So I made my first attempt at LODO brewing with an IPA I make quite often so I have a reference with this recipe for any taste improvements, etc..
Ironically, the only LODO things I read up on that I needed to do with my brew day that I was NOT already doing was the pre-boil strike/sparge along with the SMB additions and making sure all stirring/recircing on the hot side was done as quietly as possible. Should be easy right? :fro:
It was a brew day of the good/bad/ugly and a bit of opining for next steps attempting this with my system...
This IPA was basically 2-row with some C60 and Munich 10.
The Mash - Was able to boil the needed strike water without issue for 10 mins in the HLT, add the appropriate amount of SMB (and other water additions as per the desired profile) and x-ferred the strike water to the MLT quietly(and with the MT lid ON.
The sparge water was boiled in the HLT next for 10 mins, SMB was added and during the chilling process and then my nephew who is my brew helper accidentally closed both valves on the HERMS (top and bottom) during sparge chill which caused pressure (water being heated rapidly) in the HERMs coil which lead it to shake and pull one of its ends OUT of the compression fitting..BLOW OUT!
Ended up having to (as quietly as possible) x-ferring the sparge water to boil kettle, fix the HERMS coil and as quietly as possible move the water back to the HLT. I probably introduced a bit more Oxygen than I wanted to with this, but it is what it is.
Mash-in - I used a SS bowl and carefully moved the grain from grain bucket into the MT and made sure I stirred very, very lightly, submerging the grains as soon as they hit the water to reduce trapped oxygen. Doing this ensured zero dough balls so there was honestly minimal stirring needed for mash-in.
I put the recirc hose under the water line of mash and left the lid on the MT on the entire time of the mash.
For the mash (I mashed at 151 for 60 with recirc again, with the recirc hose UNDER the water line), I DID notice that the wort was much clearer and brighter with much less "foam" on the surface than I normally see in it. I have pics of all of this that I will eventually post but Photobucket is acting up so that will come later.
Wort was delicious and malty.
On mash out/sparge to kettle, the wort was very clear..much clearer and was probably the clearest wort I have had to date..Again, I have pics, but will post later.
Boiled at the suggested temp for "simmering" for 60mins at 210/211 (easy to do with my system and I do this anyhow to minimize boilovers) and chilled wort to 65deg, xferred to buckets and pitched a pack and a half of S05 during fill up so it gets aerated/mixed in well.
I hit all my numbers from MT to fermenter on both the PH and gravity side so I did not see any lack in efficiency on my system going LODO at all.
Will have to wait and see how this turns out as I normally x-fer to a purged keg using the out-post for reduced splashing/oxygen introduction even when not brewing LODO and I dont have a spunding setup yet (waiting to see if any of this actually matters before spending more money with this honestly) so x-ferring to a fully purged keg will have to do for now.
Brew Day Notes:
I have high hopes for this IPA even with the sparge mishap. I really think the mash did have some significant improvement over previous batches both from a visual and sensory aspect.
I also need to find a better way to chill the sparge water in the HLT..maybe an additional bag of ice with a cooler to continually push cold water through the HERMS might do the trick but will see how this batch turns out before continuing down this road.
Additional improvements to try on my end:
- Figure out/streamline the sparge chilling issue (again a cooler with ice water getting pushed through the herms coil might work here)
- Replace all transfer hoses (planned to do this anyway this year)
- Clean/service pumps, pump connections and pump heads (planned to do this anyway this year)
All in all, this certainly added significant time to the brew day and I have yet to see an end result with this being my first batch, but if the beer is better, I will continue to move toward this path and invest more time/$$ into it.
More to come with my first LODO go as this beer gets closer to being ready.
Bill