least the way I did them, with lots of ladling, pouring, stirring etc. I even had a drill mounted paint type stirrer that whipped up a pretty good froth while heating the decoctions. It’s amusing to think of the many past cruel abuses that beer has suffered in my brewery.

 

[germanbrewing]

Isn't this debate exactly how the scientific process works ... as pseudo-y as energetic banter via a homebrew forum might be?

-Techbrau and his crew brewed up some beer using a method based on a concept/theory/idea/something they read etc, documented their process, and said hey we think this beer is really great, lets tell the homebrew community about this method and see what others experiences are.

-They then share their process/ideas/observations with the homebrew community, who then points out flaws in there study, suggests changes, pokes hole etc. Gradually people will become interested, try it for themselves, and continue the debate/sharing of information and/or observations if the process is a significant advancement to this crazy hobby. If it is not, then this method will likely fizzle away.

I think this dialogue is great so long as it stays on the subject matter.

Galileo spent the last 10 years of his life on house arrest because he pissed the church off so much by endorsing the idea the earth revolved around the sun.

Absolutely! It's fun to watch all of this discussion. Really...the goal here is to reproduce some great German beer. I've been comparing beers tonight...all low oxygen, various process variants as I've been working on improving controls on my system. Crazy flavors across the board, it's interesting to tweak the levers and see what happens. This is nothing new to the world of brewing. Every detail matters To techbrau's point, if you are comparing oxidized wort, downstream not much matters relatively at that point, the flavor has been spent. We've been trying to preserve flavor along the process, given a dramatic change noticed during mash. Call it a dig at Brulosopher, but if an upstream process decision makes all downstream changes irrelevant, then what is the point of the experiment?

Someone said: "The fact that it's not 'peer reviewed' by PhD wielding brewing scientists does not take anything away from the results. In fact, Brulosopher states many times on his site that these are simple tests to test specific parameters and not to be held as some sort of game changer for brewing."

The concern I have with this is that while Marshall adamantly states this on every post (it is a funny anecdotal jibe at the whole process), the Brulosopher 'brand' now stands for much more than that... branding is powerful, especially in the U.S. And I see references to these 'simple' tests all over the place, quoted as valid references and exactly as game changers.

I get it, that's cool...we need guidance as we get going. But there's a point at which that information does become limiting. And that's Tech and Rabe's point. I've brewed just about every way there is to brew, various yeast strains, countless grain bills, etc, to reproduce my favorite German beers. I hear time after time about this or that making a great lager. But never 'triple blind' compared to commercial examples. That's what matters. Not crappy homebrew A to crappy homebrew B, but MY beer to MY favorite German equivalent. Am I getting closer? What do I want to do to mine to tweak it from the commercial example?

"Galileo spent the last 10 years of his life on house arrest because he pissed the church off so much by endorsing the idea the earth revolved around the sun." - I can't tell you how many times we discussed this very analogy before deciding to put the low oxygen brewing information out there.

Let me pose a different question. To clone Ayinger Jahrhundert, which, frankly is one of the main reasons (Augustiner, WO, take your pick) anyone is paying attention to this thread, how do YOU do it?

Instead of bantering about this or that process, let's move the ball forward. I just want my favorite beers.

Prost!

 

[germanbrewing]

I understand the science behind that but on the other hand, with all due respect, no one can decide what I like better then I can. In 31 years of brewing many many things have been tried in an effort to improve my brewing process. Some had a positive effect, some just the opposite. Regardless where I read about about any new and improved process, they are subject to scrutiny until it passes the taste test. Sadly though few new methods actually work as advertised. However if they do improve the process then it's adopted, if not move on.

So it seems, for those who have not tried LODO, there are two paths forward.
1) Try it for yourself or
2) Wait until someone else does it, has it properly judged and then recommends to you what you should do.

Agreed. I mean, come on. I am my own worst critic. I've won awards and high scores blah blah blah at BJCP events for beers that I knew were crap and no where close to German examples. "Tastes like I'm in Munich"....honestly? Enough already. I totally get the purpose and value of triple blind tastings, but let's get these beers into the ballpark first before we go there. Everyone...EVERYONE I've met on the GB forum and worked on this with has been far far more critical of their own beers. Let's get the eye back on the ball and towards further improving our beers. Low O2 during mash and throughout the process gets rid of that nasty stale malt taste (you know what I mean). There's a ton more work to do to dial the beers in.