I try and avoid threads where people argue about LODO, but I have 30 mins left on my boil timer and nothing left to clean or sanitize, so here goes...
On the contention: I think this arises when people in the LODO and non-LODO camps make the following assertions:
- You can get the "German taste" if and only if you follow LODO practices.
- LODO is bunk and does nothing to enhance the taste of German-style lagers.
Personally, I disagree with both of these statements. But as
@dmtaylor correctly points out, I am an idiot, so read the rest of this post in that context.
I don't think anyone disputes that oxygen is the enemy of beer. You can't go four episodes of the MBAA podcast or the Craft Beer and Brewing podcast without someone bringing up dissolved oxygen (DO) levels, or total packaged oxygen (TPO) levels. Oxygen causes stalling compounds that deteriorate the flavor of beers from Hofbräu Original to Pliny the Elder. Good commercial brewers obsess over their TPO and try and get it as low as possible. I hope that everyone agrees that keeping oxygen out of beer is good for the taste and flavor stability (two different things!), although I'm sure there are some people who like the notes that oxidations brings to their beer. That's fine too.
As some have pointed out, if you want to really try and replicate the taste of the beers from the big Munich breweries, as you drink in Munich, then keeping oxygen levels as low as possible from grain milling to packaging really is important. But the taste of Augustiner or Hofbräu Hell as drunk in Munich is not the same as the taste as the bottle that I get in Wegmans in New York. Why? Degradation of the beer on the boat due to time, temperature, and oxygen. Even Hofbräu can't make a beer with low enough TPO to save that super-fresh brewery flavor. Personally, I think that my home-brewed helles is better than the commercial German beer that I get in the supermarket, not because I'm a better brewer than the people at Spaten who've been to the VLB or TUM, but because my beer is fresher and on draft (from a side-pull tap into proper German glassware from Spiegel, but that's another story). Is their beer as served in Munich better than mine? You bet it is! (See avatar.)
I think what the LODO people are after is the lowest TPO that they can get, to try and replicate what the big commercial German breweries do. Do I think that it makes their beer better (as judged by approaching Hofbrau in Munich), I think it very likely does. But what all the LODO folks I've seen have is
attention to process and detail. (As a home-brew gear head, I envy Bryan Rabe's kit) I claim that's the 95% of getting to that "German flavor" is attention to detail and process, and that LODO might be the last 5% that gets you (almost, but not quite) to helles in Munich. However, there are people who swear that you can't get that "German flavor" without a decoction mash and decoction seems to be contrary to the home-brew LODO principles that I've seen, so there's clearly some disagreement there as well.
Here's my tips for trying to make a helles beer that has that bready, German flavor. Maybe not the one of Augustiner, but certainly the one of some of the smaller breweries in Franconia or Bavaria that, to me, often have a more interesting taste than some of the bigger breweries.
Ingredients
As many have said, the process starts with the right ingredients. Get the finest German Pilsner malt that you can find. Weyermann Barke Pils is a favorite of mine. I also made a fantastic beer from Cargill German Pilsner from Northern Brewer a few years back. Check your malt bill! Make sure you have a low-protein malt. Think about Weyermann acidulated malt for pH and maybe a dose of Weyermann Vienna for color and flavor. Make sure you have the freshest noble hops you can get: I like German Perle for bittering at 60 mins and Hallertauer Mittelfrueh for aroma at 15 mins. Check the lot code on the bags when you buy from your LHBS and make sure you get the freshest ones they have. Water is really important. I'm lucky that Skaneateles Lake water is fantastic year round and just needs some MgSO4 and CaCl to get the sulphate to chloride ration around 0.8, but you may need RO if your water is not as good. Read and learn about water profiles.
Yeast
I like 34/70 for my some of my lagers, but for a proper German-style helles I think you have to use a good liquid yeast. My LHBS is a Wyeast shop, so I use 2308 Munich and 2206 Bavarian. Make a big starter. I prop up the pack in 1600 ml of 1.036 wort, decant, and then step up with 3 l of 1.036 wort in a 4000 ml conical.
Mash and Sparge
Flavor is more important than efficiency, so I deliberately dial-down my brew-house efficient in Beersmith to give me head room at all stages of the process. I'd rather have to dilute wort that's too high a gravity with water from my HLT than have tannins in my runoff. Get your pH right (ignore the home-brew stuff that says 5.2 and aim lower at 5 or even 4.8). Monitor your mash temperatures precisely. I use a three-vessel eHERMS system which gives me great control for step mashes. I also have a separate digital temperature probe in a thermowell right in the middle of the mash bed. Do a proper multi-step mash (or a decoction). Acidify your sparge water. I fly sparge as it's the best way for me to get control over the runoff pH (and hence reduce tannin extraction). Towards the end of sparge, regularly taste your runoff to watch for polyphenols and check it's gravity. Don't let it go below 3.2 Plato.
Boil and Chill
Keep your boil gentle and don't splash your wort! Get a HopStopper 2.0 or hop spider to keep hop and break material in your kettle. I never use more than 2 oz of T90 pellets for my Helles, usually 1.75 oz (0.75 Perle and 1oz Mitt). Get a plate chiller so you can chill quickly to below 60F, ideally to 43F in one shot. If you can't get there with your ground water at least get to 65F then, chill to 43F in your fermenter before pitching. Get the break material out of your wort so your yeast has crystal-clear wort to work on.
Fermentation and Lagering
Do a forced fermentation test so you know what your FG will be. Temperature control is essential. Get a glycol-cooled unitank with a spunding valve. Ferment cool (let the beer rise from 43F to 48F after pitching and keep it there for 14 days). I'm in two minds about a diacetyl rest. With a good healthy pitch, you shouldn't need it, but I sometimes do one. Once you're a few gravity points away from SG spund to 15 psi. I very slowly cool in the fermenter to 38F and then filter into a keg for lagering at 30F.
