[BrewBama]

I listen (and mostly agree) with what he says. Smart guy.

Some things we part company on but that’s OK.

If adding sugar and yeast to water the night before is as EZ as it is it may fit.



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[BrewBama]

Not really too much work, but I don't do it as often anymore....

Why is that?



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[ynotbrusum]

Not really too much work, but I don't do it as often anymore....

Why is that?



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Laziness, mainly, and a lack of preparedness, specifically.  I am lucky to get the water into my HLT the night before and set it up with a timed start!  I brew very often (weekends), but I haven't continued the yeast scavenging process or pre-boiling lately.  I think the benefits for me don't outweigh the burden of the extra effort.  With the yeast scavenged strike water, it takes a few hours, so if I don't start it the night before, I just forego it.

But I also don't make starters much anymore (I will repitch slurry over the course of 5 or six batches, however, or use a single packet of dry yeast without thinking twice.)  The styles I brew most often are pale lagers, so pitching from a Helles to a Pilsner to a Lichtbier to a Czech Pale Lager, etc....makes yeast selection pretty much a non-issue for me.

I think Denny's "pragmatism" or Charlie's DWHAHB mantra (or old age) have taken hold on my brewing and I am all the more at ease these days in my brewing and expectations.  But sometimes, I will get on a kick to try something interesting and new or old and outdated and do it because it is a hobby and I just figure why not?  It just might result in decent beer.

Cheers!

[BrewBama]

Thanks. Great philosophy. Cheers!

I use 1/4tsp of k meta to treat my water for chloramines. You should be fine using that much.

Table 1 of the Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Vol 105, No. 4, 1999 says pure water holds 2.8 ppm O2 at 75*C.  I heat my distilled water (not ‘pure’) to 165*F to hit my routine mash temp so I am sitting at ~3 ppm O2 (not 5 as I previously thought).

Narziss specifies that keeping potassium levels under 10 ppm is optimal. This corresponds to ~30 ppm of KMeta.

If Rabe is correct and Sulfite is a 5:1 reduction, I will expel 50% (15 ppm) instantly which leaves me with the remaining 50% (15 ppm) for the entirety of the rest of the hot side.

At that point I’ll be relying on Brewtan B as a strike water treatment to “remove the divalent ions to reduce the free radical cascade right from the start” (Formanek) and “HSA is easy to avoid in home brewing because it will arise only from very sloppy brewing practice” (Fix).



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[lupulus]

The Narziss potassium statement is commonly misread.
It only means that your shouldn't put a lot of potassium in beer given there's already a lot of potassium in barley.
Nothing will happen if one puts more than 10 ppm of potassium.

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[BrewBama]

The Narziss potassium statement is commonly misread.
It only means that your shouldn't put a lot of potassium in beer given there's already a lot of potassium in barley.
Nothing will happen if one puts more than 10 ppm of potassium.

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. Since I had a bad experience before, I think constraint is a positive.

I don’t have access to the reference. That is a quote from the Low O2 website. I have asked for updates to that site before but it appears to be about the same. Latest and greatest is embedded deep in multi page threads on the Low O2 forum.

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[Bilsch]

I’ve read that YOS works but BR said he doesn’t prefer it because it leaves a ‘flat’ taste. Maybe it’s in this huge thread somewhere. I am definitely NOT looking for a dull taste. That would be antithetical to the goal.

This was quite a while ago and believe he has since changed his mind on that and is currently using YOS to de-aerate his strike water.

[PORTERHAUS]

I’ve read that YOS works but BR said he doesn’t prefer it because it leaves a ‘flat’ taste. Maybe it’s in this huge thread somewhere. I am definitely NOT looking for a dull taste. That would be antithetical to the goal.

Did you get a dull or flat taste using YOS vs boil/cool?

I tried boil/cool and quite frankly it was a PITA.  Maybe boil late at night before bed, put the lid on and going to bed, get up early to brew (which is when I normally brew).

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Since when do you listen to anything BR says!?!?!?

For real though, taste is highly subjective. Many folks swear by it.

I did not care for the pre-boil method, more time, more work. But the YOS method made things pretty simple, I can set up my mash water the night before, heat to ~100* dose my yeast/sugar and set my start up timer to get things heated up an hour or so before I want to mash in. The YOS method has been shown to keep scavenging oxygen for a few days...so leaving it out overnight with a cap over the mash water is simple cheap insurance to have the water I need to start with.

I have had a few issues with sulfur in the fished beer in the past and I simply wasn't expelling the residual sulfites before pitching the yeast. For a couple batches I felt my SMB sweet spot was about 30-35ppm where I started to notice improvements in the beer but then there were a few where I don't feel I hit the mark and more SMB could have been used. So next batches I am going to bump to 50ppm SMB dose and use my test strips to test where I am at during the process then expel the residual sulfites post boil with oxygen.

I still want to have a simple, fun enjoyable process but I also want to make the best beer I can...I feel an comfortable compromise can be made and is well worth it. I have noticed improvement, but I have also been hit and miss...so I guess I am still dialing things in a bit. I think I rather lean on the side of caution with a higher SMB dose to cover my process and any holes in it and much simpler to just expel those sulfites afterwards than to try to tighten every hairline crack in my process. Not saying I don't try...I dough in gently, stir gently, I do cap my mash, I do recirculate and return the wort under the water level, I limit splashing, etc.

[BrewBama]

I had a similar unpleasant experience with pre boiling. Boil it, cool it, heat it back up ‘cause I went too far…. Forget it. The yeast method seems reasonable and looks like the way to go.

I have also had a negative experience with a sulfur bomb going off in my finished beer. I didn’t connect the dots that I could test for residual sulfur and consume it with oxygen. That makes perfect sense.

I share the idea of “a simple, fun enjoyable process but I also want to make the best beer I can” …but I have a very low tolerance for a dumper or a PITA process. As I try new things the ones that are easy and work I add into the routine — I have added many of both along the way — but the ones that flop don’t make the next ingredients list.

Having said that, I may give the kMeta one more try. …with test strips if I can find some that I won’t have to raise my sample pH to between 6-9 pH with baking soda (according to LO2 website) or “Add sodium hydroxide to the sample and bring it to pH=12” (according to the test strip instructions) just to get an accurate reading. To me, breaking out the chemistry set is heading towards the PITA column pretty quick.

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[mabrungard]

I have also had a negative experience with a sulfur bomb going off in my finished beer. I didn’t connect the dots that I could test for residual sulfur and consume it with oxygen. That makes perfect sense.

I share the idea of “a simple, fun enjoyable process but I also want to make the best beer I can” …but I have a very low tolerance for a dumper or a PITA process. As I try new things the ones that are easy and work I add into the routine — I have added many of both along the way — but the ones that flop don’t make the next ingredients list.

Having said that, I may give the kMeta one more try. …with test strips if I can find some that I won’t have to raise my sample pH to between 6-9 pH with baking soda (according to LO2 website) or “Add sodium hydroxide to the sample and bring it to pH=12” (according to the test strip instructions) just to get an accurate reading. To me, breaking out the chemistry set is heading towards the PITA column pretty quick.

I agree.  I did employ the sulfite test strips and performed the pH raising too during my early explorations into LODO via SMB.  Definitely PITA, but it did help establish what I needed to do in both methodology and dosing to help assure LODO conditions.  Ultimately, I proved to myself that fairly low SMB additions were sufficient with my relatively 'tight' brewing system.  That was a good thing since I also found that the higher SMB doses did have a negative effect on the taste of my resulting beers. 

With respect to YOS, I think its a good alternative for reducing the amount of SMB needed in beer production.  I performed a stoichiometric analysis of the overall SMB dose needs in a brewing day and found that if the initial water DO content was near zero (via pre-boiling or YOS), then the SMB dose can be significantly reduced.  That minimal SMB dose is just added to the water to help combat incidental DO pickup during other mashing and transfer operations.  If your brewing system isn't tight, then performing the YOS is a decent way to still enable you to reduce the SMB dosing and live with the reduced SMB dose for those incidental DO inputs.

[PORTERHAUS]

I have also had a negative experience with a sulfur bomb going off in my finished beer. I didn’t connect the dots that I could test for residual sulfur and consume it with oxygen. That makes perfect sense.

I share the idea of “a simple, fun enjoyable process but I also want to make the best beer I can” …but I have a very low tolerance for a dumper or a PITA process. As I try new things the ones that are easy and work I add into the routine — I have added many of both along the way — but the ones that flop don’t make the next ingredients list.

Having said that, I may give the kMeta one more try. …with test strips if I can find some that I won’t have to raise my sample pH to between 6-9 pH with baking soda (according to LO2 website) or “Add sodium hydroxide to the sample and bring it to pH=12” (according to the test strip instructions) just to get an accurate reading. To me, breaking out the chemistry set is heading towards the PITA column pretty quick.

I agree.  I did employ the sulfite test strips and performed the pH raising too during my early explorations into LODO via SMB.  Definitely PITA, but it did help establish what I needed to do in both methodology and dosing to help assure LODO conditions.  Ultimately, I proved to myself that fairly low SMB additions were sufficient with my relatively 'tight' brewing system.  That was a good thing since I also found that the higher SMB doses did have a negative effect on the taste of my resulting beers. 

With respect to YOS, I think its a good alternative for reducing the amount of SMB needed in beer production.  I performed a stoichiometric analysis of the overall SMB dose needs in a brewing day and found that if the initial water DO content was near zero (via pre-boiling or YOS), then the SMB dose can be significantly reduced.  That minimal SMB dose is just added to the water to help combat incidental DO pickup during other mashing and transfer operations.  If your brewing system isn't tight, then performing the YOS is a decent way to still enable you to reduce the SMB dosing and live with the reduced SMB dose for those incidental DO inputs.

Martin, just curious what is your SMB dose and what your process is these days. Do you run a RIMS or HERMS, simple infusion, batch sparge/no sparge?

[mabrungard]

Martin, just curious what is your SMB dose and what your process is these days. Do you run a RIMS or HERMS, simple infusion, batch sparge/no sparge?

Good question.  I now target a mashing SMB dosing of 10 ppm using the Bru'n Water software.  Bru'n Water automatically calculates the sparging SMB dose to provide an extra 5 ppm over what is targeted for the mash.  So I'm dosing to 10 ppm in the mash and 15 ppm in the sparging water volumes. My sulfite residual testing has shown that I'm left with a measurable sulfite content into the kettle.

I do run a RIMS with a mash cap assembly, so there is almost no atmospheric contact for the wort once the grain is mashed in.  I do stir the grist into the water instead of underletting.  Underletting would be better with respect to LODO, but its too much a PITA for me, so I just let the mashing SMB dose do its magic instead and neutralize that stirring DO content. 

I'm a firm believer that Batch Sparging is probably the easiest way to sparge, but it comes with a LODO cost.  So I don't batch sparge.  I perform a continuous sparge with the mash cap continually in place over the grist and I never let the water level fall below the top of the grist.  Allowing the water level to drop below the top of the grist would draw air into the grist and possibly the water or wort.  Drawing a bunch of air into the grist is why I don't use batch sparging and I do use the more difficult continuous sparging.

[Bilsch]

Having said that, I may give the kMeta one more try. …with test strips if I can find some that I won’t have to raise my sample pH to between 6-9 pH with baking soda (according to LO2 website) or “Add sodium hydroxide to the sample and bring it to pH=12” (according to the test strip instructions) just to get an accurate reading. To me, breaking out the chemistry set is heading towards the PITA column pretty quick.

The sulfite strips aren't terribly accurate below 10ppm so probably best to just aerate well with O2 before pitch to be sure you have expended the sulfites and you won't have problems with sulfur.

[BrewBama]

Having said that, I may give the kMeta one more try. …with test strips if I can find some that I won’t have to raise my sample pH to between 6-9 pH with baking soda (according to LO2 website) or “Add sodium hydroxide to the sample and bring it to pH=12” (according to the test strip instructions) just to get an accurate reading. To me, breaking out the chemistry set is heading towards the PITA column pretty quick.

The sulfite strips aren't terribly accurate below 10ppm so probably best to just aerate well with O2 before pitch to be sure you have expended the sulfites and you won't have problems with sulfur.

  as I said earlier: for some reason I never connected those dots. Thx.



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[lupulus]

The Hanna iodometric kit works well in pale beers.

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