Interesting German Brewing PDF

[KeyWestBrewing]

Premash. Im BIAB so I would treat all my water with the yeast/sugar combo, wait the appropriate time (20 minutes or 15 hours...either amount of time seems like low DO levels). This would eliminate the boiling then chilling step. Add your smb and brewtan, then mash in.

This is the way I am reading it anyway.

Sounds simple enough. My LHBC is supposed to have a club brew coming up I might do a side by side adding in this step and compare differences over time.

 

[TexasWine]

Not sure if y'all have seen this MoreBeer article, but it touches on a few of these Low DO items.

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/oxidation_in_beer

Of particular note....

"DO meters are not suitable for measuring HSA, since on the hot side dissolved oxygen will react with wort constituents before it can be measured. The classical Indicator Time Test (ITT) is a good way to measure oxidation caused by HSA."

"A particularly elegant “fix-up” can be seen in the pilot brewery at Coors in Golden, Colorado. The once 100% copper brew kettle now has a stainless steel tube leading from the original kettle inlet at the top of this vessel to its bottom. What was once a splashing flow was replaced with a gentle laminar fill. I do not know how much the modification cost, but it clearly is a minute fraction of the price of the kettle."

 

[Magnus314]

If the paper must be followed strictly, here's a list of what it would take to do this "by the book", starting with my 3V or BIAB systems (either one):

Hot side-

SS wort chiller - ~ $70 if you get the cheap one from Amazon
SMB $5

(swapping out ALL brass ball valves, fittings, etc... testing and changing/replacing any tiny leaks in your pumps, etc. - $0 assuming everything just happens to be already perfect)

(DO meter - $225, but I'll leave that out for now)

Hot side test cost: $80 (to about $350 of you get a cheap meter and need to switch to stainless)

Cold side:
copper chiller (to use as pre-chiller to get wort down to 46F pre-pitch) - $0 because i already have one, and i think lots of others do, too

connectors, tubing, etc. to hack the two chillers together- $20 or so

aquarium pump (or any cheap pump) to recirc through the ice bath - $30

10-20 lbs ice per brew day - assume $0 and you saved it up

Spunden valves (2 minimum, 4 or more if they have to stay on the kegs through a long lagering period) - $60 assuming 2; $30 assuming 1 just to test

Extra kegs (because each batch now requires a 4-6 week lagering period, so 5-8 weeks per batch instead much faster turnaround times) - assume $0 and you have tons of extra kegs already, or you're only looking or the cost to try it once and are willing to wait 6 weeks to see if it worked first

Fermentation chamber or glycol cooler and temp controller to maintain 41F ferment temps and step down one degree at a time (no swamp coolers or stashing it in your serving keezer) - $200 - $1,000 or more, let's assume $200 because you hacked it together all yourself.

Extra CO2 tank + regulator and connections to purge kegs, lines, transfer, etc. - $100 on the cheap side

99.99% pure CO2 for serving (so you don't lose the mojo in a week) - don't even know, have no idea where to even get this...

Then, cut all your dip tubes, cut down your gas in connectors, and make all transfers under gas.

Cold side: $380+ depending on what you have already


Now, on the other hand, if the copper chiller WAS NOT a deal killer, and If I COULD pitch warmer (than 46F) and drop it to ferment temps after it's in the fermenters, SMB is $5 and pre-boiling is no big deal.

If ferment temps were only a guideline, and it didn't blow off all the malt flavors at 50F, and if I could rack it from the fermenter to the keg with 2% or so left to go to, and stick it in my kegerator to finish and condition, while checking it with my existing regulator and just pulling the relief if it gets too carbed, the Cold Side test would be basically $0.

But when some people tried to do it like this without dropping serious coin, they got railed against, and now the constant refrain is "just try it".

 

[jddevinn]

Not sure if y'all have seen this MoreBeer article, but it touches on a few of these Low DO items.

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/oxidation_in_beer

Of particular note....

"DO meters are not suitable for measuring HSA, since on the hot side dissolved oxygen will react with wort constituents before it can be measured. The classical Indicator Time Test (ITT) is a good way to measure oxidation caused by HSA."

"A particularly elegant “fix-up” can be seen in the pilot brewery at Coors in Golden, Colorado. The once 100% copper brew kettle now has a stainless steel tube leading from the original kettle inlet at the top of this vessel to its bottom. What was once a splashing flow was replaced with a gentle laminar fill. I do not know how much the modification cost, but it clearly is a minute fraction of the price of the kettle."

Good point. The paper here and many brewing text point out how fast the reaction of oxygen with the other components are, once the interaction takes place the O2 will no longer be present to measure.

However, I think for the HSA process the meter can be used to determine where oxygen uptake occurs. 0.1ppm at HLT and transfer to grain and now at 3ppm then there is a oxygen ingress happening somewhere in the process!

I've thought about this with cold side too. IF i manage to find a cheap used meter that can read in the .1ppm range I would have to keg the beer and almost immediately push some out to measure O2, wait a couple days and it has already reacted.

 

[TheHairyHop]

One thing of interest is an experiment in the German Brewing forum using dry yeast and DME to deplete oxygen levels in the premash water (8 gallons). The DO levels were comparable to boiling and chilling to mash temps. Which makes sense since Yeast devours oxygen. The O levels were @0.47 ppm after 20 minutes and 0.18 ppm after 15 hours.

13 grams of yeast and 13 grams of DME (he later uses 6 grams Dextrose) were used. The yeast would just die off at high temps and become nutrient, and the sugar increase in minimal. One could do this to save time, then hit it with the SMB to keep O2 from re-entering and Brewtan B to keep the oxidation process to a minimum.

oh wow, this is very interesting. I guess I'd be wondering about oxygen uptake while heating the strike water. SMB?

 

[Iseneye]

So since your not able to test yet there's a chance your LODO beers aren't actually passing the LODO standards and your still noticing a positive difference right? If true then it would suggest people don't have to go whole hog and score 100% to get some noticeable benefits. If its all or nothing then its pointless to half ass any part of it and it shouldn't be done at all if you can't do it completely right. But if its not, this stands to help a lot more people that can't afford to go all in by implementing what they can into their process knowing they'll get something out of it.

Yes, I do not know if I am passing the LODO standards. I am currently relying on the testing / methodology that the German Brewing forum outlined but adapted for ales. I believe that I am benefiting from both hot side and cold side adaptions from the methodology and I don't know which side is the biggest impact. Hot side I can tell there is an effect due to the sweet tasting, light wort. Cold side I am expecting good stability because of the closed fermentation.

To determine if any steps can be removed it would involve changing parameters on multiple batches. I believe the German Forum guys have effectively done this and I am not keen to do the work.

With respect to the dry hopping question from another poster I am a massive fan of cold keg hopping but I can't do this with the LODO method. Other posters have mentioned hopping in the primary as fermentation slows down but for ales I am transferring from the primary keg to secondary keg within 4 days and I assume a lot of hop aroma is lost doing this. I ferment in a larger keg and hook the primary in post to the secondary out post. A spunding valve is then put on the secondary keg which effectively turns the secondary keg into a giant airlock. This is purged of 02 during primary fermentation. I'm not confident that the 02 is reduced to zero with this technique. Anyway, I put a bag of hops in the secondary prior to fermentation starting. My concerns are that the hops are sitting in an 02 environment until the secondary is purged and the escaping primary C02 scrubbing hop aroma. Initial results on my young brown ale are positive but too early to say. I have left the hop bag in the secondary keg.

 

[techbrau]

As long as you are racking with fermentable extract and active yeast, you are fine. The secondary doesn't have to be completely purged before spunding so you can go ahead and add the dry hops when you rack. Just make sure to leave as little airspace as possible (fill the secondary vessel to the brim if you can).

 

[Iseneye]

As long as you are racking with fermentable extract and active yeast, you are fine. The secondary doesn't have to be completely purged before spunding so you can go ahead and add the dry hops when you rack. Just make sure to leave as little airspace as possible (fill the secondary vessel to the brim if you can).

Hmmm...interesting. The method states to purge the keg with SMB dosed water which results in very little CO2 in the receiving vessel. I assume the method is cover all bases / be extra safe so this minor shortcut may help me with dry hopping.

Thanks.

 

[TheHairyHop]

Yea, I believe that approach is contradictory to the recommendations of the PDF, but I didn't quite understand the PDF approach anyway. And if that yeast /dme method for reducing DO in the strike water is to be believed, I would infer that there shouldn't be much to worry about. Maybe adding a bit of dme solution to the dry hop keg would be beneficial?

 

[TexasWine]

The main problem I've had implementing this process is transferring to the keg with a few gravity points left. I simply don't have time to fool around with racking beer mid week. With that in mind, I started thinking about what drives the need to rack to the keg while the beer still fermenting. It seems to be driven by the fact that there is inevitably a little air, with oxygen, left in the keg even after purging with CO2. This is a consequence of the Cornelius keg design.

So after cogitating on this for a while I figured if I could get all the air out of the keg I wouldn't need to transfer while the beer still fermenting. That's when I stumbled upon this.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/morebeer-ball-lock-keg-rinser.html

I put Star San in the keg, close the lid, open relief valve, connect this contraption, fill with water until it comes out of the relief valve, then close the relief valve. At that point I disconnect the quick disconnect on the gas side but leave the liquid quick disconnect connected. I then lean the keg over so that the gas post, which has a shortened tube, is at the high point. I shake it a few times to make sure all the air bubbles travel to the high point. Then I press in the gas side poppet with something like a screwdriver. All the remaining air is vented from the gas in.

In doing this I believe I have been able to eliminate all air pockets from the keg, therefore also eliminating the need to transfer to the keg while the beer still fermenting. I don't have a dissolved oxygen meter so I have not been able to verify if I am picking up any oxygen and doing this. I believe it is working though.

 

[Iseneye]

I think the racking before full attenuation is for two reasons. One is for 02 protection as you mentioned and the other is to naturally carbonate in the keg. I've found having to rack midweek a bit tricky as well. On one I did it at about the right time but the second one I did too early and had a lot of activity in the secondary which entered the spunding valve.

 

[schematix]

Those who have carbonated in the keg before, what do you think is the possible range of gravities to rack at? I've seen 6 gravity points stated as ideal, but as others have pointed out, timing that dead on while also living life is tricky.

E.g. if i see its 10 points above FG what is the consequence of racking early? What about 20 points?

 

[techbrau]

Part of the beauty of the cold traditional lager fermentation is that you have a window of several days in which you can rack. I try to rack with 3-4 gravity points left but by the time the beer is this far fermented, it is dropping a fraction of a point per day. It can take another 2 weeks or so to hit FG after racking.

 

[Iseneye]

Those who have carbonated in the keg before, what do you think is the possible range of gravities to rack at? I've seen 6 gravity points stated as ideal, but as others have pointed out, timing that dead on while also living life is tricky.

E.g. if i see its 10 points above FG what is the consequence of racking early? What about 20 points?

I can't give a number but we are racking to a keg with next to no head space for fermentation. In my case because it was an ale I still had vigorous fermentation which blocked the spunding valve. I think I did one at 6 points successfully and one at 8 points unsuccessfully. Had to disconnect spunding valve and clean the yeast out from it. Both WLP001.

As Techbrau said it is more of an issue with ales where the approach to final gravity is done within 3-5 days.

 

[schematix]

Is racking with 8-12 points left to go safe to do?

Sometimes i'll only get a window once a week to rack. if i'm close i'd rather rack a few points higher than totally miss it.

 

[schematix]

I'm fermenting and serving in 5G (bottom) kegs so head space isn't an issue. I did a 13.5G batch of the Helles this past weekend so i've got about 4.5G in the kegs. So far no issues with head space.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1468460298.389769.jpg

Receiving kegs (top) were water purged, although they still have their original dip tubes for now.

 

[Iseneye]

Nice setup Mine isn't as pretty as yours...

 

[Iseneye]

I read a thread on probrewer.com regarding cold side post fermentation DO. One brewer stated 30PPB is not detrimental for most beers. That's 0.03ppm if my head maths is correct which is extraordinarily low.

http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?26775-Dissolved-Oxygen-levels-chart

 

[mabrungard]

Many low range DO meters can only report down to 0.4 ppm, so I'm not surprised that the indication is for less than 0.3 to be good. I'm sure that it is all relative, even lower oxygen is better but 0.3 ppm might be good enough.

 

[TexasWine]

I think the racking before full attenuation is for two reasons. One is for 02 protection as you mentioned and the other is to naturally carbonate in the keg. I've found having to rack midweek a bit tricky as well. On one I did it at about the right time but the second one I did too early and had a lot of activity in the secondary which entered the spunding valve.

I view naturally carbonating in the keg to be a consequence of racking before full attenuation, not a reason to do it. You can carbonate just fine with CO2 from the canister with no more O2 uptake than if you carbonated with remaining extract and simply use the canister for dispensing.

I've had the same issue with the spunding valve because I overfilled my keg. I had bubbles spurting out. Thankfully I had my relief valve pointing down and my gauge pointing up.

 

[jddevinn]

I view naturally carbonating in the keg to be a consequence of racking before full attenuation, not a reason to do it. You can carbonate just fine with CO2 from the canister with no more O2 uptake than if you carbonated with remaining extract and simply use the canister for dispensing.

I've had the same issue with the spunding valve because I overfilled my keg. I had bubbles spurting out. Thankfully I had my relief valve pointing down and my gauge pointing up.

I've had people on the German brewing forum say they don't want to force carb due to the 99% purity rating of the beverage grade CO2, with 1% air there is enough to put the O2 levels above target.

 

[schematix]

I view naturally carbonating in the keg to be a consequence of racking before full attenuation, not a reason to do it. You can carbonate just fine with CO2 from the canister with no more O2 uptake than if you carbonated with remaining extract and simply use the canister for dispensing.

I've had the same issue with the spunding valve because I overfilled my keg. I had bubbles spurting out. Thankfully I had my relief valve pointing down and my gauge pointing up.

It has already been noted that the main reason for carbonating naturally is to scrub the oxygen picked up during transfer. It is absolutely not a consequence.

One solution to your spunding problem is to install an empty filter housing between your keg and spunding valve.

 

[wobdee]

I've had people on the German brewing forum say they don't want to force carb due to the 99% purity rating of the beverage grade CO2, with 1% air there is enough to put the O2 levels above target.

I've heard that as well but can't find any info on exactly what that 1% is. It may not be all oxygen, may have nitrogen or other things? The place where I buy my Co2 Praxair was not very helpful on that question.

I've been force carbing along with 10mg/l smb and my little 2.5 gal kegs seem to be staying fresh til they kick in 2-3 weeks. I still want to try spunding in the future.

 

[TexasWine]

It has already been noted that the main reason for carbonating naturally is to scrub the oxygen picked up during transfer. It is absolutely not a consequence.

One solution to your spunding problem is to install an empty filter housing between your keg and spunding valve.

I view naturally carbonating in the keg to be a consequence of racking before full attenuation, not a reason to do it.

Hmmm... I think you might be smashing up two separate things there. Scrubbing the oxygen is one thing and is completely separate from carbonation, which is a nice side affect of using CO2 to scrub the oxygen.

If I could scrub oxygen by having a unicorn fart on my beer, the reason for doing it would still be to scrub the O2. The pleasant consequence would be having be rainbow colored beer in my glass.

EDIT: Forgot to mention... If one could say there is zero oxygen picked up when transferred to the serving keg, then there would be no need to transfer before complete attenuation.

 

[TexasWine]

I've had people on the German brewing forum say they don't want to force carb due to the 99% purity rating of the beverage grade CO2, with 1% air there is enough to put the O2 levels above target.

The folks on the German brewing forum are bright, so I'm surprised that they would suggest something like this.

Natural carbonation with yeast followed by dispensing with a CO2 canister will result in the same amount of dissolved oxygen as force carbonation and dispensing with the same canister, assuming you're using the same purity CO2 in both scenarios.

The amount of O2 picked up by your beer is not determined by the carbonation method. It is determined by the concentration of O2 in whatever environment your beer is in. In this case, how much O2 is in your CO2 canister.

 

[jddevinn]

The folks on the German brewing forum are bright, so I'm surprised that they would suggest something like this.

Natural carbonation with yeast followed by dispensing with a CO2 canister will result in the same amount of dissolved oxygen as force carbonation and dispensing with the same canister, assuming you're using the same purity CO2 in both scenarios.

The amount of O2 picked up by your beer is not determined by the carbonation method. It is determined by the concentration of O2 in whatever environment your beer is in. In this case, how much O2 is in your CO2 canister.

I think it is a bit extreme, but I have one keg from a batch or two naturally carbing now to see if I can tell a difference. I didn't rack before fermentation was done like they suggest. I dry hopped, cold crashed, purged a keg, poured priming sugar dissolved in some deaerated water in through the PRV then purged several times at high pressure, then racked normally.

If the beer is already carbed up the only CO2 that will come out of the canister into the keg is what is needed to push the beer. This is a much smaller volume of CO2 (+ "up to" 1% whatever) that is moved on top of the beer than would be if force carbed.

I've been told that the manufacture of CO2 is so cheap nowadays that the medical, lab and food all come from the same source... so we are getting better than 99% purity.

 

[schematix]

Hmmm... I think you might be smashing up two separate things there. Scrubbing the oxygen is one thing and is completely separate from carbonation, which is a nice side affect of using CO2 to scrub the oxygen.

If I could scrub oxygen by having a unicorn fart on my beer, the reason for doing it would still be to scrub the O2. The pleasant consequence would be having be rainbow colored beer in my glass.

EDIT: Forgot to mention... If one could say there is zero oxygen picked up when transferred to the serving keg, then there would be no need to transfer before complete attenuation.

It's not the CO2 that scrubs the O2, it's the yeast that scrub the O2. So you're sort of right in that yes, the natural carbonation is a side effect of transferring during active fermentation. It is done to reduce the O2, and will give you natural carbonation

However, the other point is that canister CO2, even at 99.9% purity, is still too impure to keep below the O2 thresholds that cause staling.

Thus you solve both problems by racking while active, and carbonating naturally.

 

[rabeb25]

You all need to pick up a copy of Kunze and go to 565 and then look at the chart showing oxygen pickup at bottling(or kegging in our case). Even double vacuum and double purge, does not get all oxygen out. Sorry to bust everyones bubble, but if you are not racking with extract left, and you are not allowing for natural carb. You ARE oxidizing your beer. Honestly its truly that simple. No homebrewer can properly purge a keg to allow for a post fermentation transfer with no oxygen pickup, I'm sorry.

 

[Magnus314]

So is the standard operating procedure for Ales then to rack just before final gravity - 4-6 points early - and let it finish and carbonate in the keg at ale temps?

And if it's lower than 4-6 points, maybe prime it a bit to make sure there's enough extract to carb it?

There was talk earlier in this thread of someone loving their "LODO" style ales, but i don't see any guidelines for that anywhere...

 

[jddevinn]

You all need to pick up a copy of Kunze and go to 565 and then look at the chart showing oxygen pickup at bottling(or kegging in our case). Even double vacuum and double purge, does not get all oxygen out. Sorry to bust everyones bubble, but if you are not racking with extract left, and you are not allowing for natural carb. You ARE oxidizing your beer. Honestly its truly that simple. No homebrewer can properly purge a keg to allow for a post fermentation transfer with no oxygen pickup, I'm sorry.

Now it's just a race to see which of us idiots builds a steam and vacuum keg purging system.




.......:fro: