# Low dissolved oxygen brewing techniques



## dent (3/7/16)

Have a read of this if you haven't already.
http://www.germanbrewing.net/docs/Brewing-Bavarian-Helles.pdf

I've made a couple of batches of wort using an extension of their techniques and I can confirm that the wort does indeed taste completely different as they suggest - super clean with the aromatics from the freshly crushed malt.

It will take some time to get my process sorted out all the way, so it will take a few more attempts to get the dissolved oxygen levels down to the point required from grain to glass. 

The current rig is shown below for your amusement.


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## neal32 (3/7/16)

How does the finished product compare to your old method? Are you measuring DO throughout your process?


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## MHB (3/7/16)

Good read and some very well thought out answers to a fairly complex problem

Going to need an hellaciously good starter, the recommended pitching range being 20-30X10^6/ml/oP lets call it 25 million, in 23L at 12oP (1.048).
25EXP6*23,000*12 = 6.9EXP12, a fresh Wyeast pack 1EXP11 = 69 packs worth.

Have fun...
Mark


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## dent (3/7/16)

I have a DO meter but I'm still ironing out the bugs in my process before I can be confident I have removed all sources of O2 throughout the process. I've only just started with this so there's no beer in the glass yet - I can only support what they say that the wort is completely different - seriously the whole activity of brewing has made the shed smell like it never has before - in a good way 

I doubt the final beer will be much different at this point if I go along with what they say - the cold side has to keep up with the process and currently I am not able to guarantee the low DO levels required to keep the fresh malt character in there. But I've got a plan set up so over the next couple batches I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get it nailed.


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## dent (3/7/16)

MHB - There's no particular need to go without the yeast starter if that's what you're hinting - luckily yeast is a great reducer of DO, so that is one part where we can more or less continue with standard lager brewing practice - at least that's what I understand.


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## manticle (3/7/16)

Came across this a week or so ago, courtesy of another brewer.
Looks really interesting but I need to print out a hard copy and read more thoroughly.

Interested to hear your experience too. Cheers for sharing.


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## MHB (3/7/16)

dent said:


> MHB - There's no particular need to go without the yeast starter if that's what you're hinting - luckily yeast is a great reducer of DO, so that is one part where we can more or less continue with standard lager brewing practice - at least that's what I understand.


Commercial literature has been talking about Low DO for some time (like 15 years) it never really got a look in until cheap N2 generators became available, since then it been moving right along with the Japanese taking a big lead. The other related area is stoping or reducing the activity of Auto Oxidisation processes mainly the Lipidase enzymes (Lipoxygenase LOX1 and LOX2). All sorts of interesting stuff going on in brewing.

And no I wasn't suggesting you go without a starter, rather that you will need "*a frigging enormous one*" to get the sort of yeast populations the authors recommend (I liked the understatement).

"The pitching rate we recommend is approximately 20 to 30 million freshly grown cells per milliliter of wort for a 12 Plato beer [4]. This rate is considerably higher than what many
pitching rate calculators estimate, but necessary for the classic cold fermentation schedule"

When typical pitches are 1.0-1.65 Million/mL/oP yes 20 times is a considerably larger pitch. and No I don't think its going to be a good idea to go to all the extra work then cut a corner on the yeast pitch - If you want to do that definitely not in a Helles, do it is something where it wont show as much.

I really think you will need to be pitching most of 500mL of heavy yeast slurry into a 23L batch, so I would be doing a couple of brews back to back just to build up the yeast population.
In a stirred starter you might get to 80 Million cells/mL. Constant aeration maybe 100 Million c/mL. Constant aeration and incremental feeding maybe 200 Million c/mL.
You work out the pitch size. Don't trust MrMalty
Mark


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## MHB (3/7/16)

Hum my bad
They have actually included the OG in the pitch rate so they are really only recommending 1.6-2.6 Million cells/mL/oP.
Around double what you would be looking for in a typical commercial pitch, something like 4.5-7 Fresh smack packs worth (loosely).
Still a big starter but not as bad as I thought - teach me not to read carefully.
Mark


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## dent (3/7/16)

Yeah it seemed there was an order of magnitude out in there, but the principle remained the same.

I agree, it has been in the commercial literature a long time. One thing worth noting is that thanks to the ratio of surface area to volume between "home brew" scale and commercial brewing, it means that we have to take much more care to avoid oxidation factors. I've got a vacuum pump at the ready though, so I can also perform all sorts of activities a commercial brewer would consider ridiculous in order to maintain a low O2 level.

Gotta say, I'm encouraged to finally find another factor to manipulate in order to meet or exceed the quality of good commercial euro lagers.


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## MHB (3/7/16)

N2 has some big advantages, it will actually strip O2 out of solution and its pretty cheap (except for bottle rental), a reg and an airstone and you can knock a lot of the Oxy issues.

Hum - Vacuum Milling - I wonder...
Mark


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## dent (3/7/16)

I've had a play, vacuum alone won't purge dissolved oxygen from water. I've yet to try with bubbling CO2 through at the same time. I can't think of any easily available gas to purge things with apart from CO2 - I'd use LPG if it wasn't stinky... and flammable.. yeah.

I'm pretty solid on the mash side - I put the grist in dry, then pull a solid vacuum, then allow the boiled water in, through a counterflow chiller which brings it down to mash temps. After that I fill the rest of the mash tun atmosphere with CO2. Theoretically it is air and O2 free for the whole mash.


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## rude (3/7/16)

Here I am thinking my English Bitters were coming along nicely with esky gravity keggle

Another great post Dent keep em coming


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## Killer Brew (3/7/16)

dent said:


> I have a DO meter but I'm still ironing out the bugs in my process before I can be confident I have removed all sources of O2 throughout the process. I've only just started with this so there's no beer in the glass yet - I can only support what they say that the wort is completely different - seriously the whole activity of brewing has made the shed smell like it never has before - in a good way
> 
> I doubt the final beer will be much different at this point if I go along with what they say - the cold side has to keep up with the process and currently I am not able to guarantee the low DO levels required to keep the fresh malt character in there. But I've got a plan set up so over the next couple batches I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get it nailed.


Your own DO meter? Impressive! Aren't they around $2500?


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## dent (3/7/16)

Not so much - I think those with the next order of magnitude more accurate are, yeah, but mine has a 0.1ppm resolution and an accuracy I assume fairly worse than that. About $240 delivered. The germanbrewing guys have another model that might be better. I'm a bit dubious about the efficacy of measuring <0.1ppm when you have to expose the substance to air in the first place though... But I'm not super experienced in that topic.


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## Killer Brew (3/7/16)

amazing how many craft breweries don't have a meter. Some of those send off samples to be tested but others just trust their processes I guess.


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## dent (3/7/16)

Not much point if you're not going out of your way to control it I guess. I get the impression it's something the mass volume swill brewers are much more interested in than the "craft" brewers are. At least for the time being.


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## yankinoz (4/7/16)

The article focuses on Helles, but it sounds Iike LO would be beneficial for any brew, even a hop-driven AIPA in which the malt is in the background. If caramel malts are particularly susceptible to oxidation, then the benefits could be huge in brown ales and the like.

Dent, thanks for the link, and I'll try the methods as best I can. Have you tried them with darker beers and ales?


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## Bribie G (4/7/16)

Some of the nicest UK ales are made by traditional processes that don't seem to worry too much about hot side oxygen. For example this video tour of Arkell's Brewery in Swindon that mostly runs on 150 year old equipment.


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## technobabble66 (4/7/16)

yankinoz said:


> The article focuses on Helles, but it sounds Iike LO would be beneficial for any brew, even a hop-driven AIPA in which the malt is in the background. If caramel malts are particularly susceptible to oxidation, then the benefits could be huge in brown ales and the like.


Could be even more important for APAs, IPAs and various other hops driven beers - I believe O2 is one of, if not the main, killer for hops aroma. 
So LO could be a major step up in quality for almost all beers, except maybe those which are more solely driven by yeast flavours/aroma like lighter saisons & hefes. 

Great post/thread, dent. 
Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Keep us posted on your progress!


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## tugger (4/7/16)

If you are removing o2 via vacuum you need to shower the inside of the vacuum tank like a sprayball. 
This will only get you to 1000 ppb. 
If you bubble co2 venting the head pressure it will bring the o2 down to under 10 ppb.
Tap water is around 7000 ppb.


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## dent (4/7/16)

Yank:yeah there are reports that this is great for almost all styles - I have only just started so if still be a while before I have any first hand examples. 

Tugger: Thanks for the info - I am boiling the water to remove the DO and adding some metabisulfite to get rid of what remains. The vacuum I am using is to purge air from the grist and mash tun, and to allow me to cleanly flush out this and other vessels. I considered the CO2 removal methods like you say but I figured it would use up a prohibitive amount of gas.


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## eldertaco (4/7/16)

Wow, all very interesting. There's some followup discussions linked to on the front page of germanbrewing.net too that are a good read.

One thing it says to me is that unless you take fairly extreme measures to eliminate DO right from the start when collecting your water, attempts to minimize HSA by being careful with splashing etc are going to be pretty much worthless?

If you didn't start with low DO water you're stuffed, if you don't underlet your mash you're stuffed, if you fly sparge in the presence of oxygen you're stuffed, if you boil too hard or for too long you're stuffed, and if you use any copper at all you're stuffed too.


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## dent (4/7/16)

Yep pretty much. There's more than one kind of oxidation though, so I don't think there is only two effects between <1ppm and >>1ppm.

I went to some expense rejigging everything for this as per the paper, as I don't think doing half-measures is going to help anyone.


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## wobbly (4/7/16)

If this is the "new way forward" it puts the argument about needing 10 to 12 ppm of oxygen in your wort via an oxygen injection system or just plain thrashing the wort with a spoon or similar for good yeast health on it's ear.

If it is on the money then maybe it is a good argument for using dry yeast that doesn't need the high levels of oxygen to kick it off.

The Williamswarn process and instructions talk about the need to keep the fermented beer away from oxygen exposure otherwise you will experience early onset of staling. This goes further in that the discussion is all about NO Oxygen Exposure

Wobbly


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## dent (4/7/16)

That is not the case - oxygenation of the wort proceeds as normal, with only the added suggestion that the yeast is added before the O2. The yeast itself is quite effective at removing the DO from the wort in a reasonably short amount of time.


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## MHB (4/7/16)

Wobbly
You still need to aerate at/around yeast pitching time. The yeast needs to have O2 available to reproduce, during reproduction it also removes sterols and fatty acids from the wort.
This is just as important as any other step in brewing. Thrashing at the wort isn't really very effective, if you want to something to improve your beer a good O2 kit would be to my mind a long way ahead of where this thread is focused. Healthy yeast good wort quality and temperature control all being ahead of worrying about HSA.

Dent
Have a look at N2, it really is effective at removing/excluding O2.
When I was doing Chemistry we had an old instrument called a dropping mercury electrode polarograph used to detect heavy metals (Pb Cd...) in the ppb range. Had to N2 purge all the samples or the Oxygen wave over wrote all the sample out puts - this observation lead to the development of the first compact electronic DO meters
Mark


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## Futur (5/7/16)

Reading over the article and others experiences with brewing LODO has kinda blown my mind. I'd be keen to give this a shot, however I've got a copper chiller on the GF. 

Just wondering if we can put an aussie spin on this method and possibly purge a cube using co2 and then no chill?

EDIT: Over at german brewing they might have stumbled on a method of removing the oxygen from mash water without having to pre boil. The method involves using bakers yeast and a small amount of DME in your mash water for about an hour. http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=355


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## Mardoo (5/7/16)

Brew In A Bag in space?

Thanks for this. One of the most fascinating topics in a while, for me. Definitely read the onward articles and forum threads. Some interesting stuff. I'm not interested in the pursuit of perfect beer, but some of the flavour issues they've mentioned are things I've seen in German-style beers I've tasted. Since I'm ostensibly on a Vienna Lager jag I'm going to keep reading.


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## wobbly (5/7/16)

MHB said:


> Wobbly
> You still need to aerate at/around yeast pitching time. The yeast needs to have O2 available to reproduce, during reproduction it also removes sterols and fatty acids from the wort.
> This is just as important as any other step in brewing. Thrashing at the wort isn't really very effective, if you want to something to improve your beer a good O2 kit would be to my mind a long way ahead of where this thread is focused. Healthy yeast good wort quality and temperature control all being ahead of worrying about HSA.


But does the same hold true if/when using dry yeast?

And if so can you please provide a link to some sort of reference/reading that indicates that oxygenation of the wort is required for dry yeast.

Wobbly


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## MHB (5/7/16)

There is plenty around
You could start with this, just for an overview of the effects of O2. View attachment 03 - The role of oxygen.pdf

Then read the Tips & Tricks on the Fermentis website
Mark


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## dent (5/7/16)

Futur: That's a good one - I had that same idea but was concerned that cooked yeast crud might not be favourable - didn't think of using baker's yeast though.

Spose you could use a cube if you really tried (I imagine I could pull a vacuum on one, it'd go back to shape with hot wort in it) but then again no chill and lagers isn't a ideal solution with DMS etc. On the plus side though the hot transfers would limit O2 uptake.


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## manticle (5/7/16)

One of the main factors in that article was a rapid chill so nc/cube out of the question I'm guessing.

Not a method I'm at all set up to use but very interesting, including the info about boil length and vigour and recommended ppm of oxygen when pitching.

My understanding is that some oxidation commences as far back as malting so even this process won't prevent eventual oxidation.

Is there any indication of expected shelf life if all steps are followed and measured DO is sub 1ppb?*

*in other literature - couldn't see it mentioned in the linked article although I may have missed it.


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## Futur (5/7/16)

manticle said:


> One of the main factors in that article was a rapid chill so nc/cube out of the question I'm guessing.
> 
> Not a method I'm at all set up to use but very interesting, including the info about boil length and vigour and recommended ppm of oxygen when pitching.
> 
> ...


But lets step back here and look at the primary purpose here for rapid chilling the wort. Their next step after the boil is to chill as quick as possible to add yeast to maintain the low DO levels. 

If we manage our DO levels through the entire process up until the boil, then purge a cube with CO2 and transfer still boiling wort into a cube I don't see why this wouldn't have the same effect for managing low DO levels. 

See the graph below - 







Also I can't imagine storing wort for a day in a HDPE cube would allow enough gas permeability to penetrate the 1ppm O2 limit set by the paper. But someone will have to test this - with an O2 meter of course!


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## dent (5/7/16)

Futur: Yeah I think you could get a cube to work from an DO perspective, it just seems a pretty slack method to use alongside a very laborious one.

manticle: I haven't seen any more data on shelf life - I too am a little disturbed about the trial it apparently is to get something good -- but it only lasting 4 weeks. Hopefully the Germans themselves have proved it is possible to keep it going for longer though.

It could be that the oxidation rate is proportional to temperature - so the 2 hours of mash time is enough to kill the malt character at, say, 2ppm, whereas at fridge temp the 0.1ppm will kill it in 2 weeks. I guess where I am leading is that perhaps DO early in the process does not cause damage in the future, it causes it now. The malt character is lost in the mash at 65 deg at 8ppm over an hour. That same malt character is lost in a kegged LODO brew at 3 deg at 0.5ppm over 3 weeks. But a LODO mash at 0.5ppm, and kegged at <0.1ppm might last much longer. 

I've got one fermenting in a stainless 50 litre keg - I'll vacuum a corny dry and suck in the brew at about D-rest time - it will then be served from that same keg with no further manipulation. Hopefully the yeast will do the rest.

I'm starting to think bottle conditioning could be a very good thing for this process (zero head-space, of course!).


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## manticle (5/7/16)

Be interesting to see/taste.

Futur - I guess from my perspective, I would follow everything to the letter first time, then changing other variables one at a time. You could be absolutely spot on.


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## Futur (5/7/16)

manticle said:


> Be interesting to see/taste.
> 
> Futur - I guess from my perspective, I would follow everything to the letter first time, then changing other variables one at a time. You could be absolutely spot on.


If LODO is actually a thing then the two alternate processes (mash water oxygen scavenging using bakers yeast and no chill) would possibly allow all the proposed advantages of LODO without having to splash out on an stainless steel chiller.


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## MHB (5/7/16)

O2 can act in a couple of ways depending on the conditions and what else is in the environment.
One is the typical Oxidisation path think of it as slow burning where the O2 and other compounds form stable compounds, CO2, Rust...
The other is called a free radical, O2 (well an ion of) just blunders around breaking stuff up at random - and it tends to keep doing it nearly indefinitely. Does harm out of all proportion to its concentration, given time.

O2 isn't the only cause of staling, it is one of the more easily controlled. I'm far from sure that its a magic bullet, but taking care to minimise O2 up take except at yeast pitching time certainly wont do any harm, as part of a well managed brewing program, it might make the beer taste better and last longer (wont help you to keep it longer).
I wouldn't expect a miracles.
Mark


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## Mardoo (5/7/16)

No miracles a'tall, it sounds. As one of the guys who did his own experiments based on the methods, inches of difference, not miles. "Inches, not even feet."


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## dent (5/7/16)

Huh? That doesn't seem to be the conclusion of the article at all.


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## MHB (6/7/16)

Mardo - Not a bad read, thanks.
Dent - I suspect it's going to be a case of where you are measuring from. If you are already doing most of the basics well I suspect the biggest returns are going to be in stability and shelf life, perhaps some moderate improvements in other flavours.
If on the other hand a brewer was making some pretty fundamental process errors (not that anyone on AHB would try to make beer in 2 hours, or anything like that...) then followed the steps in the OP, there is likely to be an amazing improvement in their beer. The natural inclination to ascribe the sudden improvement to LO-DO rather than to all the other process improvements is understandable, if misplaced.

In my experience if you do the basics well, you will make good beer, from there its mostly fine tuning, no seven league boots, just baby steps.
Note that minimising O2 during the whole process is just good brewing practice.
Mark


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## Mardoo (6/7/16)

dent said:


> Huh? That doesn't seem to be the conclusion of the article at all.


Fair enough. On third read I realise that my understanding was coloured by the impact his early statement of, "Inches, not feet," had on my first two reads. I don't get the feeling though that he's trying to imply this is revolutionary, however it's clear he's excited about the possibilities.

Don't get me wrong, I've spent the last couple days pricing all-SS counterflow chillers so I could have a chance in hell of giving this a go. I'm definitely not a decryer, as many of the questions addressed by this technique have crossed my mind at one time or another. I'm very interested in the possibilities for the more delicate beers (pinky raisers?  ). I had a Helles not long ago from a top-notch home brewer, one that did well in comp, and it was dull. I thought WTF??? This could explain a lot of it.

Unfortunately, due to my level of knowledge I don't think I have a lot to add to the discussion other than links, so I'll sit quietly and listen now, and hopefully find a few good questions to ask. I'll try not to add obfuscation though.


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## Mardoo (6/7/16)

Dent, any chance that at some point you could run us through the process and equipment changes (other than the ones obvious from the article) that you've made in order to pursue this?


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## MHB (6/7/16)

Actually the two styles where I have noticed the most impact are Kölsch and Alt, maybe the warmer ferment impacts, possibly the Ale yeasts in these two don't have the reducing power of Lager yeasts, I have noticed they don't reach as low a pH as most equivalent lagers... Speculation. 
There are noticeable benefits in controlling O2 in most pale delicately flavoured beers, but some more than others again I'm far from sure why.

Just an aside, if you read the IBD training article I posted earlier you will see that Sodium Metabisulphite is used to adsorb O2, as is Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).
But that a blend of the two works better, I am fairly intolerant of SO2, for me less is better, something there to explore.
This is where we need DrSmurto - please anything of reaction rates...
Mark


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## dent (6/7/16)

I had a go at getting those IBD articles but buggered if I could get the site to work after creating an account.

There has been some talk of different yeasts having an effect on the DO, as the yeast itself produces sulfite, and different strains produce more or less of it.

As to my system..

The main part is the 50 litre keg turned into a mash tun set up for vacuum. I cut a hole big enough to be convenient, then used the lid from another keg cut slightly larger, with a plastic fermenter lid O ring in between the two as a seal. I pull a vacuum with a refrigeration vacuum pump, these do a very good job. The atmospheric pressure forces the lid down harder, so even with a little vacuum it forms a great seal and it impossible to remove. 






Inside the mash tun is a stainless braid and plate arrangement which works OK. I run a normal HERMS system with a stainless coil to regulate the mash temperature.






Next to it I have an "HLT". This I have set up on a gas burner to boil in order to remove DO. Once the water is boiling I add the normal mash salt/acid additions plus some sodium metabisulfite. Between the HLT and mash tun I have set up a stainless counterflow chiller with a thermowell on the output. 

So I load the *dry* grist into the mash tun. I pull a vacuum all the way - this includes all tubing for the HERMS and to the HLT right to the valve. Then I open the valve on the HLT which lets in the boiling water, through the chiller, into the mash tun - the cold water flow on the other side of the chiller regulates the temperature to be appropriate for the mash. 




Once the appropriate amount of water has entered the mash tun, I use the refrigeration gas manifold to swap between vacuum and CO2 - thus filling the mash tun with CO2 and relieving the vacuum.

From here I run the HERMS as usual to continue with the mash.

Once the mash is complete I redirect the HERMS output to the kettle. Once a reasonable amount of wort has been drained, I allow water from the HLT to fill from the top to fly sparge. I pull a partial vacuum on the mash tun at this point and the HLT water will actually get sucked in uphill while the HERMS pump fills the kettle.

The boil continues as usual. At some point during the boil I attach a pump and stainless counterflow chiller and recirculate the boiling wort for 10 minutes or so to sanitise the chiller. Then I let the boil go on without recirc. 

The fermenter is another 50L keg. I put some water in it, boil the whole thing on a gas burner to sanitise with the coupler attached, then drain the water, then pull a vacuum on it with the output hose of the wort chiller attached - this pulls a vacuum all the way back to the valve so there should be no air between the kettle and the fermenter. I removed the poppet valve from the coupler-ball-valve-adaptor so I can just jam a silicon hose on it.

Once the boil is done I open the valve on the chilling pump - the wort gets sucked through the chiller into the fermenter from the kettle without having to run the pump.

The refrigeration manifold is used again to top up the fermenter with CO2 when the kettle is empty.




Theoretically I have no oxygen in the 50 litre keg so I can put the lot in the fridge overnight to get to pitch temperature with no harm coming to it.


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## Mardoo (6/7/16)

Awesome, thanks for the thorough description and pics. Screw pumping liquid, vacuum transfer is where it's at! 

What sort of fittings are you using on the hoses that pull vacuum? Anything special you had to do to get them to seal? As I'm building my new system air ingress from fittings is something that's on my mind.


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## dent (6/7/16)

Just regular HD silicon hose works OK - sometimes it sucks in a bit but never to the point that it closes altogether unless there's a tight bend in it. I originally planned for this - I was going to make a bunch of spirals of stainless MIG wire inserted into the hoses to stop them collapsing, but it turns out OK without that.

I don't use any silly couplers, just barbs and wingnut hose clamps.

Yeah the vacuum transfer is pretty cool, but having to operate a HERMS in the dark sucks - I much prefer to be able to see the flow rate and fluid level.


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## Chridech (6/7/16)

dent said:


> I'm starting to think bottle conditioning could be a very good thing for this process (zero head-space, of course!).



Fascinating reading Dent, thanks for bringing low DO brewing techniques to our attention. Has me intrigued and thinking how I can adapt my brewing process without engineering a whole new system. Hopefully (but not necessarily what the German Brewing article suggests) there is a continuum of benefit rather than a threshold of 0.5- 1ppm O2 above which all malt flavour benefit is lost. 

Bottle conditioning could be good, but there is a lot of bubbling that goes on at the start of a standard bottle fill. Presumably would need to purge each glass bottle with CO2 prior to filling which would be kinda laborious. Attaching your Keg FV to a counterpressure filling cap and filling PET bottles or Growlers via a closed system would work to keep out that nasty O2.


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## MastersBrewery (6/7/16)

A blichman auto sparge may give you that warm fuzzy feeling for blind fly sparging. If the tun were able to hold both positive and negative pressure you could run the sparge as a closed system too. Crap now you have me thinking!! kk's keggermenter would be perfect.


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## Mardoo (6/7/16)

If I give this a go I'm going with their no-sparge suggestion, just for simplicity. Of course I'll have to do that on the comparison beer too. I'm a ways off from getting to it though.


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## klangers (7/7/16)

If only the vacuum pumps being thrown out at work weren't 3 phase...

Interesting read and does make sense. I hadn't noticed any ill effects from HSA in my brews, but as the article says, perhaps this is because the ill effect is an _absence _of a malt flavour rather than the presence of a negative flavour.

The sealing of all hoses etc is an important point. I often wonder what the shearing about in a pump volute does for the wort, and what the invariable cavitation does.

This seems to be an all-in method. Significant expense for all but the most geared-up brewers to be "compliant" with this standard. 

No copper? That also means no brass - complete replacement of all my fittings (yeah yeah better to be SS I know but $$)
No bubbles or leaks means I need to replace all my hoses with better, more expensive connections
Splashing etc is general good practice - but difficult to totally eliminate (unless purging/flooding with inert gas)

The main thing that concerns me, due to the tendency for it to go down a rabbit hole, is the degree to which one floods with N2. I would really rather work out an alternative method instead of having a third type of compressed gas to worry about.


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## dent (7/7/16)

Yep, no brass - I went and replaced all of my old valves and fittings for stainless. I couldn't use an old plate chiller as that was copper too. You shouldn't have any bubbles or leaks anyhow in a recirculating system. Splashing is never good practice apart from a half-assed wort oxygenation practise for yeast pitching - for that you can still do it if you want as the yeast will consume the DO.

I see no benefit of using N2 over CO2 for purging purposes - pretty sure CO2 is much cheaper since it's liquefied and thus you get much more in a bottle. (Just thought, maybe one - N2 is less likely to dissolve in water and reduce in volume)

The vaccum pump wasn't the biggest expense - $150 delivered though I did already have the manifold and fittings for that.

From what I taste of the wort from this process, the low oxygen method is totally about gaining a better flavour and fresh malt character, not about avoiding a ill effect. For the purposes of this thread "HSA" is on another planet.

Apart from the stainless you could avoid most of the expense to be able to give their methods a go with existing parts - I doubt you'll get a beer that is wonderful forever but you'll get a taste of the difference in the wort. 

An old mash tun esky would actually be pretty good for this process I reckon - no recirculation to cause problems, you could put a seal under the lid, drill a 8mm hole to purge with CO2 and put a couple of bricks on it to keep it sealed for the mash.

The vacuum and CO2 etc is me trying to make it foolproof and consistent to operate with no grey area.


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## MHB (7/7/16)

I think a full volume BIAB would be the easiest to do with low cost.
If you boiled the water (all of it) then let it cool to strike temperature and exclude O2 (gas shield, Met, Ascorbic...). Then mash in very carefully (perhaps gas the malt in a bucket). Maintain a slow gas shield throughout the mash and be careful pulling the bag out. I suspect your O2 uptake would be very low bordering on zero.

CO2 has the advantage of being available and relatively inexpensive and heavier than air. It is much more soluble, it forms Carbonic Acid so its going to affect your pH (how much I don't know), it doesn't strip O2 out of solution.
N2 has the big advantage of actually ejecting O2 from solution, not being very soluble not affecting pH. Downside being another bottle, regulator... expense.

Lots of fun to be had - Have to put a DO meter on the Xmas wish list.
Mark


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## klangers (7/7/16)

Low oxygen brewing - where TIG welding meets beer lol.

Good info. I feel after reading all this a big gap in my understanding has been filled. 

If I was to brew a doppelbock (with cold brewed coffee in at secondary/aging), would I be better off doing a no-recirc, decoction? This way the mash tun lid can be on all the time and no compromise due to my dodgy hoses. Then it's just a matter of purging initially and during transfers to and from the kettle for decocting.


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## Futur (7/7/16)

Do you really have to go to this much effort to completely isolate your mash from oxygen? 

I thought the whole point in the paper was to be able to use SMB (Sodium metabisulfite) in the home brewing enviroment to take the brunt of the O2 during mashing. The SMB absorbs the oxygen at a suggested dosage of 100ppm.

Unless of course you don't want to use SMB at all and want to attempt the Lodo process using equipment only


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## MHB (7/7/16)

Futur said:


> Do you really have to go to this much effort to completely isolate your mash from oxygen?
> Snip


Yep! O2 is everywhere and gets into everything, to get zero O2 is really hard work, I think it would require very careful mechanical and/or chemical exclusion.
Mark


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## Mardoo (7/7/16)

Anyone have some links on how how LDO is accomplished at the professional brewing level? My Google Fu is flaccid today. Not much is coming up.


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## klangers (7/7/16)

Mardoo said:


> Anyone have some links on how how LDO is accomplished at the professional brewing level? My Google Fu is flaccid today. Not much is coming up.


No links, but from my experience in the field, something like the following occurs:

Incoming towns water goes through a deoxygenation step in the water treatment plant on its way to the water holding tank
I'm not sure how the holding tanks are vented, but usually this is to atmosphere ie when the tank drains the volume is replaced by air
Liquor becomes hot liquor after cooling the previous wort and is transferred to HLT
Hot liquor is mixed with the grist in a "mechamasher" which is basically a big screw that mixes it all together inline in a pipe
The mash flows into the mash tun, which is likely to have been steam-purged
All tuns are covered which allows for control of the atmosphere inside
After the whirlpool, the wort will never again see the light of day until it is in the bottle
I've personally never ever heard of, nor seen, any form of gas purging in a brewhouse, ever. I'd suggest that steam barriers are sufficient

The biggest difference is the dedicated de-ox plant, and the fact that everything is hard-piped up together with enclosed tuns. Also, at homebrewing scales we have the additional challenge of a far greater surface area:volume compared to a commercial brewer, and therefore are subject to higher relative dissolution rates of O2.


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## dent (7/7/16)

> at homebrewing scales we have the additional challenge of a far greater surface area:volume compared to a commercial brewer


Bam! This is number one I reckon.

Doppelbock might be one of those styles, like old ale or RIS, that actually benefits from some oxidation. But that is fairly arguable. 

I would say recirculating is asking for trouble, if you can get a clean wort into the kettle without it, then, great.


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## Adr_0 (9/7/16)

Awesome info. I should know that oxidation at any step will further stale the ingredient, but I believed the HSA non-existence (everyone said so...) so didn't really worry about it. 

I think the cube idea is a good one. Where is the O2 coming from? A lot of water samples we get at work start at 4+ppm O2, but when they are agitated then sealed up, the off-site lab returns 0.1ppm or so. 

Essentially the O2 has to come from somewhere - if the water is boiled thoroughly and carefully cubed, although it has potential to absorb O2 it still has to come from somewhere. Can it then be pushed out with CO2 for strike or sparge water?

Curious about the vitamin C and SMB combination. I use vit C for chlorine removal - a massive oxidiser if you didn't already know - but interesting to know if it's effective to reduce O2. Sulphur compounds readily bond to oxygen (2.NaHSO3 + O2 = 2.NaHSO4... Sodium bisulphite to bisulphate) but I'm not sure if the vitamin C products are as readily reactive. If they are... sweet!


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## Mardoo (9/7/16)

I'd love to hear if you work that out! In what form do you use vitamin C for chlorine removal?


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## dent (9/7/16)

I spent some time today working on the fermenter-to-keg transfer setup. I wanted to be able to vacuum out a corny, and suck the beer from the fermenter with no air gaps anywhere. This was my first brew that I just used a plastic fermenter on, but the process will be pretty similar with the stainless 50L fermenter. It was nice to find the beer still has that quality malt flavour in it, for now.







I made the fitting simply by putting the silicon hose around a inline push-in joiner, which worked a treat.






First idea was putting a bunch of off-brand blu-tack around the top of the O ring seal of the corny lid - this worked pretty good for a while (some even got sucked in a little and I had to add more) but eventually the force was overcoming the off-centred lid clamps, and the lid was starting to tilt inward. 






So plan B was to just turn the lid upside down. This works fine, however it forces the awkward step of taking the lid off and putting it back on the right way once the keg is filled. I gave in and did just that on this one - another idea is to modify a lid so it can't tilt down on one side. But purging the last litre in the top of the keg is much more feasible than trying to purge the whole thing. So I flushed out that last litre with CO2 about 10 times.







I didn't trust the fermenter tap to hold vacuum so that's what the irwin clamp is for.

The other issue is once the keg started to fill up, I'd lose vacuum due to the displacement, and I'd have to add more - but as the keg gets filled the foam would start to get in the suction tube attached to the gas post. So I had to use another spare keg as a bong, so no liquid would get into the vacuum pump.

Anyhow it's nice to confirm that a corny has enough structural integrity to hold a vacuum without imploding.

--

I did another brew today, I stuck with the LODO method however I was just brewing a smoked porter. I was too busy screwing around with the above I didn't really have time to prepare another stainless fermenter. So I went to see if it's possible to purge a cube. First I tried pulling a vacuum on one - that was pretty comical and did the cube no favours. Next I made a lid with a 8mm push in fitting, filled the cube with starsan, turned it upside down so the bubble was at the top. I bubbled CO2 through the starsan, and vented the bubble as much as possible a few times. Then I used CO2 to push the rest of the starsan out. All in all this used a lot of gas and I'm not really convinced it makes a complete purge - It's easy to leave the valve open a little too long and suck some air back in while trying to get the bubble out. I hooked the kettle tube up to the cube tap and loosened the lid to allow the wort in.

Anyhow I wasn't super fussed about making a LODO smoked porter but I still wanted to use the opportunity to iron out bugs in the process.


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## Adr_0 (9/7/16)

I personally use sodium ascorbate because it produces an equivalent NaCl instead of an HCl as ascorbic acid does. It doesn't acidify the water for every bit of chlorine removed, and instead produces salt.

I guess the three comparisons are below. Although I picked sodium ascorbate for chlorine removal, I'm not sure that it would be the best for O2 removal - some 'articles' say it is, but literature doesn't really back it up, except for this:
http://www.lighthouseinstruments.com/uploads/posters/LIGHTHOUSE_poster_assessing_oxygen_degradation.pdf

Not sure about at temps in the 60's, but it looks like SMBS is a hell of a lot faster. Rates are in the top-right - significantly increased with temperature. Unfortunately there's no comparison with everything at 65°C.

Seems to make sense if you consider dissolving SMBS in water:
Na2S2O5 + H2O >> 2NaHSO3 (sodium bisulphite)
2NaH*SO3* + *O2* >>2NaHSO4 (sodium bisulphate) *[this reaction would be fast and readily performed]*
2NaHSO3 + 2HOCl >> H2SO4 + 2HCl + NaSO4 (sodium bisulphite, SBS, reacts with chlorine in 1:1 to produce sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid and sodium sulphate)
Practically speaking, if you have chlorine your pH will drop slightly for every bit of chlorine removed. If you have an excess of SMBS you will have a fair chunk of SBS left over - a sulphite - but if there's O2 around you will end up with a sulphate which is A-OK

Ascorbic acid with chlorine:
C5*H5*O5CH2OH + *HOCl* >> C5*H3*O5CH2O*H* + HCl + H2O (dehydroascorbic acid, a weak acid, plus hydrochloric acid which is pretty strong but not quite as significantly as the SMBS acids above)

Sodium ascorbate with chlorine:
C5*H5*O5CH2O*Na* + *HOCl* >> C5*H3*O5CH2O*H* + *NaCl* + H2O (same acid as above plus hydrochloric)

Both of the above won't be exactly the same if there is an excess, but will likely produce a similar weak acid.

If you're using CO2 blanketing, and pre-boiling into cubes (transferring with CO2) you might not quite need 100mg/L of SMBS - perhaps you only need 50mg/L if you're confident with your blanketing. You might be able to supplement vitamin C in with this too.


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## dent (10/7/16)

I'm just gonna put this here..






--

This is a great post on the GB forums, about the commercial brewing aspect of all this.
http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=436#p4215


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## hotmelt (10/7/16)

Just a thought.Instead of playing around with vacuums and Co2 to add water to the mash tun,you could make something like this to prevent o2. Would allow you to monitor your mash and sparge better.

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Anaerobic-Chamber-aka-glove-box/


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## drsmurto (12/7/16)

I've been mulling this over for the past few days trying to find a few moments to piece together some thoughts.

Firstly, oxygen is part of the area of research I am involved in along with copper and sulfur chemistry in wine. Oxygen doesn't react with organic molecules (it's spin forbidden - a discussion of electron orbitals could follow but I'll leave that for now), it first is reduced by redox active metal ions such as Cu+ and Fe++ to the superoxide radical and further reduced (in acidic environments such as beer) to hydrogen peroxide by another Cu+ or Fe++ ion. The next step is the Fenton reaction where the most reactive of the species is formed, the hydroxide radical. This will react with just about anything including ethanol, the product of which is acetaldehyde. The kinetics are very fast and you won;t be able to undo the chemistry once it occurs. This article goes in to some of them chemistry - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf903127r

In wine, sulfite is used to control this by reacting with the hydrogen peroxide (not oxygen) to produce sulfate, a stable ion. SO2 is the molecular form and at the pH of beer, can be considered to not exist. It is instead present as bisulfite and sulfite.

So adding sulfite to your brewing water is the best defence against oxygen. 

The downside to using sulfite is that yeast love it and use it to produce the sulfur containing amino acids, cysteine and methionine, but also release large amounts of hydrogen sulfide in the process. Yeast already produce sulfite (another reason there is no such thing as sulfite free wine (or beer)), the amounts produced are strain dependent.

Removing oxygen from water without using sulfite can be done easily enough with an airstone and an inert gas such as nitrogen. I do this routinely at work and within a few mins remove all the oxygen. I use a Presens oxygen sensor which uses luminescence to detect oxygen which enables me to measure the oxygen inside a sealed container without exposing it to oxygen and has a LOD of 1ppb (unlike the 1ppm that was mentioned for the cheap meter). I don't see why 1ppm is the cutoff for oxygen to make a difference to the resulting beer. From my research in wine that is more than enough to make massive changes to the chemistry.

The rest of this process I'll leave to the engineers to try and find ways to prevent oxygen from getting in.


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## neal32 (12/7/16)

DrSmurto said:


> I've been mulling this over for the past few days trying to find a few moments to piece together some thoughts.
> 
> Firstly, oxygen is part of the area of research I am involved in along with copper and sulfur chemistry in wine. Oxygen doesn't react with organic molecules (it's spin forbidden - a discussion of electron orbitals could follow but I'll leave that for now), it first is reduced by redox active metal ions such as Cu+ and Fe++ to the superoxide radical and further reduced (in acidic environments such as beer) to hydrogen peroxide by another Cu+ or Fe++ ion. The next step is the Fenton reaction where the most reactive of the species is formed, the hydroxide radical. This will react with just about anything including ethanol, the product of which is acetaldehyde. The kinetics are very fast and you won;t be able to undo the chemistry once it occurs. This article goes in to some of them chemistry - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf903127r
> 
> ...


With your chemistry background what do you make of the claims of copper turning your beer into undrinkable oxidized swill? Does the science confirm this?


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## Adr_0 (12/7/16)

Bugger about the keg... guess they are not rated for vacuum.

At work we've only really used vacuum once. Typically we dry out with nitrogen or natural gas to a certain dewpoint, but in this case we didn't want nitrogen left over as that would be a contaminant for the propane refrigeration. It went well, but very very hard work - main issue is leaks, assuming everything is rated for vacuum.

Bottling the other night, I thought this would be good:



It would basically be 1/2" vinyl tube about 25cm long to get to the bottom of a tallie, with a tee off to 8mm hose and a regulator set very low, i.e. something in the 0-10psig range. You would need only 0.5psig or so to act as a purge on the bottles, and this would allow the fill tube to be purged each time as well. You could put a valve in line to control the flow.

For using a plate heat exchanger, I wonder if the copper oxide layer could be dissolved with strong citric, then similar purge lines to CO2 are connected underwater (1-3psig this time) and then the citric carefully tipped out? It could then be connected up to your kettle and run a constant purge through the fermenter, heat ex and kettle.



The purpose of this would be to prevent firming an oxide layer again. Not sure if that's possible, but I'm thinking about how the Germans did inert casting about 100yrs ago...


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## MHB (12/7/16)

Thanks DrS, always good to get the mechanisms, two extra questions.
Ascorbic Acid - Same reaction pathway? the IOB training on O2 suggests a blend of VitC and Meta Bisulphite - maybe just to keep the total amount of S lower.
Cu & Fe - can you think of anything that would get them out of solution - other than a RoMo water supply, a simple chelating chemical may be.
If I were going to try LoDO first thought would be to boil all the water (getting rid of Cl, F, O excess carbonate...) if we tosses a bit of Zn or Mg metal in to the kettle would that replace the Cu, Fe? Just happen to have a jar of Mg turnings...
Mark


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## jyo (12/7/16)

I am continually amazed by the level of knowledge and ingenuity of members on this site. Great work Dent, and amazing contributions MHB, DrSmurto and others.


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## drsmurto (12/7/16)

neal32 said:


> With your chemistry background what do you make of the claims of copper turning your beer into undrinkable oxidized swill? Does the science confirm this?


Never read that. It's been used in brewing for centuries as the primary metal to make the vessels out of. It is still used in many cases and is routinely found in distilleries. It's often added to wine to remove hydrogen sulfide.

In this particular case it does play a role.



MHB said:


> Thanks DrS, always good to get the mechanisms, two extra questions.
> Ascorbic Acid - Same reaction pathway? the IOB training on O2 suggests a blend of VitC and Meta Bisulphite - maybe just to keep the total amount of S lower.
> Cu & Fe - can you think of anything that would get them out of solution - other than a RoMo water supply, a simple chelating chemical may be.
> If I were going to try LoDO first thought would be to boil all the water (getting rid of Cl, F, O excess carbonate...) if we tosses a bit of Zn or Mg metal in to the kettle would that replace the Cu, Fe? Just happen to have a jar of Mg turnings...
> Mark


Ascorbic acid is generally used in tandem with sulfite. There is still some debate as to the mechanism but my understanding of the chemistry is that it is not particularly effective in the absence of copper ions. In this case that becomes a catch 22.... Ascorbic acid gets reduced to dehydroascorbic acid and hydrogen peroxide which the sulfite mops up.

As for the removal of Cu and Fe, there is a product undergoing approval for use in winemaking (in Australia. It's already in use in Europe) that removes these 2 metal ions. It's called Divergan and is very similar to PVPP but the crosslinking step is slightly different. PVPP doesn't remove Cu and Fe from solution whereas Divergan does and it is quite effective at it. I'm doing some research into it at the moment in relation to the resulting sulfur chemistry in wine once you remove Cu and Fe. 

Zn and Mg won't remove or do anything to Cu and Fe. Boiling water won't remove fluoride, you need RO for that. Carbonate content is reduced upon boiling but far from completely.

Another method of removing Cu and Fe is called 'blue fining'. Potassium ferrocyanide. No longer used in the wine industry in most countries as far as I am aware due to the highly unlikely chance of producing hydrogen cyanide and the cost of then showing it didn't form.


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## Techbrau (13/7/16)

Hi there,

I'm one of the original authors of the low oxygen brewing document put out by the German Brewing Forum. I read the thread here and thought it was so cool how people on the other side of the world (I'm in the USA) have such great ideas to contribute to the discussion. It was our hope that by putting out the document we could kickstart some renewed interest in the role of oxygen in brewing, which would eventually turn into an open-source effort to come up with solutions suitable for home and craft brewers.

DrSmurto, the two major oxidative pathways that we hypothesized were 1) Fenton-like processes which you describe in detail and 2) oxidation driven via enzymes naturally occurring in the malt such as peroxidase, lipoxygenase, polyphenol oxidase, and others. It would be great to find a metal chelating agent with as few side effects as possible but I'm wondering where that would leave the enzymatic oxidation. Sulfite seems to suppress both pathways but I'm quite interested in investigating alternative methods as well. I have a technical background so I can kind of stumble along but I'm no chemist. Do you have any insight as to more surgical methods that we could use to fight the oxidative enzymes as well as the transition metals?

I think that we should be striving to use as little SMB as possible. The 100 mg/l we recommended in the paper is a bit overkill in my opinion but we wanted to publish a method that would work for people who might have leaky systems...nowadays I am using about 50 mg/l but I employ a floating stainless steel cap on my mash and lauter tuns which limits the surface area of the wort exposed to air. I also made sure that my pump lines have zero leaks and that generally my system is very tight when it comes to oxygen pickup.

In retrospect, not emphasized enough in the paper IMO is the impact of heat stress! I posted some pictures of what too much boiling can do to your wort here:

http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=440

For anybody interested in exploring low oxygen brewing, our forum has a lot more information than is contained in the pdf, so feel free to take a look. We're just getting started exploring the subject and there's a still a lot of unanswered questions. You guys here clearly have a lot of expertise and it would be great to bridge our communities and work together in the pursuit of making better beer.


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## klangers (13/7/16)

Techbrau, welcome and thanks for writing the original document!

There are a lot of knowledgeable people here who also like a discussion. Bridging communities is a great idea.

I think everyone agrees about oxygen pickup from atmosphere and the necessity to protect from this as well as removing DO from source water. What I don't think there is a lot of detail on, although touched on by DrSmurto, is the effect of metallic copper.

It has been used for centuries to make brewery vessels. I hypothesize that this was mainly due to the relative easy through which copper can be refined, worked and formed rather than for some chemistry reason.

Let's bear in mind that stainless steel is a 20th century invention, and from an engineering standpoint aside from thermal and electrical properties, is far superior to pure copper.


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## MHB (13/7/16)

I've been doing a bit of study on LOX, the two parameters that were of interest were the pH range and the temperature deactivation (as with all enzymes)
Low mash pH (under 5.2, 5.1 is more sure) deactivate LOX. Temperatures above 62oC denature it as well.
Not a total solution, with modern well modified malt there is little or no need for Glucanase and Protease rests so mashing in hotter than 62oC and at lower pH should supress most of the LOX action.

Most of the LOX is degraded during malting, longer and hotter kilning reduces LOX, so darker malts will have a lot less to start with Pilsner > Ale > Vienna/Light Munich > Dark Munich.
Shorter mashes reduce the effects (within limits), Malt Peeling (removing the husk and germ) reduces the fatty acids....
No simple answers.

From what I have read so far I would have to use ultra pure water, adjust water chemistry to suit, and I think I would drop an airstone into the mash tun and keep a trickle of N2 flowing throughout the whole mash, like wise in any sparge water, perhaps even in the kettle.
Mark


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## TSMill (13/7/16)

dent said:


> I'm just gonna put this here..


Cool, A 9L keg!


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## neal32 (13/7/16)

klangers said:


> Techbrau, welcome and thanks for writing the original document!
> 
> There are a lot of knowledgeable people here who also like a discussion. Bridging communities is a great idea.
> 
> ...


I've got a kegmenter on the way and am doing my first lodo brew this/next weekend. The caveat is that i have a copper herms coil and copper ccfc. Im reluctant to get rid of them (although i would if there was sufficient data/anacdotal evidence).

I hope someone does a side by side with stainless and copper to see the realworld effects.


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## Adr_0 (13/7/16)

Well I guess at pH 5-5.5 CuO dissolves easier that NiO that would likely be on stainless.

What I don't quite get us how this is oxidising the beer - in fact if this is stripped, dissolved O2 should form a stable CuO/NiO which then might drop out? The copper/nickel ions would act as a reducing agent, bonding with available O2. I believe to break these back apartments to Cu+ and O2- would require heat and a catalyst. 

But, does dissolved CuO contribute to dissolved O2, which is then picked up on a DO meter? Does this then oxidise malt compounds? I would not have thought so, but if there is an elevated DO reading people might think it contributes to oxidation of the malt.


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## MHB (13/7/16)

neal32 said:


> I've got a kegmenter on the way and am doing my first lodo brew this/next weekend. The caveat is that i have a copper herms coil and copper ccfc. Im reluctant to get rid of them (although i would if there was sufficient data/anacdotal evidence).
> 
> I hope someone does a side by side with stainless and copper to see the realworld effects.


I think you are rather missing the point. We are talking about Cu in the mash. By the end of the boil there are no enzymes left to react with the Copper (killing enzymes is one of the big 4 reasons we boil a wort).
That isn't to say that there are no effects from Cu in the boiled wort, Cu catalyses the formation of permanent haze, the same pathway that forms chill haze but it stays formed.
Copper in the kettle also helps Protein to coagulate, aiding in break formation, bit of a swings and roundabouts, you gain some advantages by using a Copper, and you get some down side as well.

Your using a Copper immersion chiller will have no impact on the effects related to LoDO, or Cu in the mash - any effects aren't related to the LoDO discussion
Want to start a new thread?
Mark

The Copper Recirc coil could be a different matter. I would be surprised if you didn't notice some improvement by reducing the O2 in the mash. The reaction with LOX doesn't need O2 (sort of oxidisation without O2) but is accelerated by Fe and Cu ions.
M
M


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## drsmurto (13/7/16)

Adr_0 said:


> Well I guess at pH 5-5.5 CuO dissolves easier that NiO that would likely be on stainless.
> 
> What I don't quite get us how this is oxidising the beer - in fact if this is stripped, dissolved O2 should form a stable CuO/NiO which then might drop out? The copper/nickel ions would act as a reducing agent, bonding with available O2. I believe to break these back apartments to Cu+ and O2- would require heat and a catalyst.
> 
> But, does dissolved CuO contribute to dissolved O2, which is then picked up on a DO meter? Does this then oxidise malt compounds? I would not have thought so, but if there is an elevated DO reading people might think it contributes to oxidation of the malt.


CuO, which is all but insoluble in water, is soluble in acidic solutions. It will form 'free' Cu++ ions, the oxide anion results in a water molecule. This is not a redox reaction, simply copper ions dissolving, no oxidation/reduction takes place. The Cu++ ions now become available to redox catalyse any dissolved oxygen to the more reactive compounds I've already discussed (superoixde, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxide radicals).

As I mentioned previously, when Cu ions interact with O2 they do not form the oxide (CuO). What you are thinking of is the surface reaction between an elemental metal and oxygen which produces the metal oxide - it is a 2 electron oxidation/reduction - copper goes from 0 to +2, oxygen goes from 0 to -2. This is metal in the elemental oxidation state of 0, not +1 and +2 which is what they are in solution.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (13/7/16)

&nbsp;


DrSmurto said:


> Yeast already produce sulfite (another reason there is no such thing as sulfite free wine (or beer)), the amounts produced are strain dependent.


&nbsp;

As noted it is strain dependent, some strains actually produce none at all, notably the Weihenstephan wheat beer yeast (W-68 IIRC).


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (13/7/16)

Adr_0 said:


> Well I guess at pH 5-5.5 CuO dissolves easier that NiO that would likely be on stainless.


The surface of properly prepared austenitic stainless is largely CrO2, that's why a citric rinse is used after caustic cleaning SS in wineries (since iron citrate is soluble the citric rinse reforms the passive surface). I've not seen any breweries use a citric rinse, though the use of acetic peroxyhydrate possibly has some effect (iron acetate is also pretty soluble).


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## klangers (13/7/16)

That makes sense. Please bear with my paraphrasing - it helps me understand.

Metallic copper oxidises to copper oxide (a variety depending on oxidation state and other conditions). When in contact with acidic wort, the copper oxides dissolve and disassociate to the ions. The ions then catalyse a reaction with dissolved oxygen in the wort to create more damaging compounds.

The key point for me is that it is not the copper alone that is the issue. It's when you have copper gear AND DO in your wort. If you have low DO, the copper ions can't react with the oxygen to form the more damaging compounds.

Therefore, in theory, one should be able to have copper gear so long as DO is eliminated as far as practicable.


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## Adr_0 (13/7/16)

DrSmurto said:


> CuO, which is all but insoluble in water, is soluble in acidic solutions. It will form 'free' Cu++ ions, the oxide anion results in a water molecule. This is not a redox reaction, simply copper ions dissolving, no oxidation/reduction takes place. The Cu++ ions now become available to redox catalyse any dissolved oxygen to the more reactive compounds I've already discussed (superoixde, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxide radicals).
> 
> As I mentioned previously, when Cu ions interact with O2 they do not form the oxide (CuO). What you are thinking of is the surface reaction between an elemental metal and oxygen which produces the metal oxide - it is a 2 electron oxidation/reduction - copper goes from 0 to +2, oxygen goes from 0 to -2. This is metal in the elemental oxidation state of 0, not +1 and +2 which is what they are in solution.


...and there we have it. Thankyou sir. 

I guess then that CrO/NiO will not as readily dissociate in pH 5-5.5 as CuO?


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (13/7/16)

&amp;amp;nbsp;


klangers said:


> If only the vacuum pumps being thrown out at work weren't 3 phase...
> &amp;amp;nbsp;


&amp;amp;nbsp;

An old 'frig compressor works perfectly well as a vacuum pump; best get one where the refrigerant has already leaked out, otherwise you have to dispose of it. 

That being said I prefer to use a dedicated single stage vacuum pump but then I'm running mine for hours on end (composites in a curing oven). 
Google image search "vacuum bagging pump"


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## klangers (13/7/16)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;
> 
> An old 'frig compressor works perfectly well as a vacuum pump;


Excellent! I'm not short on those 




Adr_0 said:


> ...and there we have it. Thankyou sir.
> 
> I guess then that CrO/NiO will not as readily dissociate in pH 5-5.5 as CuO?


Not so much nickel oxide (nickel is very difficult to oxidise and is considered corrosion resistant). 

But chromium is passivating, and oxidises readily in air to form a durable protective oxide layer.

Basically the more reactive the metal, the more stable its oxide is. Sodium chloride comes to mind as a classic example


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## neal32 (20/7/16)

FWIW I'm doing my first lodo brew this weekend and have been devouring information and podcasts relating to oxygen ingress on the hotside. In particular there are a couple of Charlie Bamforth podcasts that were quite interesting. The take away points were that HSA was of little to no importance and he even mocks anerobic brewhouses more than once. He also tells a story of himself improving Carling Black by decreasing the oxygen pickup and the customers sending it back because they preferred the staled one. Along the same line he has done blind experiments with fresh and staled beer with 50% of the people preferring the staled beer. So for the people who practice LODO to say it makes the best beer is purely subjective.

One thing that was unanimous was that oxygen at any point after fermentation was completed was detrimental to flavour stability. Which is cool because the brew this weekend will be the first one that is transferred to the serving keg without the slightest hint of oxygen. I am using a spunding valve and connecting both serving kegs and my filter inline so they will be flushed with natty co2 for 2 weeks! Should be fun to compare the differences.


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## Futur (20/7/16)

neal32 said:


> FWIW I'm doing my first lodo brew this weekend and have been devouring information and podcasts relating to oxygen ingress on the hotside. In particular there are a couple of Charlie Bamforth podcasts that were quite interesting. The take away points were that HSA was of little to no importance and he even mocks anerobic brewhouses more than once. He also tells a story of himself improving Carling Black by decreasing the oxygen pickup and the customers sending it back because they preferred the staled one. Along the same line he has done blind experiments with fresh and staled beer with 50% of the people preferring the staled beer. So for the people who practice LODO to say it makes the best beer is purely subjective.
> 
> One thing that was unanimous was that oxygen at any point after fermentation was completed was detrimental to flavour stability. Which is cool because the brew this weekend will be the first one that is transferred to the serving keg without the slightest hint of oxygen. I am using a spunding valve and connecting both serving kegs and my filter inline so they will be flushed with natty co2 for 2 weeks! Should be fun to compare the differences.


I'll be interested to see how you go. I've done two LODO batches now with the first a failed attempt due to horrible efficiency issues. I did a no sparge grainfather batch with 35% efficiency. The next batch I fly sparged and got 55%. I normally hit about 72-75%. Either the SMB or malt conditioning is affecting my mash. I'll be watching to see how it turns out for you


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## Chridech (20/7/16)

Futur said:


> I'll be interested to see how you go. I've done two LODO batches now with the first a failed attempt due to horrible efficiency issues. I did a no sparge grainfather batch with 35% efficiency. The next batch I fly sparged and got 55%. I normally hit about 72-75%. Either the SMB or malt conditioning is affecting my mash. I'll be watching to see how it turns out for you


I am really interested Futur to learn how you went about trying LODO with the GF. It's something I have been thinking about a lot. Specifically how did you mash in and sparge? These seem to me to be the most obvious processes for introducing 02 using the GF. Did you try anything different during the mash recirc. to minimise oxygen ingess or just rely on the SMB to do the scavenging? Did you no-chill or use an alternative non-copper chiller? I've been following this thread and the source documents with great interest. I want to give LODO a go but am rather pessimistic I can achieve it on the hot-side with the GF.


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## Futur (21/7/16)

Chridech said:


> I am really interested Futur to learn how you went about trying LODO with the GF. It's something I have been thinking about a lot. Specifically how did you mash in and sparge? These seem to me to be the most obvious processes for introducing 02 using the GF. Did you try anything different during the mash recirc. to minimise oxygen ingess or just rely on the SMB to do the scavenging? Did you no-chill or use an alternative non-copper chiller? I've been following this thread and the source documents with great interest. I want to give LODO a go but am rather pessimistic I can achieve it on the hot-side with the GF.


My method so far is this (not proven!):


I pump starsan solution through the CF chiller and let it sit until it gets used later.
I treated the mash water with bakers yeast and dextrose in the grainfather and let it sit for 60 minutes (http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=355)
I then condition the malt with about 1.5% water by weight, waited about 20 minutes and then milled directly into the grain basket.
I then added 100mg/L of SMB to the mash water once it was at about 50C and carefully stirred it in. I let it sit for about 10 minutes to do it's work on the remaining dissolved O2.
I lowered the grain basket slowly into the mash water until all the water under-let through the grain.
I then put the top plate and lid on and started the pump, adjusting the flow rate to ensure the re-circulation outlet was under the mash water but not without mash water running down the overflow.

From here you could either sparge or no chill, my first batch was no chill but due to the huge efficiency hit from doing it no sparge I think that will be used for canned starter wort. No chill will be something I'll experiment with later until my process is more sound.

The sparge is the riskiest part and from what other grainfather users who have provided DO readings state that they still manage < 1.0ppm of DO after the sparge but it's close. When sparging ensure the sparge water has been pre boiled and treated with SMB at the recommended dosage of 20mg/L. There is no avoiding splashing of the wort here unless you have some sort of skyhook where you can lift the basket slowly and support it to minimise splashing. Otherwise sparge as normal.

Chilling is an issue for most of us (down to 6C!), an esky and pond pump with chilled water/ice/salt is about the only option I believe. Also when chilling you'll want to recirculate and chill using tap water until you can get the temperature down as low as possible, this however wastes a lot of water!

My next batch I'm going to attempt a BIAB in the grainfather and go no sparge to reduce the O2 risk. I'm also going to reduce the amount of SMB used (50mg/L) and also use Brewtan B in the mash (http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=356&hilit=brewtan)

This is where I'm going with this but I'm really flying blind without a DO meter. Feel free to point out any ways to do this better than I already am


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## Chridech (22/7/16)

Thanks Futur for your detailed reply. Impressed by your dedication. I wondered whether anyone local was using baker's yeast for O2 scavenging pre-mash. Interesting thread on the German brewing forum detailing it.

When you lower the mash tun into the boiler do you also gently stir the mash to ensure there are no pockets of trapped air? Or does pre-conditioning the grain reduce the likelihood of air-pockets? Any benefit of filling the boiler with CO2 before lowering the mash tun? 
When sparging, until now, i have poured In the sparge water with a 5L jug. Guess it would be worthwhile pumping or gravity feed the sparge water with a hose from the sparge water heater in similar way you describe for the recirc. during mash. Agree with you that elevating the mash tun and letting it drip into the boiler is the most at-risk part of the process. A winch to slowly lift the mash tun to the level of the boiler wort-level could be helpful, as you say. I need to look up your link on Brewtan B. Cheers Futur, thanks for your efforts.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (22/7/16)

Futur said:


> This is where I'm going with this but I'm really flying blind without a DO meter. Feel free to point out any ways to do this better than I already am



You don't need a DO meter to measure DO, you can do it with methylene blue dye.

The basic technique is to add barely anoxic methylene blue to the sample and visually compare the colour development against a known standard.

The tricky bit is taking the sample without altering DO2 status but it can be done. If you are interested I can provide excruciating detail.


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## Mardoo (23/7/16)

Oh, do go on...


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## Futur (23/7/16)

I would love to hear how to do this! Please provide the excruciating detail!


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (23/7/16)

OK, I've had a go at writing this up but I have to admit that it's not the easiest thing to follow. If I get time in the next week or so I might do one of these and take pics and post it up as a separate thread.

Materials:

Methylene Blue 
Reducing agent: Sodium dithionite (best) or sodium ascorbate / ascorbic acid.
8-10 small clear glass bottles all the same size, preferably with rubber lined metal caps. McCartney bottles work. 
Soft rubber sheet approx. 3mm thick if your bottles don't have rubber cap liners.
Small graduated syringe with sharp needle.
White diffused light source (a backlit sheet of paper works)
Scales and glassware to do reasonably accurate sample make up and dilutions.
Some method of inerting the sample bottles.

First convert two or three of the sample bottles to make them injectable. If your bottles have rubber lined metal caps, remove the rubber septum, cut a hole in the top of the bottle cap then put them back together. If your bottles don't have rubber septum make one by cutting a rubber disc that just fits into the bottle cap and screw the cap down onto the bottle so it holds the rubber septum in place. Another method is to bond a rubber septum to the outside of the cap and punch a hole through both with a small nail. 

Make up some methylene blue solution at 5 g/l. Keep half of this aside for the injecting solution. Use some of the rest to make up standard solutions in six of the sample bottles (not the ones you made into injectable bottles) by serial dilution. 

Conveniently, methylene blue has 10 times the MW of O2 so standards for say 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2 ppm O2 are 2.5 to 20 ppm methylene blue. Label the standards on the top of the bottles, not the sides. Fill another two bottles with plain water, label these as zeros.

Now for the tricky bits: taking a sample without adding oxygen and injecting the dye.

Your best chance of taking an oxygen free sample is to completely fill the bottle with inert gas first. Argon is best, CO2 and nitrogen work OK. At a pinch you could use a sodastream or even the gas coming off an active fermentation. Sample slowly so as not to entrain oxygen as the sample fills. Take at least two samples and use the one you did the worst job on as the blank (see later). 

If you are taking from a sample tap, put a short flexible hose on the tap first, start the flow out the hose and then drop the hose into the bottom of the bottle. Hold the cap next to the mouth of the bottle so the inert gas coming out of the bottle fills the cap. Lower both bottle and cap as the bottle fills and cap the bottle as soon as you reach the end of the hose. 

If doing a top sample, hold the bottle at a shallow angle and push it into the fluid until it starts to fill (slowly) and keep lowering until it’s full. Do the same with the cap and put the cap on the bottle whilst both are under the surface. 

To make the injecting dye, take some of the methylene blue you set aside and add reducing agent to it until the blue colour just disappears (should be pale yellow). If you’ve got this right, you’ll get a faint blue tinge when you suck it up into the syringe. If it goes solid blue you are getting entrained air, you need to fix that before proceeding. If it stays completely yellow you’ve gone too far, push it back out the syringe and do it again until you get the blue tinge. 

Making sure there is no air in the syringe, push the needle through the septum and inject dye: approximately 1% of the sample volume. Mix until the colour is uniform.

So now you have an injected sample, a blank sample, a couple of zeros and a range of standards. Place one of the zeros in front of the light source and your injected sample in front of that. Place one of the standards next to the zero and the blank sample in front of that. Stand back and look through each pair of bottles towards the light source and compare the colours: if the standard is lighter, swap it out for the next higher, if darker swap it for the next lower. 

Voila, DO2 by wet chemistry. It should be obvious that this works best on pale fluids.


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## neal32 (23/7/16)

First LODO brew done. A few things would have disqualified me from doing a GBF certified brew. I used a real wort porter starter for the first step of my yeast starter, I used a copper HERMS and CCFC, did a short rest at 55 to dough in below gelatinization, only treated the water to 20mg/L of SMB and I didn't measure o2 throughout the process. I also used the yeast oxygen scavenging method and it was indeed strange doughing in with yeasty water.

The wort tasted as good as it usually does, without doing a side by side I couldn't confidently say that the LODO one was better. There was however a lesser smell at dough in and at the boil the wort looked like it did early on like it does after I add whirlfloc/koppafloc, maybe it's a coincidence or that the wort was lighter coloured but it did seem to coagulate better. Brewhouse efficiency was the approximately the same @ 82%. I was hoping for better seeings I tightened the mill up to .032 from .038. But on malt conditioning the crush was a lot better and it will be something I'll keep doing. It seemed to ramp to temp quicker on the HERMS as well, although I didn't time it.

I'll let everyone know how it turns out in a month or so. I'm going to do a primary at 13 degrees @ 15 psi and then lager at 4 degrees for a 3-4 weeks. Then I'll knock out a LODO munich dunkel on the cake.


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## Futur (23/7/16)

Chridech said:


> Thanks Futur for your detailed reply. Impressed by your dedication. I wondered whether anyone local was using baker's yeast for O2 scavenging pre-mash. Interesting thread on the German brewing forum detailing it.
> 
> When you lower the mash tun into the boiler do you also gently stir the mash to ensure there are no pockets of trapped air? Or does pre-conditioning the grain reduce the likelihood of air-pockets? Any benefit of filling the boiler with CO2 before lowering the mash tun?
> When sparging, until now, i have poured In the sparge water with a 5L jug. Guess it would be worthwhile pumping or gravity feed the sparge water with a hose from the sparge water heater in similar way you describe for the recirc. during mash. Agree with you that elevating the mash tun and letting it drip into the boiler is the most at-risk part of the process. A winch to slowly lift the mash tun to the level of the boiler wort-level could be helpful, as you say. I need to look up your link on Brewtan B. Cheers Futur, thanks for your efforts.


Sorry Chridech I forgot to respond to your message earlier!

Yeah I do gently stir the mash to ensure the grain is fully mixed with the water. I don't think purging with CO2 makes a lot of difference due to the mixing of air and CO2, it takes a lot of CO2 to fully purge a volume of oxygen. I've always sparged with an urn sitting higher than the GF and adjusted the output ball valve on the urn to control the rate of sparge to maintain the correct level above the top plate.

To be honest I think the best way is to no sparge in the grainfather. I've tried no sparge by mashing using the recommended mash water amount and then just adding the sparge water (boiled + SMB treated) directly to the batch after the mash which gave me horrible efficiency (35%). I believe the best way would be to do a full volume mash with either the basket or a BIAB bag. I'm going to try this next.


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## dent (26/8/16)

Well the first brew on LODO is on tap now. I think it still has some of that great aromatic nature but it has diminished a lot - but that was expected, the cold side process still needs some work. Gotta say this must be one of the palest beers I've ever brewed. The other problem is I think I can pick up the sulfites in the beer - I did add some more to the grist so I'm not particularly surprised. Bit hard to describe what the sulfites give me - reminds me of cheap BUL cider. 

The second brew is even worse sulfite wise. Apart from that it's pretty much the same. It could be my vacuum process doesn't consume as much sulfite as expected, or I'm just overdoing it. Either way I'm gonna back that off a lot next time. I'll also try it no-sparge as well - this is to mainly shorten the brew day with the process - I'm happy to sacrifice another kilo of malt to efficiency if that's what it takes.

All in all it's promising, and I'm going to continue the experiments. I'll address the cold side more thoroughly in particular.

By the way, the smoked porter LODO came out great - though I can't pin that medal on the LODO process, it might have been just as good anyhow. Can't pick any sulfites in that one, though it is black and all.


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## Adr_0 (30/9/16)

Something i was thinking about with dosing SMB/ascorbic acid... 

The earlier graph really represents maximum DO for a given temperature. If we are boiling strike and sparge water - mixing it thoroughly while boiling - we should have 0ppm.

It's only if we mix/aerate the entire volume at 65°C that it would then come up from 0ppm to potentially 4ppm (probably less given the water is now a solution of sugar and minerals). So inversely if this is sitting static, even after a few hours the average ppm is probably a fraction of a ppm. 

So I was leaning towards dosing for 1ppm with SMB, so 5-7mg/L, with the following:
-CO2 flush of piping and air space over kettle > will reduce O2 uptake potential in water
- CO2 flush of mash tun, dose SMB/ascorbic into mash tun, fill with water, mill straight into mash tun with low pressure CO2 going through mill chute
- 20-25L drum set up for sparge water, CO2 flushed and with SMB dose in the drum. This then plumbs directory pump suction header when I want to use it. 
-any wort transfers done with CO2 purge on transfer line. 

Still putting everything together, but these are some fittings I've gotten:
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/fflbarb12.htm
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/flarem14xflarem14.htm

1/4 SAE female flare are common for CO2 and what i have on my regulator. There are also 1/4 valves and caps on ebay to shut off CO2 flow and lock in CO2. 

For my mash tun and kettle i have bored holes with 1/2 silicone hose that these barbs can fit in, and similarly couple up to barb tees for transfers.


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## neal32 (30/9/16)

This is my lodo helles. Its a very nice beer if not a little too sweet for my tastes. I'm not sure if the lodo is responsible for it being a good beer though. I'm about to keg up a munich dunkel done the normal way with the same yeast (2308). It's far from a perfect side by side but it will be interesting none the less.


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## pajs (4/10/16)

Great thread. Lots to think about, especially as my four favourite styles are Helles, Kolsch, Pils and Alt. Interesting to think what a full-volume BIAB version of the article's suggested process would look like.


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## Adr_0 (4/10/16)

So these arrived today from the US. 

It was basically 10 days from the US to non-metro Qld.


Should be very handy for flush/purge points.


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## wobbly (19/12/16)

A quick search brings this topic up as the only topic on LODO subject on AHB with the last posts being a couple of months ago so I was wondering if there have been any more recent updates by those following this methodology/experience.

While on the subject of LODO wouldn't any kit beer manufactured/produced in a modern brewery have most if not all of the implied benefits due to brew water being degassed, grain wet/moist milled/crushed, malt added to the mash tun under inert conditions via some sort of flooded screw feed etc. and then boiled under vacuum conditions. Fermenting these beers under pressure and controlled temperature with NO exposure to oxygen from the commencement of fermentation through to consumption would appear to offer close to a beer that is oxidation free provided you liked the kit and how you might pimp it. 

I acknowledge that in general kit products are not every ones cup of tea (and I don't currently use them instead producing fresh wort in a 20lt Braumeister) as they are constrained by the makers recipe with respect to grain bill and hop schedule.

Cheers

Wobbly


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## good4whatAlesU (4/1/17)

Does ultrasonic cleaning drive out gas from liquid (including oxygen?)

I've just emailed these guys: http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/251576795594

In the interest of getting one of these as a mash vessel, mainly for the temperature control function (to do step mashes etc). But maybe the ultrasonic function could be used to drive O2 out of the mash water?..


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## dent (4/1/17)

It would probably help if it was under vacuum as well.


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## MHB (4/1/17)

Ultrasound is a pretty good de-gasser, but following the link, the biggest one they give specks for is the 15L model and the heater is only 360W, so it might work as a mash tun but not as a kettle. The other point worth thinking about is that I for one have no idea what ultrasound would do to enzymes, they can have some interesting effects including emulsifying oil/water.
Be worth doing some serious research.
Mark


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## Adr_0 (4/1/17)

I was going to suggest mash tun too, but for its ability to break down the grain and get good extraction efficiency. 

Temps used end up much lower. I'll dig up the article in a few hours.


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## good4whatAlesU (4/1/17)

30L example appears to have 800W - and good up to 80 degrees C. 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Digital-Ultrasonic-Cleaner-Stainless-Steel-Heater-Timer-Industrial-30L-Tank-/331604576007?hash=item4d352c4707:g:KkEAAOSw5cNYP~8B\

So would be fine for mashing and temp control (not boiling). Ultrasonic can be simply turned off if that's not useful (agreed some further research would be interesting). 

I've sent them an email, I'd like to see the drainage port (inside the SS tray) and see how low it is placed, and /or how hard it would be to cover with a false bottom or/ attach bazooka tube or equivalent. It looks like a brass ball valve so I'd also like to know how hard it would be to replace with a cleanable valve. 

Given that some SS mash vessels (with no temp control at all) are up around $400 and above - this unit could be an okay option. Depends on quality. How much have to spend on getting it set up. .. etc. 

Edit: here's a 20L one (looks like there are a heap of them coming out of China), possibly same factory and re-branded: 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-20L-Digital-Ultrasonic-Cleaner-Stainless-Steel-Heater-Timer-Industrial-Grade/162266552121?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D39923%26meid%3Ded728c04fd4f466c96274260676de8c9%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D112000845383


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## klangers (4/1/17)

Interesting. 

I can almost guarantee that the heating elements are unsuitable for wort - too high a power density.

Another possibility is installing an ultrasonic transducer into a "normal" mash tun. The transducers can be had for ~$30 for a 100W one. This may be a cheaper way of experimenting with any conversion efficiency enhancement effects.


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## MHB (4/1/17)

Or the reverse, quite possible that ultrasound will denature enzymes, or do a lot of other unexpected things.
Mark


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## good4whatAlesU (4/1/17)

Thanks Klangers, bit of a bummer about the heat elements. .. Although it only needs to maintain temperature (if the mash water is pre-heated) and/or change a couple of degrees to step up - it might be sufficient?

Perhaps a quick lit review in Google scholar (or such) might turn something up about the impact of ultrasonic on enzymes. 

PS. could not the mash water be de-gassed before the grain is added? Hence having no effect on the enzyme activity? (edit; although adding the grain will also introduce oxygen, but not at least it will be reduced?).


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## Adr_0 (4/1/17)

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.06629v1.pdf

Regarding de-aerating, ultrasonic agitation/cavitation actually oxygenates the wort. Keep in mind agitation will bring water/wort to its DO equilibrium point, which is 0ppm only at 100°C, and 2-15ppm at temperatures less than this. So at mash temps you will possibly be sitting at 4ppm or so... Unless you did everything under an N2/CO2 purge/blanket.


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## klangers (4/1/17)

Adr_0 said:


> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.06629v1.pdf
> 
> Regarding de-aerating, ultrasonic agitation/cavitation actually oxygenates the wort. Keep in mind agitation will bring water/wort to its DO equilibrium point, which is 0ppm only at 100°C, and 2-15ppm at temperatures less than this. So attractive mash temps you will possibly be sitting at 4ppm or so... Unless you did everything under an N2/CO2 purge/blanket.


Great link.

Had a quick read - they are using a rig that generates hydrodynamic cavitation via a venturi and 7.5kW (!) circulation pump. This is a lot more violent than the vibrations found in ultrasonic cleaners, and not really comparable. Ultrasonics don't necessary cause cavitation, but cavitation always causes ultrasonic vibrations and pressure waves.

I didn't see any reference to DO, and I'm not sure how cavitation would, or could, cause aeration (help me understand). Cavitation is the localised reduction in pressure of a fluid to below its vapour pressure, formation of said vapour bubbles, and consequent rapid collapse. In the case of wort, this would be the formation and collapse of, effectively, steam. Not air. Nothing is going in or out of the fluid.

The paper is very positive about the efficiency of the cavitation process. However, the mechanism for this is simply an improved mass transfer rate (getting more enzymes in contact with more starch, more often). They don't appear to conduct any true control tests - the comparison is between the 200L caviation rig and a 50L braumeister, and comparisons without the beast 7.5kW running. I'd be very interested to see the effect the huuuuge circulation pump on its own. The reasons are:

a) It's common to get cavitation at pump inlets with higher-temperature water (due to a significant reduction in vapour pressure)
b) A 7.5 kW recirc pump is laughably oversized for a 200L mash tun, and would be generating such an enormous amount of shear-mixing that it's likely to be contributing to the results 

There is mention that there have been studies on ultrasonics and enzymes, and that efficiency is improved up to a point when the power is too much and degrades them.

Essentially we're talking about improving the reaction rate of saccarification. This can be changed by:

Pressure
Temperature
Mixing rate/concentrations/mass flow
In traditional brewing, we ignore pressure and make small changes to the mixing rate by grinding the grain to a largish size. We then increase the temperature. The combined effect is to increase the rate of saccarification reaction.
The cavitational method increases pressure (local to cavitational collapses) and significantly increases mass flow, which allows the temperature to be reduced to maintain a high extraction efficiency. At excessive levels these pressure waves denature the enzymes (just like excessive temperature).


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## good4whatAlesU (4/1/17)

Jeepers, it certainly smashed the f#$k out of the grain too. Who needs crushing? ... 

As you say Klangers this is a big industrial rig, so the same things not gonna happen in a little ultrasonic cleaner. Although it will certainly shake things up at least a bit. . just need to know what the tipping point is between "shaking things up" and ******* with the enzymes.


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## Adr_0 (4/1/17)

good4whatAlesU said:


> Jeepers, it certainly smashed the f#$k out of the grain too. Who needs crushing? ...
> 
> As you say Klangers this is a big industrial rig, so the same things not gonna happen in a little ultrasonic cleaner. Although it will certainly shake things up at least a bit. . just need to know what the tipping point is between "shaking things up" and ******* with the enzymes.


I agree with Klangers that the pump on the test rig is a little ridiculous. 7.5kW is said to be the mechanical power (shaft power?) and not the fluid power, so I imagine a lot goes into the viscosity of the mash fluid, or it is a very high clearance pump and hence low efficiency. My understanding is that the discharge pressure from the pump over the "cavitation reactor" - what, an orifice? - causes the cavitation. Hopefully it's not in the suction of the pump.

For you good4whatAlesU, you probably have to approach it with an open mind that a couple of batches might not be quite right. I'm not sure if you test your conversion with iodophor, or take SG readings of the first runnings, but it might be worth checking a control batch with ultrasonic off, then a couple with varying ultrasonic power. You could see when you hit your extract potential in your control batch vs varying ultrasonic power.

Not sure about the temperature thing, as a few people have highlighted, nor the oxidation thing - I'm sure after I first found this I read a lot into it and each source brought up oxidation. You do need to have air/O2 present for this to occur I would think... anyway, I'll try and find those sources.


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## Adr_0 (4/1/17)

good4whatAlesU said:


> Jeepers, it certainly smashed the f#$k out of the grain too. Who needs crushing? ...
> 
> As you say Klangers this is a big industrial rig, so the same things not gonna happen in a little ultrasonic cleaner. Although it will certainly shake things up at least a bit. . just need to know what the tipping point is between "shaking things up" and ******* with the enzymes.


with respect to crushing, I believe that is one of the benefits - no need to crush! That's pretty sweet.


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## good4whatAlesU (4/1/17)

Hmmm food for thought. 

Anyway I wouldn't pull the trigger on something this expensive until they email me back some photo's and details. .. If I can convert existing gear from my esky tun it might make sense. If it's not going to work (I've valves that can't be used/modified) it's just ornamental and costly (although I could clean my dentures with it in a few years  )


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## klangers (4/1/17)

A better option may be to just duplicate their rig, but with a more sensible pump. Ie insert a "cavitator" into your recirc on the mash.

You can get venturi injectors off ebay. Simply seal the injection port and insert in your recirc line. You'll need a significantly gruntier pump than a brown or chugger etc, just to get the requisite pressure across the venturi.

Then you can vary the intensity of cavitation by adjusting the flow rate with a valve. The only thing that gets me nervous is the risk of pulling grain through the falsie.

In fact I just may give this a go myself, considering I have all the parts lying around and a pump capable of 5 bar...


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## good4whatAlesU (4/1/17)

Good work. Let us know how it goes klangers. 

If I got it, it would be for the SS bowl and the temp control for mashing (not so much the ultrasonic feature). 

My esky has served me well, but it's the only plastic thing left in my process. New insulated SS mash vessels are expensive ($300 - $600 +) and they don't have temp control.


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## Futur (5/1/17)

There's some information available here on degassing water for brewing. The Kunze doesn't mention ultrasonic as a method to degass water of oxygen. Probably because you wouldn't reach the low recommended O2 levels required for mashing in (0.1 mg/L).

Personally for home brewing purposes, utilising bakers yeast and dextrose to scavenge oxygen from the mash water is the best and simplest method discovered so far. Next best would be boiling and then chilling the water, this however is quite wasteful of energy.

I'll be building a no-sparge BIAB RIMS LODO rig with a floating stainless mash cap in the next month or so to replace my grainfather. I'll make sure I include some photos in here for those interested.


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## good4whatAlesU (6/1/17)

Actually there's a fair bit of literature and dare I say, You tube info about degassing using ultrasonic devices.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EeWS_mlVQXY

Whether or not it effectively gets the DO down far enough - would have to do a more comprehensive lit. review.


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## good4whatAlesU (6/1/17)

Futur said:


> The Kunze doesn't mention ultrasonic as a method to degass water of oxygen. Probably because you wouldn't reach the low recommended O2 levels required for mashing in (0.1 mg/L).


Okay here's a paper (follow link and click on the download button) comparing four methods. They found sonification under pressure for 60 min gets O2 levels to less than 0.1 mg/L (but the reduction in O2 may have also been a factor of the sonification warming the water up). Although it also found that boiling at 1 atm did just as good (if not better a job). Nitrogen purging was found to be the most effective, however they used lab grade purified Nitrogen. .. they note that commercial grade nitrogen has oxygen in it. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23433550_Removal_of_Dissolved_Oxygen_from_Water_A_Comparison_of_Four_Common_Techniques

From an energy (and cost) perspective I guess one would have to work out the energy cost of bringing large volumes of water to the boil versus sonification. At the end of the day if there are multiple methods that work .. you have to figure out which one is: 

1. most cost effective
2. least complicated 
3. which one has any additional benefits (i.e. mash efficiency gains).


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## good4whatAlesU (6/1/17)

There's a bit of mixed data in the literature. This is an old article from the 70's, the guys were looking at ways of degassing water for use in a Liquid Chromatograph (Dell'Ova V.E. et al (1974) "Ultrasonic Degasser for Use in Liquid Chromatography")

They suggested "it can be seen that a fifteen minute ultrasonic degassing is equivalent to boiling water for six hours"

.. but they used rather an elaborate rig.


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## Adr_0 (6/1/17)

And how quick would baker's yeast be? I have boiled water and purged through my lines and into my mash tun with steam, and let it sit in my HLT for 1-2hrs to let it come down to temperature.

Any issues with baker's yeast and sugars in the mash?


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## Futur (6/1/17)

Adr_0 said:


> And how quick would baker's yeast be? I have boiled water and purged through my lines and into my mash tun with steam, and let it sit in my HLT for 1-2hrs to let it come down to temperature.
> Any issues with baker's yeast and sugars in the mash?


This has been experimented with in detail over at the GBF. Looking at about an hour to an hour and a half. I've been able to repeat the results found in the thread below. 

http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=355

Some say the yeast in the mash imparts a flavour, others say it doesn't. I haven't personally noticed any off flavours by utilising this method.


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## Adr_0 (6/1/17)

Futur said:


> This has been experimented with in detail over at the GBF. Looking at about an hour to an hour and a half. I've been able to repeat the results found in the thread below. http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=355
> Some say the yeast in the mash imparts a flavour, others say it doesn't. I haven't personally noticed any off flavours by utilising this method.


That's awesome. I've only read a few pages in... Was it clarified whether dextrose was used or DME? From experiment 1 to 2 he(she?) halved the yeast amount to promote growth, but the sugar appeared to switch to DME.


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## Adr_0 (6/1/17)

Although it looks like the "1/2 yeast" test isn't as fast or effective as the other tests. 

An article on making a 'zero' solution for DO meters suggests a tablespoon of active dried yeast with one tablespoon sugar, in 500mL water... Which gets it down to 0.0063mg/L. This is... Quite a lot. 

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://in-situ.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/RDO-Sensor-Two-Point-Dissolved-Oxygen-Calibration-Using-Yeast-Tech-Note.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjkxf-BsqzRAhUDkJQKHTB0ChAQFggZMAA&usg=AFQjCNFdSb2ZNPIaGKYN5NIGATb1SatI9A&sig2=OzQQygmFVLYKHYO92plUow

For all intents and purposes it looks like 2 x 7g packs in 30-35L of water is probably enough.

I might do this for my strike water, get to strike temp, dough in (15-18L), then heat to boiling and boil/stir for my sparge water (20L), which only has to cool to 80°C and which will have SMB in my 10L cubes.


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## Futur (6/1/17)

Adr_0 said:


> For all intents and purposes it looks like 2 x 7g packs in 30-35L of water is probably enough.


http://shop.coles.com.au/online/mobile/national/lowan-yeast-dried-instant


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## dannymars (9/1/17)

This thread is blowing my mind... I just listened to the Fermentation Nation podcast episode about this today.... 

I can feel an obsession starting...

Theoretically, could you build an airtight chamber.... Flush it with pure N2 and brew in that? Obviously the brewer would have to wear and oxygen mask or skuba gear but is this even viable..... Would be hilarious non the less.


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## Mardoo (9/1/17)

Especially if you wore flippers. YouTube please!


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## good4whatAlesU (9/1/17)

I wonder if beer could be carbonated with Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) ... Now that would be entertaining!


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## dannymars (10/1/17)

good4whatAlesU said:


> I wonder if beer could be carbonated with Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) ... Now that would be entertaining!


instant oxydation... would be the opposite of what we are trying to acheive here. There's a youtube video somewhere where they did it with helium... Funny video, but fake.


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## Adr_0 (11/1/17)

Well, about to do the baker's yeast method, with some CO2 purging of the mash tun and lines and SMB (a reduced dose). Recipe is a brown ale.

Although I mentioned purging with steam previously, I didn't end up up brewing that day for a few reasons, so didn't get to recognise the effectiveness or practicality of low DO.

Wish me luck... Something photos to follow.


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## Adr_0 (11/1/17)

After about 1hr10min of the yeast working on the strike water (smelled like it was), I did the following:
- Purged the mash tun from the bottom up with CO2
- Added 20mg/L of SMB + 20mg/L of ascorbic acid to the mash tun
- Underlet a few litres, then went up to 14L while cracking in the grain
- I also purged through the grain 'stream' with CO2 per this pic:




When sparge water is drained into 2 x 10L cubes - each dosed with 30mg/L SMB - I'll then purge the kettle using the valve here:



The mill and chute goes directly into the mash tun, between the two latches... so hopefully has minimal exposure to air, and is being milled into a mash tun full of CO2 or LODO water.

So hopefully the mechanism of yeast metabolism, underletting, SMB/ascorbic acid and pre-purging with CO2 will combine to reduce the DO in my brewday....


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## Adr_0 (11/1/17)

Well, i think it went fairly well - though I didn't measure DO at any stage, so a grain or two of salt issue recommended. 

I ended up using about 1.2-1.4g SMB with all of my 34L of brewing water. A small portion on top of this was ascorbic acid (300-400mg).

I did notice there was very little aroma through the brewery, but in sampling the wort attend the end it way quite astringent. I believe this is the combination of 7.5% roasted malt (choc) with sulphate. 

The article suggests that 100mg/L will contribute 76mg/L of sulphate, assuming all sulphite is oxidised.

I did add calcium chloride today the initial mash, but at my dosing rates I should have only seen 25mg/L on top of normal sulphate levels.

I added a little more calcium chloride to the boil and this improved things greatly. I think part of it was a temperature perception, but I hate to think what sort of sulphate levels you'd end up with at 100mg/L dosing.


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## klangers (13/1/17)

Yeah - the sulphates introduced as part of the SMB additions were what had me a bit concerned. If you're trying to avoid the "hop pop" for a bock or something then it makes it a little difficult.


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## Adr_0 (13/1/17)

klangers said:


> Yeah - the sulphates introduced as part of the SMB additions were what had me a bit concerned. If you're trying to avoid the "hop pop" for a bock or something then it makes it a little difficult.


It interesting that they chose Helles as a starting style, however on page 4:
...starting with reverse osmosis water and simply [add] enough calcium chloride to achieve 30 to 50 ppm of calcium

Without reading that initially I was probably halfway there, so makes a lot more sense now and would suggest this is an absolutely critical step.

To get 50ppm Ca in RO water, this would give 85ppm Cl which should balance the 76ppm SO4. 

So, a critical step - but if you already have potentially 70-105ppm SO4 in Brisbane water, you're in trouble.


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## good4whatAlesU (23/1/17)

I emailed the ultrasonic seller 3 times about getting more photos of their product, but not a single response. .. Not a good sign. Have ditched the idea and ordered a insulated SS double wall food warmer to mash in.


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## Futur (29/1/17)

Just thought I'd share my new rig to replace my Grainfather, taking into account low O2 practice.


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## Futur (11/4/17)

I'd like to add a bit of credit to the lodo method. First competition I've entered some beers into - I managed to score gold in the pale lager category at the recent Gold Coast Amateur Brewing Comp.

Maybe all the extra effort isn't such a waste of time after all!


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## neal32 (11/4/17)

lol, I got 2nd in the same category with....a lodo Helles! I wouldn't credit it to the method so much. I entered a lodo Dopplebock that didn't place.

I'm of the belief that if you're messing around with lodo, it's just because your into geeking out and trying different things to make good beer. That process in itself develops good beers, not one silver bullet.

The only definitive thing I'll say about lodo is it makes a paler beer. I would love to see a proper side by side done though........


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## Futur (11/4/17)

neal32 said:


> lol, I got 2nd in the same category with....a lodo Helles! I wouldn't credit it to the method so much. I entered a lodo Dopplebock that didn't place.
> 
> I'm of the belief that if you're messing around with lodo, it's just because your into geeking out and trying different things to make good beer. That process in itself develops good beers, not one silver bullet.


Ha, there you go 
I'll have to agree with you, however the lodo "method" covers so much process on the hot and cold side. It's not a silver bullet just removing oxygen, it's taking on all the process improvements which helps eradicate flaws from your beers and leaves you with only the recipe variables to play with.


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## Adr_0 (12/4/17)

Nice one gents!


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## Lionman (7/8/17)

I'm skeptical of HSA, but low DO on the cold side, defiantly worth some effort.

One challenge is dry hopping without exposing the wort to air. You could transfer from a pressurised fermenter to a purged keg with bagged hops in it, then after a few days transfer to a serving keg?

I'm also thinking about including a bag of hops in the fermenter from day dot, but there are risks with losing aromatics or over hopping.

Anyone got a solution that works for them?


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## Mardoo (7/8/17)

I use the purged keg technique.


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## Lionman (7/8/17)

Mardoo said:


> I use the purged keg technique.



yeah, I might need to get a spare keg for this. The missus will be thrilled...


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## Danscraftbeer (7/8/17)

Lionman said:


> I'm skeptical of HSA, but low DO on the cold side, defiantly worth some effort.
> 
> One challenge is dry hopping without exposing the wort to air. You could transfer from a pressurised fermenter to a purged keg with bagged hops in it, then after a few days transfer to a serving keg?
> 
> ...



For me Purged serving keg means. I do the totally filled with san solution then purge out that sanitizer solution with co2. Hold keg upside down to release the last dribbles of sanitizer out all the connections.
Its meticulous, maybe tedious searching for the Holy Grail of beer. Not hard, its easier with this kegmenting unexposed technique. I try hard for no exposure post ferment. Pre ferment I'm not worried.

To dry hop a serving corny keg with minimal exposure to air etc. Purged keg (as above)
The Hop sock: I use a vacuum sealer. 40cm of sealer bag etc. 60g flowers in a boil sterilized weighted hop sock tied with dental floss. All into the new vacuum sealed bag to remove all the air etc. This is fridge storable.
(put on the san gloves) Cut the bag open just to get in the keg and grab the string/dental floss and tie it to the keg handle. Re Seal the lid and repressurize the pressure transfer the beer.
The hop flower mass is like a filter that your beer passes through so leave it in there.


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## kaiserben (5/10/17)

Are people adhering closely to this method and pre-boiling their water? 

And how do people "condition the malt prior to milling with 1-2% water by weight" ? (and specifically I'm wondering if I could rock up to my LHBS and ask to have it done there).


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## Adr_0 (5/10/17)

I have been doing the bakers yeast + LME. I pre-dose with some ascorbic acid for dechlorination before the yeast goes in which also potentially takes up some O2. Generally by the time I do some morning routine and crack grain that's 1-1.5hrs. Obviously it's all sealed up.

I then underlet into the mash tun where generally 400-500mg of sodium met is waiting. Grain I crack dry but will normally do into a bit pre-filled with CO2 and have a stream of CO2 over the grain too. That goes in a bag which then goes straight into the mash tun, sealed again and away.

For sparging I have a cube or two, similarly with sodium met in the bottom but normally 200-300mg. The leftover (sparge) volume in my HLT will be boiled up for a couple of minutes then would have cooled down enough to 70-85°C, then transfer into the cube. The cube then goes into the suction header of my pump and straight into the mash tun - which hasn't been opened since I put the bag of grains in.

Then before transfer, another burst of CO2 into the bottom of the kettle.

Oh, and obviously make up with a fair chunk of CaCl2 - generally mine is in the 8-12g region for 20-22L of beer. The first time I tried this with a brown ale I ended up short and with some astringency - from the sodium met oxidising to sulphate.


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## labels (5/10/17)

kaiserben said:


> Are people adhering closely to this method and pre-boiling their water?
> 
> And how do people "condition the malt prior to milling with 1-2% water by weight" ? (and specifically I'm wondering if I could rock up to my LHBS and ask to have it done there).


I don't pre-boil the water mainly because I don't have time to boil and then cool but there is no doubt boiling will reduce DO. 100mg of sodium met per litre does help.
Conditioning malt normally refers to dampening the malt prior to milling to help keep the husks from breaking up too much - finely ground husks can lead to astringency issues (though usually combined with high pH) and really has nothing to do with dissolved oxygen. I doubt your LHBS will wet the malt. The amount of water added depends on type of mill, mill speed and gap and can vary widely. It also needs to be milled very quickly after spraying, before the water soaks into the seeds, it's only the husks you want to dampen.


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## kaiserben (9/10/17)

Just looking at the info in the article more closely and thinking about NOT pre-boiling:

* Recommended to add 100 mg/L SMB. That will add 24 ppm Na and 76 ppm Sulfur compounds.

* 5 ppm sulfite will scavenge 1 ppm DO.

* Therefore 76 ppm Sulfur compounds will scavenge 15 ppm DO (not a static amount, but over time).

* Tap water will have 8 - 12 ppm DO.
* Doughing in adds 1-3 ppm DO.
* Atmosphere adds 1-2 ppm DO per hour.

Without pre-boiling, you're likely to have up to 18 ppm DO to remove in total.

So I'm thinking; if your 100mg/L dosage of SMB can deal with 15 ppm, could you just bump the dosage up so it can deal with 18 ppm? I think that would be 120 mg/L, which would introduce roughly 29 ppm Sodium and 91 ppm Sulfur compounds. 29 ppm Na isn't a problem.

Does anyone have any thoughts (or corrections) to this?


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (9/10/17)

kaiserben said:


> * Recommended to add 100 mg/L SMB. That will add 24 ppm Na and 76 ppm SO4 compounds.



Actually it will add 24ppm Na+ and 101 ppm SO4 2-. The SO4 2- comes from oxidation of SO2 so the mass of the extra oxygen must be counted*.

100ppm of SMS will add about 67ppm SO2, which will react with about 17 ppm of O2 if given enough time (100 x 32 / 190 = 16.8).

* This is a gloss for clarity. There's a hydration step in between.


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## kaiserben (9/10/17)

I guess one issue might be how long it takes for the initial 12 ppm DO to be scavenged (and the fact that it keeps getting added back via the atmosphere at a rate of 1-2 ppm per hour (so you can't just dose it and then leave it overnight). 

I know the article says to leave it for 5 minutes after adding 100 mg/L of SMB, but that when you only need to scavenge a little bit of DO left over after boiling.


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## kaiserben (9/10/17)

EDIT: My next question became redundant as Lyrebird_Cycles subsequently explained it.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (9/10/17)

Yeah, sorry about that, I was editing as you were typing


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## Adr_0 (11/10/17)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> Actually it will add 24ppm Na+ and 101 ppm SO4 2-. The SO4 2- comes from oxidation of SO2 so the mass of the extra oxygen must be counted*.
> 
> 100ppm of SMS will add about 67ppm SO2, which will react with about 17 ppm of O2 if given enough time (100 x 32 / 190 = 16.8).
> 
> * This is a gloss for clarity. There's a hydration step in between.


I worked it out this way too, which effectively requires more CaCl2 to balance this additional sulphate - particularly in beers with roasted malts or moderate colour drier beers.


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## Adr_0 (13/10/17)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> Actually it will add 24ppm Na+ and 101 ppm SO4 2-. The SO4 2- comes from oxidation of SO2 so the mass of the extra oxygen must be counted*.
> 
> 100ppm of SMS will add about 67ppm SO2, which will react with about 17 ppm of O2 if given enough time (100 x 32 / 190 = 16.8).
> 
> * This is a gloss for clarity. There's a hydration step in between.


Actually I'm curious about this - my original SO4 number was 96mg, but that was based on a 190mg addition of SMBS. Wouldn't the SO2 just gas off? And the SMBS decomposes in water to SBS so wouldn't really get the chance to be heated.

Na2S2O5 + 2HCl >> 2NaCl + H2O + 2SO2, or
Na2S2O5 + H2SO4 >> Na2SO4 + H2O + 2SO2
Na2S2O5 + H2O >> 2NaHSO3-

Which then, with O2 becomes:
2NaHSO3- + O2 >> Na2SO4 + H2SO4

So do we assume that half of the SMBS is being broken down by H2SO4 as well? It's still a 1:1 molar conversion from SMBS to sodium sulphate - and with which cation will the SO4 (from SO2) bond? Won't it still just gas off before it bonds to anything?


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (13/10/17)

Adr_0 said:


> Actually I'm curious about this - my original SO4 number was 96mg, but that was based on a 190mg addition of SMBS. Wouldn't the SO2 just gas off? And the SMBS decomposes in water to SBS so wouldn't really get the chance to be heated.
> 
> Na2S2O5 + 2HCl >> 2NaCl + H2O + 2SO2, or
> Na2S2O5 + H2SO4 >> Na2SO4 + H2O + 2SO2
> ...



I think you have confused yourself.

The easier way to think of this is to ignore the cations, they aren't contributing to the reactions.

The metabisulphite anion (S2O5 2-) dissolves in water as the sulphite anion* (2 x HSO3 -) if you look at the stoichiometry there the difference is H20.

The sulphite anion reacts with oxygen to form sulphate anion (SO4 2-). That's why we add it.

The H becomes a proton (H+) by donating the extra electron, we then drop it as we are ignoring cations, so the stoichiometric difference is O.

I mole of SMS weighs 190g. 2 mole of sulphate anion weigh 192 g. Therefore we get about 101% yield of sulphate anion if the SMS is fully oxidised

At normal pH there won't be enough molecular SO2 to matter: the pK is 1.53 so at water pH there is less than 0.001% dissociation.


* Again this is a gloss for clarity: there is an equilibrium between the two which is strongly affected by pH. The sulphite reacting with oxygen removes it from the equation, driving the equilibrium in that direction.


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## Adr_0 (13/10/17)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> I think you have confused yourself.
> 
> The easier way to think of this is to ignore the cations, they aren't contributing to the reactions.
> 
> ...


Aha. I've gone to Na2SO4 (sodium sulphate) + H2SO4 rather than the simple and logical 2NaHSO4 of sodium bisulpate.

That's good - because my senses tell me there is a lot more sulphate ending up in the beer than the 50ppm I get for a 100ppm SMBS dosage.

Thankyou kindly.


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## Adr_0 (14/10/17)

And so for ascorbic acid, C6H8O6 and 176g/mol we're looking at:
2C6H8O6 + O2 >> 2C6H6O6 + 2H2O
(plus some dissociating in water and getting to the same end products?)
or 32mg of O2 will oxidise 352mg of ascorbic acid, requiring 11mg/L AA for every 1mg/L O2

I think like many things a couple of approaches can be good rather than putting your eggs in one basket. Time to preboil and cool the strike water is time- and effort-consuming, but using yeast and LME isn't that much better - but if 6ppm (DO in water at 40°C) can get down to 2-3ppm in 20-30min that's pretty good. If 100mg/L SMBS is added that's enough to protect against an accumulation of up to 17mg/L but it does give you 101ppm sulphate on top of your existing water. Not good for a dark beer. So you do need to add enough CaCl2 to get 50-200ppm for your 100ppm of additional sulphate.

That's not really that big a problem, but if it is then ascorbic acid can be used as well with no residual sodium or sulphate. It does need 11mg/L vs 6mg/L for each mg/L O2 though.

And further to this, CO2 purging can be done with some setups - the grains, filling the mash tun with CO2 then underletting, and filling the kettle with CO2 before the first runnings, then getting up to temperature ASAP.


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## dent (15/10/17)

Just a reminder to be careful with the sodium meta additions. It tastes pretty awful if there's much left in the finished beer - it reminds me of bottom-dollar cider.


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## Adr_0 (15/10/17)

dent said:


> Just a reminder to be careful with the sodium meta additions. It tastes pretty awful if there's much left in the finished beer - it reminds me of bottom-dollar cider.


Yes exactly - it's quite likely that with a lot of systems some of the sodium bisulphite won't be oxidised, hence my inclusion of CO2 purging, yeast/LME in the strike water and ascorbic acid so that I can reduce the SMBS. I'm more in the 20mg/L range than 100mg/L.


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## kaiserben (23/10/17)

I gave it a go at the weekend. On a German Pilsner. 

*The parts of the LODO process I skipped were*: 

Did not pre-boil water (because I couldn't chill quickly without using a copper CFC). 
I use a Grainfather, so I couldn't avoid dripping during the sparge and couldn't avoid copper in the counter-flow chiller when chilling and transferring into a fermentor. 

*What I did different to my normal process was*: 

Added 1.60g Sodium Met to 16.5L mash water) a few minutes before mash in. 
Added 1.28g* Sodium Met to 16.8L sparge water a few minutes before sparging. (* I decided, because I couldn't avoid splashing/dripping during my sparge, that I'd add something approaching the same dosage as that recommended for mash water). 
I pitched yeast before adding ~90 seconds pure O2 (usually I add O2 before pitching yeast, because I'd assumed that's the way to do it). 

*My observations were*: 

I definitely noticed less (almost no) malt aroma during the mash. A good thing according to the LODO paper. 
I got occasional whiffs of honey and/or ocean/fish smell (but very, very faint). 
It was really only after adding FWH that there was any obvious brewing aroma happening (obviously from the hops, Hallertauer MF & Tettnang, as it was mostly lemony as well as the very faint whiffs of honey and ocean/fish that were already there during the mash). 
The OG sample didn't taste noticeably different to normal.


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## wide eyed and legless (20/12/17)

Came across this site last night which I thought may be of interest to you guys, apologies if it has already been posted.
http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/uncategorized/list-of-brewing-references/


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## kaiserben (20/12/17)

Just tasted my first beer from the batch brewed post #161. 

It's still very young for a lager, but the beer tastes good. Dunno how much that good taste can be attributed to LODO. I'll reserve judgement till I've let some of the beer condition at fridge temps for a couple of months (if it lasts that long, because I'll probably destroy this beer during summer).


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## Aksarben (5/2/18)

RDWHAHB You all know that during the lag phase of fermentation that most of the O2 is scrubbed up and utilized by the yeast, along with carbon sources in building new yeasts, and during fermentation the remainder of oxygen is literally driven out by the CO2 being produced. Alcohol fermentation only happens when the Oxygen level is gone, otherwise yeast by products are CO2 and water (not EtOH) among other things. AND, at the end of fermentation the beer/wine/cider is literally saturated with CO2 and to get any O2, there has to be an event to allow exchange. Keep it blanketed with CO2 and purge vessels with CO2 before filling and your dissolved oxygen level is near undetectable. We have a DO meter at the winery and have used it to monitor the micro O2 addition of tanks of wine that have oak beans (cubes) in the tanks. We purposely inject O2 into the wine in a special O2 injection set up sold by The Wine Lab to emulate barrel aging. Now for beer, there have been some pretty interesting beers finished out in oak barrels and I can guarantee you that in that condition there is no chance of not getting O2 into the mix.

Think about all the wonderful beer made by Norwegians in their barns. I am sure they are loosing sleep thinking about any air getting to their beer.  You don't want to increase O2 to beer unless it has a specific purpose, and for all practical matters, methodical purges of vessels with CO2 will get you a beer with minimal issues later on of oxidation.

It's like a solution in search of a problem.


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## MHB (5/2/18)

Wine making is very different to brewing!
Much of the harm O2 does is early in the process (mashing), where we are making the sugars that wine makers take for granted, there are enzymes like Lipoxygenase that make lipids effectively rancid if oxygen is available.
The is one and only one time where O2 is good in beer, that is when you are pitching the yeast, even that does measurable harm. The rest of the time there are only upsides to reducing exposure to O2.

We also don't have the luxury of being able to throw another shovel full of Metabisulphite at the wort the way many wine makers do. Some of the lengths people making "organic" or Sulphite free white wine have to go to would be much more analogous.
Mark


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## Aksarben (6/2/18)

Yes, it's true that wine making is different than beer making. I won't deny that. We have grapes that have already achieved fermentable sugars, crush, press(whites) and centrifuge adding enzymes to get rid of pectin and some SO2 to kill and stun yeasts and molds, then inoculate with yeast. Usually much higher acid and lower pH than beer at any given stage.

However, can you tell me how much dissolved Oxygen is in the water at 170 deg. F, ? Probably not much at all. When I worked for the fisheries dept many years ago it was critical to keep the water very cold on the trout eggs for hatching and subsequent growth of the hatchlings. Many fish, like bluegill, bass, catfish and others can tolerate a fairly low dissolved oxygen content in the water, but not Salmon and their kind. You could find abundant small farm ponds that would have sunfish and Bluegill, and sometimes Bass in there, and there was abundant water weeds and plants that contributed to Oxygen, but the water was around 60 or above and trout would simply perish in that environment, even though there was much water plants. Water has a hard time holding on to O2 when it's warm. I can't imagine how little O2 is actually left in the water by the time it hits 165-170 deg F. If you mashed at 35-45 degree F, then yes there would be a source of O2 to oxidize enzymes, etc.

How did all those great beers get to be made in the early days of the late 1970 - 1980s, Charlie Papazian's era of beer making, when there was no internet and very little worry about oxygen in the mash water?


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## Aksarben (6/2/18)

I wouldn't want any winemaker to throw a shove full of Metabisulfite into the wine. You add only that much as needed an no more, or end up with the smell in the nose. In adding 10 ppm SO2 to a wine, if that is where we want, is only 80 grams of Potassium Metabisulfite. Sodium Metabisulfite will leave behind sodium ions, and I have seen beer have a bitter aftertaste from using soft water for brewing because of the sodium / calcium exchange. You would not get that with KMBS as yeast like the potassium and can utilize it. 

Tonight I'll bring home the Hach DO meter from the winery and test water before, when at room temp and after it has attained around 160 degrees to see where the dissolved oxygen is at that point. I'm curious to see.


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## Aksarben (6/2/18)

Can't edit, but that 80 g will raise 1200 gallons 10 ppm in free SO2.


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## Aksarben (6/2/18)

http://brulosophy.com/2014/11/18/is-hot-side-aeration-fact-or-fiction-exbeeriment-results/ for those interested. I stand on the fact that thousands of home made beers won countless awards and contests without nary any thought of Hot Side Aeration better known as AHA. As for me, I'll not loose sleep over it.


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## Aksarben (6/2/18)

Also, here is Dr. Charlie Bamforth in Beersmith podcast #74 and he does mention Hot Side Oxidation, and that enzyme Lipoxygenase, created actually during malting process, 

During fermentation yeast do a wonderful job of not only creating alcohol and CO2, but also mopping up some of those off flavor oxidized constituents. After fermentation keep the beer cool and minimize exposure to oxygen as best you can. It should be all gone before any stale beer flavors have a chance to develop. Cheers!


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## GalBrew (7/2/18)

Aksarben said:


> http://brulosophy.com/2014/11/18/is-hot-side-aeration-fact-or-fiction-exbeeriment-results/ for those interested. I stand on the fact that thousands of home made beers won countless awards and contests without nary any thought of Hot Side Aeration better known as AHA. As for me, I'll not loose sleep over it.



Once again I feel compelled to add that Brulosophy results generally mean nothing due to flawed experimental design (as I saw recently in a water chemistry experiment) or the fact that you could lay a turd in one of the cups used for the triangle test and the ‘tasting panel’ wouldn’t pick it up. 

As a retired neuroscientist it irks me to the core when I see this shite used to justify anything. The only exception to this is the handful of experiments when they sent samples off for some lab analysis.


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## MHB (7/2/18)

A few points
First up, we are a metric country, if your too lazy to convert your units from silly non-system to something rational please... well I for one couldn't be arsed doing it just to make sense of your posts.
Second - was going to venture very similar thoughts on Brulosophy to those GalBrew posted - I refer to them as the Myth Busters of brewing science, higher in entertainment value than science.

HSA (hot side aeration) as we call it (never seen AHA, nor has Google, in this context), yes Lypox is made during malting, but so is B Amylase and a bunch of other constituents that in part make malt different to barley.
True HSA except at extremes isn't really going to be a major factor in a home brew, on the other hand when one can take simple steps to minimise a known harm why not.
Sodium or Potassium Metabisulphite (KMBS as you called it) serve a lot of functions in wine making as you mentioned, one is to de-oxygenate, unfortunately although wine yeasts are breed to cope with 50ppm of SO2 beer yeasts aren't, so any use of NaMBS or KMBS has to be very tightly managed, some used to de-chlorinate mash/sparge liquor and in some cases late as a preservative (not common outside big brewers or at least those who can chill and filter beer)

Lipoxygenase is something of a coming thing in bigger breweries and attention is being paid in the home brewing community, mashing at lower pH's (5.1-5.2), excluding oxygen as much as is practicable (I wouldn't go insane over it - but do what you can) protecting crushed malt from O2 pickup again take reasonable steps, the list could go on but I think you get the point.

These steps are all part of refining ones brewing process in an attempt to make better beer.
One of my favourite sayings is "Everything ends up in the glass" good I think to encourage sensible examination brewing processes that help improve brewing and beer.

Just a couple of other points - next to nobody ever fermented beer or stored beer in un-lined (pitched) barrels, not at least until the US west coast brewers started playing around with oaked beers.
Beer stored in a cask (old English) or wooden keg (somewhat different approaches) has over pressure, again kegs were sealed, the amount of O2 uptake was/is very small - granted not zero but miniscule.
Have no idea what/why Norwegians have to do with the matter under discussion.
Agreed, back in the way back when no one knew about HSA, that doesn't mean we cant learn and improve what we are doing today.
Lastly, Charlie is a good egg, have spent quite a lot of time and money to listen/read what he has to say. I would recommend reading Foam offers some interesting insights into some reasons to minimise HSA.

OK HSA is far from the be all end all, getting a lot of other things right first is going to be way more important, that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of out attention.
Mark


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## Coodgee (7/2/18)

GalBrew said:


> Once again I feel compelled to add that Brulosophy results generally mean nothing due to flawed experimental design (as I saw recently in a water chemistry experiment) or the fact that you could lay a turd in one of the cups used for the triangle test and the ‘tasting panel’ wouldn’t pick it up.
> 
> As a retired neuroscientist it irks me to the core when I see this shite used to justify anything. The only exception to this is the handful of experiments when they sent samples off for some lab analysis.



I'm a statistician/data scientist and I think the experiments are quite useful. He's not trying to prove anything in the mathematical or scientific sense, he's just trying to test something at the scale of his own brewery. Surely you've heard of GP's being happy to recommend a course of action that 'works for you'? i.e. if that stretch or heatpack etc works for a particular patient to alleviate the pain then keep doing it. He's just testing different aspects of brewing on the home scale to see if they have a noticeable effect on flavour or other qualities of the finished beer. If you send something off to a lab and the results come back with a difference in chemical composition but 20 home brewers can't taste the difference, then surely the latter is all that matters to us as home brewers?


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## GalBrew (7/2/18)

Coodgee said:


> I'm a statistician/data scientist and I think the experiments are quite useful. He's not trying to prove anything in the mathematical or scientific sense, he's just trying to test something at the scale of his own brewery. Surely you've heard of GP's being happy to recommend a course of action that 'works for you'? i.e. if that stretch or heatpack etc works for a particular patient to alleviate the pain then keep doing it. He's just testing different aspects of brewing on the home scale to see if they have a noticeable effect on flavour or other qualities of the finished beer. If you send something off to a lab and the results come back with a difference in chemical composition but 20 home brewers can't taste the difference, then surely the latter is all that matters to us as home brewers?



I disagree with that, why use stats and invoke the magical p<0.05 if you are not trying to prove something on some level? It is a gross misuse of statistical methods in my opinion anyhow as the experiments themselves are usually poorly designed and/or implemented. The worst part about them is the ‘tasting panel’ of random blow-ins from the local homebrew club or wherever they come from. You can’t run a series of experiments with different and entirely invalidated detection apparatus and expect anything meaningful to come out of it.......and then to use a p value seems to me a crafty way of giving the work a level of legitimacy. 

This is why you don’t see treatments for cancer coming out of some guy’s garage.


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## MHB (7/2/18)

Coodgee said:


> I'm a statistician/data scientist and I think the experiments are quite useful. He's not trying to prove anything in the mathematical or scientific sense, he's just trying to test something at the scale of his own brewery. Surely you've heard of GP's being happy to recommend a course of action that 'works for you'? i.e. if that stretch or heatpack etc works for a particular patient to alleviate the pain then keep doing it. He's just testing different aspects of brewing on the home scale to see if they have a noticeable effect on flavour or other qualities of the finished beer. If you send something off to a lab and the results come back with a difference in chemical composition but 20 home brewers can't taste the difference, then surely the latter is all that matters to us as home brewers?



In one way I fell inclined to the same point of view
On the other hand to take an extreme case; AntiVaxers feel that they shouldn't take any risk with their child's life because a bunch of unscientific mostly discredited wankers on the WWW say there is a risk! Personally I would like to see this sort of wacker charged with criminal negligent if not child endangerment.
I could also create a small study based in any rich suburb in any of Australia's capital cities that would "prove" there is no harm from not immunising a small number of kids and that there for immunisation is both unnecessary and potentially harmful. Provided you close your eyes, click your heals together and don't look at the big picture.
Seriously dude its science.
A bit like health, Brewing is a big picture based on a lot of well if not fully understood processes, many of the processes are "natural" like mash temp there are a range of right answers depending on what you want to accomplish, if you miss by a degree or two the world wont end - you will still make beer and a tasting panel might not pick up on the changes. That doesn't make it the beer you intended.
That doesn't mean that if you want dryer beer you don't set up one set of parameters, others for maltier beer, just means there is a bit of latitude.
Testing (used advisedly) one variable in isolation can be good methodology, but then it has to be tested against all the other variables which is where it gets complicated.
Say I designed a Super Dry beer, missed my mash temp by a few degrees, 18 of the 20 people on the tasting panel liked it - so mash temp isn't important - right
Mark


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## Coodgee (7/2/18)

In my opinion, what Brulosophy does is both interesting and better-than-nothing. I'll leave it at that!


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## Aksarben (7/2/18)

The AHA was a typo and I could not get back in there and edit it. Unless I'm missing something about being able to edit your own posts. It was always supposed to be HSA, and not AHA (perhaps I was thinking of American Home Brewer or such.

I agree, that if we can help out control to make better beer I'm all for it. What Dr. Bamforth main thought about Hot Side Aeration, at least what I undesrtood, was that even if there were some oxidized agents, that yeast will go a wonderful job of cleaning it up. That SO2 in the 5-8 ppm post fermentation also helps to stabilize and clean up things. We certainly don't try to over sulfur wine. And as I understood in the video of Dr. Charlie Bamforth, keeping oxygen from being introduced after fermentation as well as keeping it at a cooler temp will do wonders for keeping your home made beer tasty for longer period.

Couple weeks ago toured Bell's Brewery in Comstock. Took pictures and besides the 800 barrel fermentors I took some pictures of their beer again in barrels. Just thought I'd post the picture since the mention of barrels.


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## GalBrew (7/2/18)

Coodgee said:


> In my opinion, what Brulosophy does is both interesting and better-than-nothing. I'll leave it at that!



I don’t disagree that it is interesting (I still read it) and I am in theory supportive of what they are trying to accomplish, they just don’t do a very good job. The main accomplishment of Brulosophy thus far is to demonstrate how crap the palate of the average person is, even when they have an interest in brewing. 

Unfortunately this is the take home message of the blog, that it doesn’t matter how you brew the average punter won’t know the difference. Ok, great I got that message a long time ago. Now it’s just the flogging of a dead horse.


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## Alchomist (7/2/18)

Isn’t this a lively discussion!!

The use of SMB/CH3COOH/Brewtan as an O2 killer has always struck me as something coming from the mind of a food chemist. ie - how can we make this jam last until 2100. I do understand wine has more of an investment in time & ageing than beer, but one has to remember the great wines of the 17th & early 18 centuries (that the French think they’re still drinking) had none of these chemical additives , and if they did it was probably a fluke of nature.

The one thing I took away from the articles I’ve read from Kunze is the optimal level of “0.00” ppm O2 in Strike Water/Mash/lauter. Add his suggested technique of softening the grain before milling & a mash cap to reduce the surface area exposed to O2 during these processes, then I’m struggling to see the benefits of adding chemicals to achieve the desired 0.00 ppm (as apparently are the LoDO crowd by reducing their recommended Ale dosage from near 100 down to 25 ppm in the past year.)

The other area that intrigued me was Kunze’s experiments with using basic bread yeast & dme to scavenge yeast in the strike water. He only touched on this & id love to hear the thoughts of the experienced brewers amongst us.


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## mkj (7/2/18)

A bit off topic, but would lower dissolved oxygen imply that it's best to bottle at a highish temperature rather than chilled?


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## GalBrew (7/2/18)

mkj said:


> A bit off topic, but would lower dissolved oxygen imply that it's best to bottle at a highish temperature rather than chilled?



Not really as an increase in temp results in an increase rate of staling. I think Charlie Bamforth has mentioned a 2-3x rate of staling in finished beer for every 10degC increase in beer temp.


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## mkj (7/2/18)

GalBrew said:


> Not really as an increase in temp results in an increase rate of staling. I think Charlie Bamforth has mentioned a 2-3x rate of staling in finished beer for every 10degC increase in beer temp.


Yep, I meant chill it as soon as the cap's on.


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## MHB (7/2/18)

Much as I like Kunze, it's highly influenced by the Reinheitsgebot. Where the addition of most everything is verboten!
Personally I use KMBS (Campden tablet) to remove Chlorine (different Conversation) and as the strike water is reasonably hot the dissolved O2 is fairly low and there is going to be a slight excess of Met.
If I wanted to push it down lower I would bubble CO2 or N2 through the water (N2 is best), use my airstone.

Some of the commercial attempts to remove O2 include fully de-aired water, gas flooding of the malt from the mill to the mash mixer and keeping an inert gas cap on the mash. Care taken to avoid fast mixing and the creation of vortices in pumping (especially on the suction side).

As a home brewer I just avoid splashing and stirring that incorporates air into the mash, I keep cracked malt in a barrier bag to prevent O2 and moisture uptake, pay attention to mash pH, just the basics really. But I'm not aiming at a 12 month shelf life.
Mind you next time I do a Barley Wine that I will want to vintage I'll be going postal.

Had forgotten that mention in Kunze for using yeast to de-air water. Wouldn't need to be bakers yeast, any yeast would do. probably just add a teaspoon of sugar to the water with some yeast and leave it overnight in an airtight container should get you there.

Commercial Breweries are heading toward zero O2, these days low PPB levels are becoming normal, the biggest problem area remains packaging. Trying to get beer into a bottle without any O2 exposure is quite a challenge.
Mark


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## Truman42 (19/11/19)

Anyone still on the LODO bandwagon? I looked into it and read a lot of information over on the low oxygen brewing forum but bloody hell it makes for a very long brew day if you follow all the principles... boiling your wort, then chilling, adding SMB, using mash caps. I brought a Guten to replace my 3V to be able to make brew day easier but would need to go back to 3V and under letting to follow LODO to the letter.

Is it really worth all that mucking around just for beer Im drinking at home?


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## wide eyed and legless (19/11/19)

Truman42 said:


> Anyone still on the LODO bandwagon? I looked into it and read a lot of information over on the low oxygen brewing forum but bloody hell it makes for a very long brew day if you follow all the principles... boiling your wort, then chilling, adding SMB, using mash caps. I brought a Guten to replace my 3V to be able to make brew day easier but would need to go back to 3V and under letting to follow LODO to the letter.
> 
> Is it really worth all that mucking around just for beer Im drinking at home?


Being as you drink it before it has time to oxidize, no, even so I have been reading up about it too there are things that do come in useful.
I haven't got around to the bakers yeast and sugar in the strike water but I am conscious of gently doughing in. I also haven't tried doughing in at 20 C though I know some do.


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## Truman42 (19/11/19)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Being as you drink it before it has time to oxidize, no, even so I have been reading up about it too there are things that do come in useful.
> I haven't got around to the bakers yeast and sugar in the strike water but I am conscious of gently doughing in. I also haven't tried doughing in at 20 C though I know some do.


Whats the doughing in at 20C do? I thought the warmer the water the less O2 in it?? I used to dough in with a paint stirrer connected to my drill so will stop that. Might try the yeast and sugar in the strike water method as well. 
Maybe I will boil, smb and under let and use a 3V setup if Im brewing a NEIPA as my last one oxidised very quickly.


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