Vitamin C - The Game Changer?

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A quick google search brought me to the following dissertation on brewing science, which discusses beer aging: Dissertation by Michael Wurzbacher at TU Munich (Weihenstephan). It contains multiple references to the pro-oxidative nature of ascorbic acid at realistic concentrations. The thesis is in German, which the OP is supposedly rather fluent in, but many others may not be. I could try and translate individual pieces, but the only thing worse than my knowledge of chemistry is my knowledge of English terms used in the realm of chemistry.

I'm sorry, I know referencing something that almost noone can actually read is sort of a dick move, but still it seems to be a legitimate reference demonstrating that it appears to be an acknowledged fact within the brewing community that ascorbic acid doesn't work in beer.

Not a dick move--thank you for posting. Maybe a copy-pasta run through Google translate will yield a rough English translation.

This brings up an apparent contradiction. I too have seen claims of AA promoting oxidation when used by itself, most notably on that other brewing site. Yet, AA is used extensively in the food and beverage industry as an antioxidant. So, at what point do these outcomes diverge, and what is the determining factor?
 
What we know for sure is that @Miraculix has had a recurring marzipan off flavor that he detects in his beer, and that so far, in a limited number of batches, the addition of ascorbic acid as the sole known change in brewing process has resolved the off flavor.

We don't know that the marzipan flavor was caused by hot side oxidation. It could be that there is something else going on here. Are other people able to taste this marzipan? Or is it something that you alone seem to be particularly sensitive to? Do you taste it in any commercial beer, or other people's homebrew?

The good thing is that, for whatever reason, adding ascorbic seems to have resolved the off flavor issue. We could never come to a satisfactory conclusion here as to why, or what is going on, and @Miraculix will still be enjoying his homebrew more. And anyone else who gets this flavor can find this and try it as a solution.

That said, it would be very interesting to figure it all out. :bigmug:
 
Based on my current knowledge, either or should do the trick, meaning you don't need sulfite if you already have ascorbic acid and you don't need ascorbic acid when you have sulfite.
I can not go that far with it as there are brewers with the measurement capabilities that have been studying this for a long time. We all wanted AA to win as it is more benign of an ingredient. But, sulfites are what is still being used. So I do not think they are considered to be equal.

But as others has suggested - test, test, test. That's what grows the knowledge base. Do a side by side or even a triple with nothing, AA and then SMB and video the hot break. As well as take the beers to serving equally and taste them. Yes it takes some time and effort but it is the ONLY way you/we will know. Reading papers only gets you so far...
 
I translated the German paper linked by @monkeymath. Ended up kind of messy and the formatting turned out weird, but it's readable. I have no way of hosting this for the board, so here's what I did if you want to DIY:

I downloaded the original PDF to desktop and ran it through Google Translate's document upload feature. I honestly thought it would choke on the 5MB doc, but it converted it. I couldn't figure out how to save the output, so did copy-paste into Word and saved-as to PDF. The resulting PDF was about 1.1MB.
 
If used in mash, does ascorbic acid lower pH? Does one have to take that into account when doing ones water salts/lactic acid additions?
 
Of course, I'm not planning to read that whole doc, it's a couple hundred pages long and tl;dr. I'll do some keyword searching to see if there is something notable.

I actually ended up skimming quite of bit of it. Although I don't understand much of the involved chemistry, the summaries of existing literature were quite readable. It is mostly about long-term stability of beer, though, rather than immediate effects of hot side aeration. I've found it quite interesting that much of the staling process is not yet truly understood, with some (groups of) compounds (such as polyphenols) having effects in both directions (pro- or antioxidative), and even uncertainty in terms of what actually constitutes staling (in the sense that the presence/quantity of certain compounds relates to sensory degradation).

If you're looking for anything in particular or some part's translation doesn't make any sense, I'm of course happy to help out (as much as I can, which is not very much).
 
I don’t think I‘ve ever tasted ‘almond’ in a beer. Is this something you’ve detected in beers other than your own, @Miraculix?

In terms of so-called hot side aeration, I think getting paranoid about molecular oxygen (dioxygen/O2) isn’t very useful, living on planet Earth. I hope I don’t cause a LODO meltdown, but the oxidative burden of wort - the burden of oxygen species far more reactive than O2 - has much more to do with the oxidative burden of malted barley. It‘s quite normal for living cells to have an oxidative burden; an inevitable consequence of metabolizing O2. It’s not so much the O2 itself. It’s why, for example, vit C synthesis increases dramatically in metabolically active sprouting barley seeds. This vit C ends up in the mash. I’m not sure if adding extra helps. It’s possible, I guess, if you have a low tolerance for ‘HSA’, assuming that’s what causes the ‘almond’ off flavour you detect. Anyway, I think it’s important to appreciate there is a biogenic oxidative burden. I don’t see any harm adding a little vit C to the mash, if it works for you, but I don’t think it’s going do much if there’s a little molecular oxygen in there. I think O2 on the hot side is a bogeyman.
 
If used in mash, does ascorbic acid lower pH? Does one have to take that into account when doing ones water salts/lactic acid additions?

It does affect pH. I don't use it in the mash, but if I did, I'd account for it, just like metabisulfites.
 
but it has to be coordinated with a time my wife is GONE due to the huge mess. The problem is, she never LEAVES.

I have similar issues - some messy jobs been outstanding since October - the chances are so infrequent lately when I do finally see the car pull away I'm rushing around like a man possessed praying she didn't leave a handbag behind or something to come back for :no: :D
 
I don’t think I‘ve ever tasted ‘almond’ in a beer. Is this something you’ve detected in beers other than your own, @Miraculix?

In terms of so-called hot side aeration, I think getting paranoid about molecular oxygen (dioxygen/O2) isn’t very useful, living on planet Earth. I hope I don’t cause a LODO meltdown, but the oxidative burden of wort - the burden of oxygen species far more reactive than O2 - has much more to do with the oxidative burden of malted barley. It‘s quite normal for living cells to have an oxidative burden; an inevitable consequence of metabolizing O2. It’s not so much the O2 itself. It’s why, for example, vit C synthesis increases dramatically in metabolically active sprouting barley seeds. This vit C ends up in the mash. I’m not sure if adding extra helps. It’s possible, I guess, if you have a low tolerance for ‘HSA’, assuming that’s what causes the ‘almond’ off flavour you detect. Anyway, I think it’s important to appreciate there is a biogenic oxidative burden. I don’t see any harm adding a little vit C to the mash, if it works for you, but I don’t think it’s going do much if there’s a little molecular oxygen in there. I think O2 on the hot side is a bogeyman.
Can you go into more detail about what " oxidative burden" is? I am not following. Is it different than the presence of O2 or the reactions to O2?
 
I don’t think I‘ve ever tasted ‘almond’ in a beer. Is this something you’ve detected in beers other than your own, @Miraculix?

In terms of so-called hot side aeration, I think getting paranoid about molecular oxygen (dioxygen/O2) isn’t very useful, living on planet Earth. I hope I don’t cause a LODO meltdown, but the oxidative burden of wort - the burden of oxygen species far more reactive than O2 - has much more to do with the oxidative burden of malted barley. It‘s quite normal for living cells to have an oxidative burden; an inevitable consequence of metabolizing O2. It’s not so much the O2 itself. It’s why, for example, vit C synthesis increases dramatically in metabolically active sprouting barley seeds. This vit C ends up in the mash. I’m not sure if adding extra helps. It’s possible, I guess, if you have a low tolerance for ‘HSA’, assuming that’s what causes the ‘almond’ off flavour you detect. Anyway, I think it’s important to appreciate there is a biogenic oxidative burden. I don’t see any harm adding a little vit C to the mash, if it works for you, but I don’t think it’s going do much if there’s a little molecular oxygen in there. I think O2 on the hot side is a bogeyman.

I kind of agree theoretically but experience tells me otherwise. It might be that I am oversensitive, but another person has actually also tasted this in some of my brews, although he wasn't really able to pinpoint it out directly. He was saying my beers taste like "homebrew", they have this certain flavour that commercial beer does not have, it was what I am now describing as almond-ish.

It was not always there, especially the overhopped american styles were lacking the almond flavour more often than lower hopped pale beers. One could say that the hops might have masked it, but I doubt that. Maybe the hops were antioxidents as well, they protectd the maillard reaction proteins by "sacrificing" themselves as they might have been easier to oxidise than the maillard stuff that causes usually this almond flavour, when being oxidised. This is just wild guessing.

I actually ended up skimming quite of bit of it. Although I don't understand much of the involved chemistry, the summaries of existing literature were quite readable. It is mostly about long-term stability of beer, though, rather than immediate effects of hot side aeration. I've found it quite interesting that much of the staling process is not yet truly understood, with some (groups of) compounds (such as polyphenols) having effects in both directions (pro- or antioxidative), and even uncertainty in terms of what actually constitutes staling (in the sense that the presence/quantity of certain compounds relates to sensory degradation).

If you're looking for anything in particular or some part's translation doesn't make any sense, I'm of course happy to help out (as much as I can, which is not very much).

I will have a look into that paper, thank you for posting it.

What we know for sure is that @Miraculix has had a recurring marzipan off flavor that he detects in his beer, and that so far, in a limited number of batches, the addition of ascorbic acid as the sole known change in brewing process has resolved the off flavor.

We don't know that the marzipan flavor was caused by hot side oxidation. It could be that there is something else going on here. Are other people able to taste this marzipan? Or is it something that you alone seem to be particularly sensitive to? Do you taste it in any commercial beer, or other people's homebrew?

The good thing is that, for whatever reason, adding ascorbic seems to have resolved the off flavor issue. We could never come to a satisfactory conclusion here as to why, or what is going on, and @Miraculix will still be enjoying his homebrew more. And anyone else who gets this flavor can find this and try it as a solution.

That said, it would be very interesting to figure it all out. :bigmug:

Yes exactly what I think. I am also not 100% sold to the whole hot side oxidation idea, but just based on experience, it should be the reason for all of this and ascorbic acid solves the problem. But let's see. Next beer will be a 18 Ibu american light lager, that one will show EVERYTHING. :D
 
Imho, what you are tasting and labeling as almond is the oxidation flavor the LODO crowd is working to remove. It seems like we are all talking about the same thing but from different angles. I still have the LODO and the HIDO Centennial ale on tap from my comparison video. They are both holding up well but the HIDO has this "overhead" as I think of it and the LODO is just clean flavor. This the crux of all of the LODO B.S. from the past few years. We taste this flavor as a negative and work to remove it but it has become commonplace to most all who brew in the western world! :) Normal vs Better (subjective of course). Have a German brewed helles or fresh Belgian Tripel and you will not find these flavors.
 
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Can you go into more detail about what " oxidative burden" is? I am not following. Is it different than the presence of O2 or the reactions to O2?
When cells metabolise O2 reactive oxygen species (ROS) get produced. They’re much more reactive/harmful and are the preferred targets for AA/vit C, which is synthesised by most living things.

Edit: yeast synthesise their own form of AA, so I’m not convinced there are benefits to adding vit C to the cold side. Maybe in a hop bomb (unstable redox soup) it helps.
 
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Yes exactly what I think. I am also not 100% sold to the whole hot side oxidation idea, but just based on experience, it should be the reason for all of this and ascorbic acid solves the problem.

Even Charlie Bamforth, brewing scientist and the father of the "Hot Side Aeration is a Myth" credo has come around to some extent. In his book "Freshness" he addresses specific ways to avoid it. He still basically says that it should be the last thing to worry about, i.e. make sure to address cold side issues first, which I think even the staunchest LODO guys would agree with.
 
This the crux of all of the LODO B.S. from the past few years. We taste this flavor as a negative and work to remove it but it has become commonplace to most all who brew in the western world!

Ironically, I think one can make a strong argument that the craft beer revolution (and the hundreds, then thousands of breweries popping up with varying degrees of brewer skills (to put it as nicely as possible)) was responsible for some shifts in taste acceptance/preference in the US.

I'm fortunate to know and work with quite a few breweries now and again, and the guys paying attention to oxygen are for the most part making better beers (IMO, and to my own taste).
 
Hopefully this thread can stay open as a useful discussion for people interested in learning about avoiding oxidation. If it dives into LODO-bashing it will just end up getting locked. I would suggest that people that are not interested in using anti-oxidants move on to topics that do interest them.

from my comparison video

I thought your "HSO, LODO & Four Batches" video was a good overview of different brewing practices (see the link in his signature). I would definitely recommend it to people that are curious. I don't have any plans to radically change my brewing process, but I am always interested in simple steps that can produce better beer.
 
Can you go into more detail about what " oxidative burden" is? I am not following. Is it different than the presence of O2 or the reactions to O2?

I think he is referring to the idea that oxidation reactions are often erroneously attributed solely to O2. At its most basic, oxidation/reduction reactions are about passing around electrons. It just so happens that O2 can be an electron acceptor in this. There are tons of other oxidative species in malted barley itself that are not O2.
 
It’s not just malted barley enzymes that get preserved when sprouted seeds are dried. The oxidative burden (level of ROS) is going to be transferred to the mash too.
 
Hopefully this thread can stay open as a useful discussion for people interested in learning about avoiding oxidation. If it dives into LODO-bashing it will just end up getting locked. I would suggest that people that are not interested in using anti-oxidants move on to topics that do interest them.



I thought your "HSO, LODO & Four Batches" video was a good overview of different brewing practices (see the link in his signature). I would definitely recommend it to people that are curious. I don't have any plans to radically change my brewing process, but I am always interested in simple steps that can produce better beer.
This is not a thread to discuss lodo and this is not a thread to discuss antioxidants in general, please everybody respect that. This is about ascorbic acid and ascorbic acid only. Thank you!

I think we can all agree that oxygen is mainly a problem, and that's all we have to say about this lodo topic. There are other places for lodo discussions.

This one is about vitamin C and everybody is very much welcome to contribute, so far there is already great community knowledge shared in this thread, please let's keep it that way when further digging into the subject! Everybody's doing a great job!
 
AA is naturally present in wort, due to it being synthesised in malted barley, hops and an analogue in yeast. So I wouldn’t worry too much about its presence per se. Question is, is adding extra beneficial, at least to those who might have a lower threshold to putative compounds oxidised on the hot side? Although it’s reaction is reversible I‘ve never heard of it being a ‘super oxidiser’.
 
@Beermeister32
This thread has moved on a bit since your reply.

I'll have to add the AA in via my pressure injector to the keg, I normally use the ferment gas to flush out the starsan filled keg and then have an ongoing washthrough for a while after of the ferment gas. Should be easy enough to get the AA in, teaspoon for 20 litres doesn't seem much. But I'll give it a go.
My counter pressure filler must be different to yours as it's far tidier than bottling with a racking cane. I could wipe up the mess after filling 20 bottles with a flannel.
I'll try the AA in the keg and in the mash next time I go hoppy.
 
Something that may be of interest to @Miraculix noticing an almond-like off-flavor in beers. I took a screenshot of a chart from a paper on staling compounds. Two compounds listed below, 2-methylbutanal and benzaldehyde, are described as having "bitter almond" flavors. Those might be something to look into about the off-flavor.
StalingComponentsChart.jpg

The paper, Tracking Staling Components in Beer, Brauwelt International (2017), is linked in the List of Brewing References page over at the LODO folks' site. Since I can't link it directly, you'll have to go there to find it.
 
From the article (with emphasis added):

VITAMIN C DECHLORINATION
Vitamin C is a newer chemical method for neutralizing chlorine. Two forms of vitamin C, ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate, will neutralize chlorine. Neither is considered a hazardous chemical. First, vitamin C does not lower the dissolved oxygen as much as sulfur-based chemicals do. Second, vitamin C is not toxic to aquatic life at the levels used for dechlorinating water. Although ascorbic acid is mildly acidic and, in large doses, will lower the pH of the treated water, sodium ascorbate is neutral and will not affect the pH of the treated water or the receiving stream. Both forms of vitamin C are stable, with a shelf life of at least 1 year in a dry form if kept in a cool, dark place. Once it is placed in solution, however, vitamin C degrades in a day or two.

Based on the second noted passage, one could infer that the AA (or sodium ascorbate) would be long gone a few days into fermentation. However, the article doesn't state what causes it to degrade. Is it from light or heat, or does it degrade on its own in solution? If it degrades on its own, then I'd think that AA's antioxidant properties are short-lived, no matter what.
I'm having a hard time imagining that ascorbic acid degrades so quickly on its own in solution. That would mean that all the fruit juices do not contain any vitamin C. The preserving qualities of it would be also quite limited, I think it wouldn't be used that often in the food industry if it deteriorates that quickly.
 
Oxidation is a real thing, sure. But sometimes I feel like oxygen is the default answer for all issues:
"My beer is too sweet" -> oxygen!
"My beer is too bitter" -> oxygen!
"My wife doesn't love me anymore!" -> oxygen!

More often than not, there's no way to move forward in a conversation because oxygen being the culprit is almost impossible to validate or invalidate (since most people don't measure DO and most people don't follow strict LoDo practices).
Oxygen has become the gluten (or refined sugar? Close call!) of the homebrew community.

If ascorbic acid helps against that strange marzipan off-flavour that you got in some of your beers, that's great. It's still fairly anecdotal at this stage, but eh, we're just homebrewers.
Based on the science behind oxidation/staling, I would take this as a strong indicator that your off-flavour is not actually caused by oxidation. But since there's another dedicated thread for that topic, we needn't discuss it here.
As to the question this thread was about: no, ascorbic acid is not a game changer. There's plenty of research on it.

Fyi:
When I let my sourdough starter go too long between feedings, it develops a very strong almond/marzipan smell. I encountered a similar aroma when I pitched some juice of lacto-fermented plums into starter wort.
 
My sourdough starter if left too long between feeds has more of an acetone smell, but a quick whip up and a feed oxygenates it and gets the cells dividing and metabolising.
Maybe the AA isn't doing much about the DO but the effects or metabolic changes that occur in the presence of oxygen.
 
My sourdough starter if left too long between feeds has more of an acetone smell, but a quick whip up and a feed oxygenates it and gets the cells dividing and metabolising.
Maybe the AA isn't doing much about the DO but the effects or metabolic changes that occur in the presence of oxygen.

It's being used since decades in the food industry as an antioxidant so I am pretty sure that it works as an antioxidant. I cannot rule out any effect on yeast metabolism of course, but the fact that my hoppy beer stayed like day one for now almost two months indicates that there is something going on in regards to protecting from oxygen.

Oxidation is a real thing, sure. But sometimes I feel like oxygen is the default answer for all issues:
"My beer is too sweet" -> oxygen!
"My beer is too bitter" -> oxygen!
"My wife doesn't love me anymore!" -> oxygen!

More often than not, there's no way to move forward in a conversation because oxygen being the culprit is almost impossible to validate or invalidate (since most people don't measure DO and most people don't follow strict LoDo practices).
Oxygen has become the gluten (or refined sugar? Close call!) of the homebrew community.

If ascorbic acid helps against that strange marzipan off-flavour that you got in some of your beers, that's great. It's still fairly anecdotal at this stage, but eh, we're just homebrewers.
Based on the science behind oxidation/staling, I would take this as a strong indicator that your off-flavour is not actually caused by oxidation. But since there's another dedicated thread for that topic, we needn't discuss it here.
As to the question this thread was about: no, ascorbic acid is not a game changer. There's plenty of research on it.

Fyi:
When I let my sourdough starter go too long between feedings, it develops a very strong almond/marzipan smell. I encountered a similar aroma when I pitched some juice of lacto-fermented plums into starter wort.
I think you might have missed that part wHere I described that changing back from a mash tun that heavily oxiginated the wort during vorlauf to biab lowered the percieved amount of almond flavour significantly. This indicates that the oxygen amount pre-boil seems to be the driving factor. Also keeping the wort hot for a prolonged time did increase the problem, again pinpointing to oxidation as the possible problem. And then finally, almond flavour is known to be a product of oxidation in beer.
 
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A quick search and skim of the scientific literature shows 2 methylbutanal and benzaldehyde are well known and far from being limited to products of oxidation in barley worts, nor uniquely 'almond' like. I couldn't find any independent confirmation of the proposal they're formed as products of HSA. So at the moment it's little more than some logic based on assumptions. What did catch my attention - skimming abstracts - is benzaldehyde can be formed thermally from phenylalanine (during malt roasting or in the boil?) as well as metabolised from phenylalanine by Lactobacillus spp. (potential infection?). Two methylbutanal occurs naturally in some barley cultivars and might be more easily detected by those with a lower individual threshold of detection? And/or AA limits formation of 2 methylbutanal and benzaldehyde on the hot side? Impossible to say without testing. I'd say keep everything consistent, especially ingredient batches/recipe, design an experimental brew, and brew batches with an without additional AA. If it works a trend should be obvious. A simple one-off comparison is just tossing a coin. I'd brew at least several batches.
 
A quick search and skim of the scientific literature shows 2 methylbutanal and benzaldehyde are well known and far from being limited to products of oxidation in barley worts, nor uniquely 'almond' like. I couldn't find any independent confirmation of the proposal they're formed as products of HSA. So at the moment it's little more than some logic based on assumptions. What did catch my attention - skimming abstracts - is benzaldehyde can be formed thermally from phenylalanine (during malt roasting or in the boil?) as well as metabolised from phenylalanine by Lactobacillus spp. (potential infection?). Two methylbutanal occurs naturally in some barley cultivars and might be more easily detected by those with a lower individual threshold of detection? And/or AA limits formation of 2 methylbutanal and benzaldehyde on the hot side? Impossible to say without testing. I'd say keep everything consistent, especially ingredient batches/recipe, design an experimental brew, and brew batches with an without additional AA. If it works a trend should be obvious. A simple one-off comparison is just tossing a coin. I'd brew at least several batches.
It's actually a two-off comparison now :D

I know...
 
changing back from a mash tun that heavily oxiginated the wort during vorlauf to biab lowered the percieved amount of almond flavour significantly. This indicates that the oxygen amount pre-boil seems to be the driving factor.

So you're comparing beers made using entirely different processes, make an educated guess with regards to the respective DO levels, and then attribute any differences you perceive to the expected difference in DO?
And then you do something else (namely add ascorbic acid), which subjectively leads to a similar change in taste, and thereby conclude that it must have the same explanation that you constructed previously?

Of course we as homebrewers only ever gather anecdotal evidence and experience, but if it contradicts peer-reviewed scientific research, I'm a bit hesitant to believe "some guy on the internet" instead. That doesn't invalidate your experience - you do you, I don't know what that marzipan flavour is, but if ascorbic acid is all it takes for it to go away, then by all means, go ahead. But you shouldn't expect others to take your old mashtun as scientific proof and dismiss published research based on it.
 
So you're comparing beers made using entirely different processes, make an educated guess with regards to the respective DO levels, and then attribute any differences you perceive to the expected difference in DO?
And then you do something else (namely add ascorbic acid), which subjectively leads to a similar change in taste, and thereby conclude that it must have the same explanation that you constructed previously?

Of course we as homebrewers only ever gather anecdotal evidence and experience, but if it contradicts peer-reviewed scientific research, I'm a bit hesitant to believe "some guy on the internet" instead. That doesn't invalidate your experience - you do you, I don't know what that marzipan flavour is, but if ascorbic acid is all it takes for it to go away, then by all means, go ahead. But you shouldn't expect others to take your old mashtun as scientific proof and dismiss published research based on it.

That does not reflect neither what I did, nor what I wrote, there is more information on this thread and particularly in the dedicated dreaded almond flavour thread. Please refer to that thread for further information on this topic, let's keep this thread dedicated to vitamin C pre mash.

I am not here to convince anyone of anything, I am here to share my thoughts and experience and to gather comments, ideas and experiences of others.

You could share your published research or even better, sum it up, that would help.
 
I'm very intrigued by this. I have been noticing very quick hop staling in my beers so I've been mostly brewing maltier beers. I brewed a West Coast IPA this past weekend so it's too late to add it pre-mash but I think I'll get some AA and add it before I dryhop to see if it helps keep those bright hop flavors fresh.
 
I'm very intrigued by this. I have been noticing very quick hop staling in my beers so I've been mostly brewing maltier beers. I brewed a West Coast IPA this past weekend so it's too late to add it pre-mash but I think I'll get some AA and add it before I dryhop to see if it helps keep those bright hop flavors fresh.
Please do and share your findings! Others here are already doing exactly that and they seem to have good success with it. Do you bottle? If so reduce the headspace to about 5mm, this also helps a lot.
 
I do bottle! I'm very nervous about the head space because back in the day I read something about pressure and head space and exploding but I'm just going to take a deep breath and trust you, I've read enough of your posts to see you know what you're doing.

I think I will do some bottles with the normal amount of headspace though so I can compare what difference the AA makes and what AA plus tiny head space makes.

Also I said it's too late to add AA before the mash BUT I do add sodium metabisulfite to my brewing water to neautralize chlorine and from what I'm reading that may prevent mash oxidizing too but clearly has been used up by the time I bottle. I think I may need to do a split batch in the future comparing AA cold side vs. SMB cold side.
 
This discussion has interested me, as I'm LODO-curious, but definitely not intrigued by the hot side process (pre-boil my mash water? No thanks.)

So now I'm inspired to try a brewing experiment. Three separate mashes: one with mash and sparge water treated with my K-Campden tablet, one with ascorbic acid (ratio'd based on @Miraculix good experience above), and one with neither. The recipe will be the question. I brew a wide variety of things, so the LODO claims of malt taste sound very intriguing to try on a lager. But I don't have cooling capability or pressure capability on my 3 gallon Fermonsters, so that rules out a lager. (I'm not trying to prove whether I can taste the difference in warm fermented lager yeast.)

The description of an IPA tasting the same at 2 months as it did at day 2 sounds way too good to be true, yet as a hophead, it also sounds enticing to try. I've got a good NEIPA recipe I've had success with, and that seems to be the bellwether on oxidation. But that also seems too easily screwed up by extra process steps on the cold side, and potentially distract from the main factor here.

So I'm thinking a blonde ale or maybe a low bitterness Pale Ale using a plain California Ale yeast.

Anyone have any other suggestions or thoughts on best recipe to try to isolate the effect of AA used in the mash?
 
This discussion has interested me, as I'm LODO-curious, but definitely not intrigued by the hot side process (pre-boil my mash water? No thanks.)

So now I'm inspired to try a brewing experiment. Three separate mashes: one with mash and sparge water treated with my K-Campden tablet, one with ascorbic acid (ratio'd based on @Miraculix good experience above), and one with neither. The recipe will be the question. I brew a wide variety of things, so the LODO claims of malt taste sound very intriguing to try on a lager. But I don't have cooling capability or pressure capability on my 3 gallon Fermonsters, so that rules out a lager. (I'm not trying to prove whether I can taste the difference in warm fermented lager yeast.)

The description of an IPA tasting the same at 2 months as it did at day 2 sounds way too good to be true, yet as a hophead, it also sounds enticing to try. I've got a good NEIPA recipe I've had success with, and that seems to be the bellwether on oxidation. But that also seems too easily screwed up by extra process steps on the cold side, and potentially distract from the main factor here.

So I'm thinking a blonde ale or maybe a low bitterness Pale Ale using a plain California Ale yeast.

Anyone have any other suggestions or thoughts on best recipe to try to isolate the effect of AA used in the mash?

I think a NEIPA would be the perfect subject for an experiment!

I just read a Brulosophy exbeeriment where he used SMB post fermentation but he brewed a kolsch and kegged it so I didn't really feel like it relates to my problem very much at all
 
I do bottle! I'm very nervous about the head space because back in the day I read something about pressure and head space and exploding but I'm just going to take a deep breath and trust you, I've read enough of your posts to see you know what you're doing.

I think I will do some bottles with the normal amount of headspace though so I can compare what difference the AA makes and what AA plus tiny head space makes.

Also I said it's too late to add AA before the mash BUT I do add sodium metabisulfite to my brewing water to neautralize chlorine and from what I'm reading that may prevent mash oxidizing too but clearly has been used up by the time I bottle. I think I may need to do a split batch in the future comparing AA cold side vs. SMB cold side.
There's always a thin line between as little headspace as possible and as much as necessary. So by all means, don't try to really max it out, otherwise a temperature change might crack your bottles. About half a cm to one cm always worked for me. I had some gushers, but never an exploding bottle.
 
This discussion has interested me, as I'm LODO-curious, but definitely not intrigued by the hot side process (pre-boil my mash water? No thanks.)

So now I'm inspired to try a brewing experiment. Three separate mashes: one with mash and sparge water treated with my K-Campden tablet, one with ascorbic acid (ratio'd based on @Miraculix good experience above), and one with neither. The recipe will be the question. I brew a wide variety of things, so the LODO claims of malt taste sound very intriguing to try on a lager. But I don't have cooling capability or pressure capability on my 3 gallon Fermonsters, so that rules out a lager. (I'm not trying to prove whether I can taste the difference in warm fermented lager yeast.)

The description of an IPA tasting the same at 2 months as it did at day 2 sounds way too good to be true, yet as a hophead, it also sounds enticing to try. I've got a good NEIPA recipe I've had success with, and that seems to be the bellwether on oxidation. But that also seems too easily screwed up by extra process steps on the cold side, and potentially distract from the main factor here.

So I'm thinking a blonde ale or maybe a low bitterness Pale Ale using a plain California Ale yeast.

Anyone have any other suggestions or thoughts on best recipe to try to isolate the effect of AA used in the mash?
I also think neipa would be best. I hate neipas, my stomach really does not want that much hop oils in it but if you personally like that style, it should work. Or just an IPA!

If you would want to focus on the malt, other styles would be better though....
 
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