That German Lager taste

[Bassman2003]

While lagering and end clarity are very important, I think brewing clean up to fermentation and a full, complete fermentation lessen the need for cold side help. That is what I am focusing on in my brewing. Lagers are easy if the goal is just to make a lager. No different from any ale, just more yeast needed. It is when one wants to make lagers that on the level of the big names that it becomes such a challenge. There is a lot of science and technique behind the scenes of these great beers. The study ends up improving all of your beers in the end.

 

[Bassman2003]

One data point. When I started YOS, every single one of my beers (about 12 batches) had a chill haze problem. When I stopped YOS, the beers went back to brilliant again. Again, one data point, carry on.

That is frustrating. I have gone back and forth between boiling and YOS. I am making a video comparison of four batches right now where there will be a mix of pre-boil, YOS, LODO & HIDO. Maybe this will come up.

One question: When you use the YOS method, do you brew single vessel BIAB or do you lauter to a different boil pot? I ask this because most of the Low Oxygen folks do not brew single vessel. So maybe having the yeast "hang around" through the boil (as stuff falls to the bottom of the pot) has a lasting impact?

One of the frustrating things about low oxygen brewing is that the workarounds do break some things. This requires more things to fix what is broken. One has to accept the need to add some things to the brewing process that are not pure homebrewing. For example: using mash clarifiers like Brewtan B creates the need to add yeast nutrient more than if just malt was used in the brew. Things get stripped out that are best to be replaced. The sulfites need to be expended (neutralized into sulfates) before pitching yeast as yeast and sulfites do not like each other. This requires a lot more oxygen than normal brewing at pitching time.

One more Question: Did you happen to add any sulfites to these brews?

 

[z-bob]

These discussion are always fun. People know that there is something special about German beers but can't put their finger on it. So we get contentious fights about what people supposed "it" is. Probably everybody is right about their favorite part but might be missing the big picture. (me too) I think it's 600 years of trying to work within the silly Purity Law. With just a few ingredients you can work with, you get good at using them out of necessity.

 

[Broothru]

The sulfites need to be expended (neutralized into sulfates) before pitching yeast as yeast and sulfites do not like each other. This requires a lot more oxygen than normal brewing at pitching time.

I use the BTB 'Trifecta' but cut way back on the amount after the issue was brought up by the (now defunct, "Members Only") German Brewing forum. I understand the need to expend the sulfites before pitching yeast, but what's unclear is how to determine when the sulfites have been fully expended so as to not interfere with the yeast propagation in the adaptive phase. I had been pitching first, then oxygenating, as was suggested by the German forum prior to going "radio silent." It makes sense though to deplete the sulfites first (maybe through oxygenation?), then pitch, then re-oxygenate since this methodology would help to insure sulfite depletion and not interfere with yeast adaptation and early propagation. Then by adding additional oxygen after the pitch, the yeast would get and consume all the additional oxygen as well in the first hour or so after pitching yeast, and not oxidize the wort.

 

[Bassman2003]

I oxygenate right before pitching. The only way to really know how long is with a DO meter and measuring the amount of oxygen. If there are any sulfites around the O2 levels will stay low as the sulfites with scavenge. Once the O2 levels rise, one can assume the sulfites have been expended. Clear as mud right? This is a very difficult part of low oxygen brewing. Sulfites in - sulfites remaining prior to pitching and how much O2 to use for healthy yeast. No rule of thumb as everybody's system is different and the amount of sulfites people use is different.

 

[Broothru]

I oxygenate right before pitching. The only way to really know how long is with a DO meter and measuring the amount of oxygen. If there are any sulfites around the O2 levels will stay low as the sulfites with scavenge. Once the O2 levels rise, one can assume the sulfites have been expended. Clear as mud right? This is a very difficult part of low oxygen brewing. Sulfites in - sulfites remaining prior to pitching and how much O2 to use for healthy yeast. No rule of thumb as everybody's system is different and the amount of sulfites people use is different.

Yeah, perfectly clear. Now I need to add a D.O. meter to my Christmas list!

 

[Bassman2003]

I have been loaned one and they are difficult to mess with and trust the readings are correct. What I have been told is to not use the lower priced ones and get an industrial level meter. Which mean upper hundreds of bucks rather than lower... It is tough to say if it is worth it.

 

[tizoc]

One question: When you use the YOS method, do you brew single vessel BIAB or do you lauter to a different boil pot? I ask this because most of the Low Oxygen folks do not brew single vessel. So maybe having the yeast "hang around" through the boil (as stuff falls to the bottom of the pot) has a lasting impact?

In my case, I prepare the water in one kettle, with the yeast in there, then I heat it to strike temperature when ready and get the water into the mash kettle (underlet), so in my case most of the yeast stays in the first kettle. I then get the wort back into the original kettle for boiling. I use SMB and Brewtan B. No clarity issues here.

 

[Bilsch]

Yeah, perfectly clear. Now I need to add a D.O. meter to my Christmas list!

I would say that more than half of the members on the other forum of 'air-free mashers' do not have a DO meters and just simply do it empirically. They have found that a certain flow at a certain temperature for a given time nets them a relatively short lag phase, usually less than three hours before active fermentation is observed. The people with the meters share the data of times and flows to help those without and it seems to work out.

What I would do is increase your standard aeration period by 50% if you are going to use meta. There was a lot of worry initially about over aerating the wort but no one seems to have run into that problem yet. We all use large pitches of healthy yeast so that may have some mitigation effects as well.

 

[Bilsch]

These discussion are always fun. People know that there is something special about German beers but can't put their finger on it. So we get contentious fights about what people supposed "it" is.

It definitely used to be a s**t show when the camps met on the battlefield but I feel that is a thing of the past. Take this thread for example where we seem to have managed to all share our ideas without too much strife. Anyway I'm encouraged for the future.

Maybe this progress will all evaporate when Vale gets back from his vacation.. who knows.

 

[Toxxyc]

Interesting observation. I recently had a Helles in a comp that I had high hopes for in the judging. It got HAMMERED instead in the first round and didn't advance. I had some serious disagreement with the criticisms and 'corrections' suggested by the two judges (one "certified" and one "apprentice") whose sheets looked like carbon copies of each other, but it is what it was and I'm trying to move on from the setback and ego bruise.

The grist was 90% floor malted pilsner, 8% Light Munich and 2% CaraHell, step mashed Hoch-Kurz; Hallertau Magnum FWH and Hallertau Mittelfruh at :15 minutes; Augustiner WLP-860 fermented @ 50F to completion, spunded to 12 psi, pressure transferred to a purged keg and lagered for 6 weeks at 38F. Shoulda' been a contender, EXCEPT it didn't get lagered long enough. It's been over three months now, and I pulled a pint last night. I don't think it's my imagination, but it IS tasting better. The original clarity was judged "brilliant" and it still is, but I'm starting to almost agree with the judges that there was a "green" characteristic (they both called it "green apple", which I interpreted as "Jolly Rancher green apple candy", and found blatantly wrong).

I wish I'd started brewing that beer at least a month earlier to let it settle longer. I didn't use Biofine since the visual clarity was so good, but if I had I think it would have presented as a much more refined beer. For me the take-away is your Steps #3 and #4: Give it time, and clarify as much as you can. And "clarity" involves more than just visual appearance.

Yeah the Helles I mentioned above was also for a competition, and I also had it on the "green" side come the competition date. I ended up getting COVID the week before the comp, so I never pushed through with it. As I could then not smell or taste anything, I let the beer sit for a few more weeks, where it started shining.

IMO, if I'm making a lager for a competition again, I'll give it 3 months since brew day, at least. I'll give myself 2 weeks for fermentation, 1 week for cleaning up, 1 week for crashing and then 2 months for lagering before kegging. That's my new timeline and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Broothru]

Yeah the Helles I mentioned above was also for a competition, and I also had it on the "green" side come the competition date. I ended up getting COVID the week before the comp, so I never pushed through with it. As I could then not smell or taste anything, I let the beer sit for a few more weeks, where it started shining.

IMO, if I'm making a lager for a competition again, I'll give it 3 months since brew day, at least. I'll give myself 2 weeks for fermentation, 1 week for cleaning up, 1 week for crashing and then 2 months for lagering before kegging. That's my new timeline and I'm sticking to it.

That's loosely my timeline as well, except this time Brew Day was 10 July and the comp was the first week in September. I'm almost beginning to agree with the judges about the low score they gave my Helles (shudder!). It just needed more time.

 

[Broothru]

What I would do is increase your standard aeration period by 50% if you are going to use meta. There was a lot of worry initially about over aerating the wort but no one seems to have run into that problem yet. We all use large pitches of healthy yeast so that may have some mitigation effects as well.

As I understand the data, it doesn't take very many hours for the pitched yeast to consume all the added O2 during oxygenation. YOS deoxygenation of strike water certainly suggests that. Meta is a very efficient 'consumer' of D.O. in the wort, and thus is in direct competition with the pitched yeast which are trying to establish their colony through rapid propagation. Intuitively it seems like the "harm" from meta comes from depriving the adaptive phase propagation of the yeast colony (suffocating it) rather than toxicity (poisoning it). So increasing O2 during oxygenation isn't over-aerating the wort but is simply compensating for the O2 that the meta is scavenging. That way the healthy yeast don't use up all their reserves transitioning to an anaerobic fermentation.

As you point out, it's a trial/error process finding the sweet spot for oxygenation without a D.O. meter. But given the expense and the difficulty for the casual user in getting accurate data from a D.O. meter, it looks like the best way forward for the average home brewer like most of us here is anecdotal data from others and trial and error by me. A 50% increase in post-pitch oxygenation looks like a good place to start.

 

[Bassman2003]

I am still struggling with this. I have been oxygenating at .5 LMP for 4 minutes in a 5 gallon batch. I know that seems like a lot from normal homebrew practice but I will probably increase it to 6 as when I measured it with the DO meter, the highest I got was 9 ppm in the wort. Not terrible but could be improved.

 

[Broothru]

I am still struggling with this. I have been oxygenating at .5 LMP for 4 minutes in a 5 gallon batch. I know that seems like a lot from normal homebrew practice but I will probably increase it to 6 as when I measured it with the DO meter, the highest I got was 9 ppm in the wort. Not terrible but could be improved.

I do use a flow meter on my oxygen supply, and 0.5~1.0 lpm flow is about what I use. That gives me gentle bubbling without rapid bursting on the wort surface. I'll increase time to 8 minutes (from :05) to see how it affects lag time or if I detect any staling or oxidation in the finished beer.

 

[Bassman2003]

It really depends upon how much sulfite you use at the beginning and how much your system let O2 in during your brewing. If you have a lot of sulfites and a tight system, you are going to need more O2 at the end to expend the sulfites. I just moved up to 50 ppm of sulfites (1.5 grams) from about half of that. So I am thinking of using more O2 before pitching.

 

[BarryBrews]

One data point. When I started YOS, every single one of my beers (about 12 batches) had a chill haze problem. When I stopped YOS, the beers went back to brilliant again. Again, one data point, carry on.

That is frustrating. I have gone back and forth between boiling and YOS.

Has anyone tried stripping oxygen from the mash water by purging with carbon dioxide while heating to the strike temperature? Purging with pure nitrogen is how oxygen is removed from water in the lab.

 

[Bassman2003]

I think boiling or YOS is the cheapest and easiest so that is what gets used.

 

[Bilsch]

Has anyone tried stripping oxygen from the mash water by purging with carbon dioxide while heating to the strike temperature? Purging with pure nitrogen is how oxygen is removed from water in the lab.

Yes, there are a couple people with nitrogen generators who purge vessels, plumbing and strip DO that way. Bottled gas, as Bassman mentioned, would be too expensive. Carbon dioxide is not used for this purpose because it alters the pH of the strike water.

Lots of testing and years of use has proven YOS to be fast, cheap and effective therefore is the most used method.

 

[Broothru]

It really depends upon how much sulfite you use at the beginning and how much your system let O2 in during your brewing. If you have a lot of sulfites and a tight system, you are going to need more O2 at the end to expend the sulfites. I just moved up to 50 ppm of sulfites (1.5 grams) from about half of that. So I am thinking of using more O2 before pitching.

I've been adding 1.8 gr in 8.5 gal mash, and 1.4 gr in late boil for a 6.3 gal batch into the fermenter. My thoughts are that the mash sulfites are likely exhausted after a 90 mash and 90 minute boil, so the 1.4 gr addition late in the boil is what I'm estimating as the unconsumed sulfite that gets the wort through the last few minutes of boil, the chill, and transfer into the fermenter.

At best, any guesstimate of the amount of D.O. in my wort (pre-pitch) would be a huge WAG. My oxygenation is 0.5~1.0 lpm for 4 minutes, so I could maybe calculate a ppm volume of D.O., but I have little confidence the number would be valid (just another WAG).

After considering everything in this thread, I'm less worried about over aerating wort after pitching yeast, especially if the yeast are active and in sufficient volume. More, up to a point, is probably better.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for sharing. You could shorten the mash and boil times to help. You are at a pretty high level of sulfite overall. Not the end of the world but the oxygenation would probably need to be on the high side. Maybe a round of 4 minutes, let is rest for a few minutes then hit it again with 2-4 minutes. If you are so inclined, you should join over at the forum to go into more depth.

 

[Bilsch]

My thoughts are that the mash sulfites are likely exhausted after a 90 mash and 90 minute boil,

I'll echo what Bassman already said about your mash and boil being way too long. Shortening these would go farther toward emulating great German beer than tinkering with your sulfites etc.

 

[effeffe]

One thing worth considering regarding YOS is that it's an active protection that lasts as long as you don't kill them with heat, while pre-boiling and gas stripping cease to be effective as soon as they stop; how relevant this is depends on system (vessels) and process.

 

[Twinkeelfool]

It definitely used to be a s**t show when the camps met on the battlefield but I feel that is a thing of the past. Take this thread for example where we seem to have managed to all share our ideas without too much strife. Anyway I'm encouraged for the future.

Maybe this progress will all evaporate when Vale gets back from his vacation.. who knows.

I always saw the drama and stopped reading but recently found some common sense info around it and have just done my first attempt. Looking forward to trying it out.

 

[Broothru]

I'll echo what Bassman already said about your mash and boil being way too long. Shortening these would go farther toward emulating great German beer than tinkering with your sulfites etc.

Actually I seldom do 90 minute boils anymore. My standard used to be the old "60 minutes for ales, 90 for lagers" but I wanted more consistency in batch volumes between the two and settled on 75 minutes for both. The boil is also a very gentle turnover rather than a roiling boil, which stays between 99C~100C. I haven't had issues with DMS or excessive darkening of the wort. My "90 minute mash" is total time which includes a slow underletting of strike water, a very gentle stirring of the grist, and a temperature rise from 55C at dough-in to 62C for Beta rest. That takes 45 minutes total. Then I step to 70C for Alpha amylase, then mash out at 76C for 15 minutes, for another total of 45 minutes. This mimics a Hoch-Kurz step mash schedule, and has been good at giving me higher fermentability without sacrificing body while increasing mash efficiency by several points O.G.

This process has been giving me more consistent predictable and repeatable brew sessions, so I hate to abandon it or tinker too much. Other than that, do you think it's possible that I'm adding too much sulfite? Right now I'm feeling trapped between trying to limit oxygen while also wanting to at least respect the spirit and traditions of the Reinheitsgebot (even though I realize I'm not!).

Who ever thought making good German beer would be so hard? ( >s)

 

[Bassman2003]

Your mash sounds right in line. Shorter everything is what folks are learning but you are right, heating and underletting take some time too. The biggest "risk" period of losing the "it" flavor is at dough in. That is when you really need the sulfites to win the battle of sucking up the oxygen all around the grain before the grain's own devices give away the flavor in exchange for oxidation. After the dough in everything is about maintaining and not introducing oxygen. So less strain on the sulfites if your process warrants.

I don't want to get this too far away from the German beer discussion and be a low oxygen primer! So I will sum it up to say shorter, lower heat and limiting oxygen to retain malt flavor are the tenents of what the low oxygen crowd think makes a great lager. But this applies to all styles as well. Anything on the hot side damages the wort. So mitigating the damage and still achieving the goal is the trick.

 

[Oleson M.D.]

I will take a different track...as our mash times can run nearly 3 hours. We do a triple step infusion mash, with 30 minute rests.

We have been using 60 and 75 minute boils, but will go back to 90 minutes based on feedback from another forum. The boils are heavy, rolling boils.

 

[Broothru]

Excellent discussion and insights. Agree we don't want a LoDO hijacked thread, but I think this 'side track' is right in line with the purpose of the O.P.'s original question.

 

[z-bob]

I just need to point out that real Germans don't use sulfites or BrewTan, etc. But those might be ways for small brewers to achieve some of what they get just from scale. (I'm going to try YOS next time I brew a mostly-pilsner malt beer, although I don't have a control to see if it makes a difference maybe it will be obvious)

 

[Bilsch]

I just need to point out that real Germans don't use sulfites or BrewTan, etc. But those might be ways for small brewers to achieve some of what they get just from scale.

That's it exactly. The vastly larger surface area to volume we have as home brewers requires us to figure out hacks to get around this problem. That and we don't have equipment like purged wet mills or vormaischers.

Some of these hacks are not Reinheitsgebot complaint either but we generally try to follow the spirit of the rule more then the actual letter. Although one could argue the point since sulfites are converted to sulfate during aeration it will not make it into the package, similar to the use of PvPP or DE.