[homoeccentricus]

Here is all my additions.  Salts and minerals not listed as they change batch to batch.  I do 1.75 and 3.25 gal batches.

Your SMB doses look to be off high, unless you didn't calculate off your base dose.

I do biab so my dose assumptions could be wrong.

My 3.25 gal batches use 4.5 gallons of water for full mash. That's about 17 liters.  At 60 mg/l that's 1020 mg or 1.02 grams.

Your headings confused me. I thought those were your strike volumes.

Sorry about that.

Btw, does that mean I've been saying batch sizes wrong forever?  I've always said my batch sizes were what ended up in the fermenter or keg.

Yes, batch size is what goes into fermenter, at least for most people.

One thing I don't understand in your table: your base dose is the same for the two yeast additions, yet the 2nd one is only one fourth of the first?

[ParanoidAndroid10]

Here is all my additions.  Salts and minerals not listed as they change batch to batch.  I do 1.75 and 3.25 gal batches.

Your SMB doses look to be off high, unless you didn't calculate off your base dose.

I do biab so my dose assumptions could be wrong.

My 3.25 gal batches use 4.5 gallons of water for full mash. That's about 17 liters.  At 60 mg/l that's 1020 mg or 1.02 grams.

Your headings confused me. I thought those were your strike volumes.

Sorry about that.

Btw, does that mean I've been saying batch sizes wrong forever?  I've always said my batch sizes were what ended up in the fermenter or keg.

Yes, batch size is what goes into fermenter, at least for most people.

One thing I don't understand in your table: your base dose is the same for the two yeast additions, yet the 2nd one is only one fourth of the first?

I need to correct the second dose.  The yeast and dextrose are correct for the first dose.  The second dose is just a little extra to mop up any residual o2 since it sits all day.

[wobdee]

http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=49&p=5787&sid=a5bc1adb29d7b791fc7e6e5320f7eb38#p5787

[brewinhard]

http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=49&p=5787&sid=a5bc1adb29d7b791fc7e6e5320f7eb38#p5787

Thanks for sharing.

I am by no means knocking the lodo/smb process as I intend to try it for myself once I get a ss chiller, and a way to underlet my mash.
But, I did notice that the brewer in the post did NOT follow Joe's recommendations on the interview for BB dosage rates.
Joe recommended 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons of mash water AND a 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons of sparge water (this was not done in the study). This of course, is proportional to your mash water and sparge water volumes.
Joe also recommended 1/2 tsp in a wort slurry at 15-16 min. left in the boil kettle for a 5 gallon batch. The brewer here only added 1/4 tsp.
Now, I did not see mention of intended batch size in the post (maybe I missed it somewhere) which may be why different amounts were added.

The clarity of the wort is pretty striking between the SMB and BB batches though, that's for sure.
Once again, thanks for sharing.

Cheers! 

[narcout]

The mini mash proposed by members at the GBF is lowest cost, zero new equipment method for determining whether you're interested.

I was hoping the mini mash experiment would be useful, but it didn't really work for me. 

I think I need to brew a full low oxygen batch to completion to evaluate.  At this point, I have everything I need except a pipe cutter to shorten the gas tubes.

[narvin]

http://forum.germanbrewing.net/viewtopic.php?f=49&p=5787&sid=a5bc1adb29d7b791fc7e6e5320f7eb38#p5787

What was the kettle pH of the two batches?  Did you use acid to adjust for the lowered pH of the smb?

[Village Taphouse]

Gang:  Yesterday I brewed my 15th batch with brewtan.  The other things I did along with the brewtan were to condition my malt and also use an SS chiller as opposed to the copper one I had been using.  Some of these batches had brewtan in the strike water and in the boil.  I now see that Joe F. suggests some in the sparge water as well so I'm using about 1/8th tsp in the sparge water.  The recipes I'm making are one that are in a constant rotation here... helles, pilsner, pale ales, festbiers, dark lagers, altbier (this is actually one I hadn't made in awhile) and some others.  These are beers I'm very familiar with and I feel like I'm making the best beer I have ever made.  I have mentioned this on the GBF, my main board and here on AHA.  I'm not deep into the science of brewing.  When I see detailed information about what happens in the mash or when yeast is pitched, my eyes glaze over and I admit that may be very different from other people who brew.  Many, many thanks to those who experiment and research so that the rest of us can benefit in the form of better beer.  I have heard a number of people say that they don't think that brewtan is doing anything.  I have heard from more people who think that something positive is happening to their beer as a result of using brewtan and that they plan to keep using it.  I don't know the specifics on what it does but it truly seems to be making my beers smoother, softer, silkier and clearer.  It's possible that after all this talk about "IT"... I wasn't actually looking for it.  Maybe I was looking for what brewtan is doing.  I have better malt depth with it and I have crisper, cleaner-tasting hop character as well.  There seems to be a finer character to the beer that was not there before.  I plan to keep using it as long as I can get my hands on it.  Cheers Beerheads.

EDIT:  I should also add that I have heard every cautionary tale regarding "confirmation bias" with regard to brewtan.  If what I'm experiencing is confirmation bias, it sure is delicious. 

[The Beerery]

EDIT:  I should also add that I have heard every cautionary tale regarding "confirmation bias" with regard to brewtan.  If what I'm experiencing is confirmation bias, it sure is delicious. 

Hey you stole my line...

No but seriously, as I stated before you guys should be seeing a difference in the finished products from brewtan, due to the way you package(again not a knock). You are picking up small amounts of DO, and the brewtan is stopping those fenton reactions taking place in your packaging vessels. However brewtan is not, nor will ever be a substitution for low oxygen brewing practices. I just want to make that clear.

[Village Taphouse]

EDIT:  I should also add that I have heard every cautionary tale regarding "confirmation bias" with regard to brewtan.  If what I'm experiencing is confirmation bias, it sure is delicious. 

Hey you stole my line...

No but seriously, as I stated before you guys should be seeing a difference in the finished products from brewtan, due to the way you package(again not a knock). You are picking up small amounts of DO, and the brewtan is stopping those fenton reactions taking place in your packaging vessels. However brewtan is not, nor will ever be a substitution for low oxygen brewing practices. I just want to make that clear.

I think the good news is that there is this low-O2 information out there for brewers to try especially if they're searching for ways to make their beer better in specific ways.  Since I started in 1999, I have made the occasional great beer, a lot of good beer and sometimes not-so-great beer.  I have been looking for ways to make my beer smoother, cleaner-tasting and more drinkable.  I played with distilled water, water composition, pH control, better ingredients, etc. but occasionally still got some harsh, biting character. All that time I was looking for answers to these issues and I have to say... I'm not looking for answers anymore.  That doesn't mean I'm not open-minded about improving my beer but for the first time in a long time I can just brew beer with the confidence that it's going to come out great.  Maybe what I have been looking for all along was an answer to fenton reactions that were occurring in my kegs as you mention.  Between the easier steps of the low-O2 design (conditioning the malt, using an SS chiller, increasing my mash volume and lowering my sparge volume, purging all vessels with CO2, etc) plus the brewtan, I can't say enough about how good my beer has been coming out.  I make a lot of softer, delicate & more finesse beers like pils and helles and they have been stellar since I started using brewtan.  Absolutely stellar and the clarity is fantastic too.   I give thanks and recognition to all of the brewers out there who graciously share information so that the rest of us can benefit from better beer.  Below... a shot of a pilsner currently on tap...

[natebrews]

Looks nice and sounds good.  Have you tried using brewtan B without doing the other LODO techniques?  If so, what kind of results did you see?  I would have a hard time converting my system to do LODO, so I am interested if the brewtan gives you a notable change all by itself.

[Village Taphouse]

Looks nice and sounds good.  Have you tried using brewtan B without doing the other LODO techniques?  If so, what kind of results did you see?  I would have a hard time converting my system to do LODO, so I am interested if the brewtan gives you a notable change all by itself.

I admit that I did everything at the same time.  Not very scientific, I know.  I thought about all of these steps leading to better beer and that they could not, in any way, result in bad beer so I did it all at once.  But my guess is that brewtan had the largest impact on the improvement.  Cheers.

[Big Monk]

Looks nice and sounds good.  Have you tried using brewtan B without doing the other LODO techniques?  If so, what kind of results did you see?  I would have a hard time converting my system to do LODO, so I am interested if the brewtan gives you a notable change all by itself.

What kind of system do you have? You're likely short changing yourself. Many have converted with 1 cooler, 1 BK setups. You'd likely have to acquire less equipment than you think.

[natebrews]

I have a 3 tier system with 2 coolers and a boil kettle with a boilcoil heater in it.  I heat water and then pump it into the mash tun or the holding tank cooler (sparge water).  I use a whirlpool immersion chiller to chill.

So, something I can't square is how to cool the wort quickly.  In my current setup I use a pump to pump it in a whirlpool while the chiller runs, knocking the wort down from 212 to 65 in about 10 minutes.

After that, I put it in a fridge to chill down to pitch temp (for lagers, 8C) or I just aerate and pitch if it is an ale.  The chilling to lager temps can take 5 hours or so.   I'm currently fermenting in BigMouth Bubblers, and I siphon into purged kegs when they are done.  I usually pitch a bit of active yeast into the keg to scavenge up oxygen that got in there during the transfer and carbonate it a bit.

So, I can manage oxygen pretty well enough on the cold side (nobody calls out oxidation in my beers), but on the hot side I have a hard time seeing how I could get there.

[brewinhard]

EDIT:  I should also add that I have heard every cautionary tale regarding "confirmation bias" with regard to brewtan.  If what I'm experiencing is confirmation bias, it sure is delicious. 

Hey you stole my line...

No but seriously, as I stated before you guys should be seeing a difference in the finished products from brewtan, due to the way you package(again not a knock). You are picking up small amounts of DO, and the brewtan is stopping those fenton reactions taking place in your packaging vessels. However brewtan is not, nor will ever be a substitution for low oxygen brewing practices. I just want to make that clear.

I think the good news is that there is this low-O2 information out there for brewers to try especially if they're searching for ways to make their beer better in specific ways.  Since I started in 1999, I have made the occasional great beer, a lot of good beer and sometimes not-so-great beer.  I have been looking for ways to make my beer smoother, cleaner-tasting and more drinkable.  I played with distilled water, water composition, pH control, better ingredients, etc. but occasionally still got some harsh, biting character. All that time I was looking for answers to these issues and I have to say... I'm not looking for answers anymore.  That doesn't mean I'm not open-minded about improving my beer but for the first time in a long time I can just brew beer with the confidence that it's going to come out great.  Maybe what I have been looking for all along was an answer to fenton reactions that were occurring in my kegs as you mention.  Between the easier steps of the low-O2 design (conditioning the malt, using an SS chiller, increasing my mash volume and lowering my sparge volume, purging all vessels with CO2, etc) plus the brewtan, I can't say enough about how good my beer has been coming out.  I make a lot of softer, delicate & more finesse beers like pils and helles and they have been stellar since I started using brewtan.  Absolutely stellar and the clarity is fantastic too.   I give thanks and recognition to all of the brewers out there who graciously share information so that the rest of us can benefit from better beer.  Below... a shot of a pilsner currently on tap...

Well said, and beautiful beer by the way. As I have said before, I wish I lived closer to some of you so we could sample each other's beers.

Cheers!

[HoosierBrew]

so I am interested if the brewtan gives you a notable change all by itself.

I am fairly convinced it does. I tried it a few times while changing no other variables. No scientific evidence, just anecdotal. After reading and listening to Joe F discuss it, it seems that maybe its best attribute is in chelating the copper ions from using copper ICs which many of us still have. The beer seems improved to me in character and definitely in its shelf life. I'm curious to see the results of Denny's IGOR experiment with Brewtan to get some good feedback. I'm human so I'm not immune to confirmation bias but I've also brewed for a long time and feel like my beers are noticeably better. Having said that, I'm ready to work low O2 techniques and SMB into my routine (to the best of my ability) with the next batch and see if there are noticeable improvements there.