1MadScientist
Well-Known Member
I discovered this thread about a week ago (thanks I guess )
I was Mickey in the 1970's commercial. https://youtu.be/UlEcUiBhwaI
I was Mickey in the 1970's commercial. https://youtu.be/UlEcUiBhwaI
I don't see such nastiness on that topic.
By the way, a question....how are you managing the boil? Open with simmer? Partially covered? Reduction from standard 90 to 60 min on lagers? I'm worried about DMS and off flavors from lid condensation in a partial covered situation. I think they said not to worry, but I'm honestly too inexperienced to know best way to manage this.
Im all for scientific rigor at work...but beermaking is supposed to be fun, no?
60 minute low intensity boil. I've converted all my longer boils down to 60 down as it's plenty. I do it with the lid off. I'm pondering going down to 45 since i've had no issues what so ever.
Really shows a lot about people....
What about drinking great beer isn't fun?
I was referring to the implied expectation that new suggested methods MUST be supported by correlated DO data and triple blind trials, or else we should flame the contributors. I'm happy to do the extra work if my tastebuds tell me to.
As far as minimizing work, interested to explore N2 bubbling during mash and cooling/cold side transfers (Via SS sintered stone wand used now to oxygenate wort for fermentation) prekegging for us BIABers. I just need to find some time to do the math on N2 consumption volumes and ensure no safety/economic concern assuming reasonable kitchen ventilation. Then, propose a 5 gallon experiment to someone with a DO meter. We need to find a BIABer on this forum that has a DO meter that we can crowdfund!
The paper, section 2.4 Mashing, mentions "no-sparge". Are we calling "no-spage" in this case full volume mash? So, for a BIAB full volume mash, should the SMB dose be at 55 mg/l ? Has anybody managed a lower dose that worked well?
MS
How did the beer from the OP turn out?? I just want an op-ed not a PhD thesis about how it tasted!
So what's a good guesstimate for grain absorption for biab *no squeeze*?
How long did ya let the bag drain?
This may sound obvious, but LoDO following fermentation will keep an NEIPA intact hop flavor wise for months. The malt taste is what is preserved by being careful with O2 on the front end. After oxidizing several NEIPA batches trying to bottle I got religion and went full tilt preventing O2 from touching the beer past day 2 of fermentation with excellent results.
Thought I would add to this with my first experience. I currently have a keg that I am priming with corn sugar which I tried LODO methods on. I noticed some of the differences outlined by the OP. Was very interesting to see. The only issue I have is post mash I noticed a sulfur flavor, and now post fermentation I notice strong sulfur aroma and flavor (before adding priming sugar). Using a no sparge BIAB setup, I targeted 40ppm for a brown ale. I added a little over 1 gram of SMB to 7.5 gallons of strike water which was boiled and chilled (copper wort chiller). I milled my grain into my bag and then lowered it gently into the pot. I stirred gently as well. Does it appear I might have used too much SMB for my system, or is this normal? The beer post fermentation was at 8 days after pitching. I normally transfer 7-10 days and have not experienced this before. Only thing I can think of is SMB, or maybe it hasn't had enough time yet. I would like to brew a lager next but think I may need to back off the SMB to 25ppm.
EDIT: Should add I use RO water with calcium chloride and control my mash pH with acid malt.
Could someone kindly point me to a list of the best practices for achieving LoDO? Maybe it's out there and I just missed it with all of the discussions, side arguments, etc.
Thanks!
hio,
I don't know if there is a complete list of LoDO practices (and if there is, it's probably pretty extensive - I've seen posts where folks are pre-flushing all lines with CO2 before priming pumps for example). But I can describe what steps I took - some of which are not unique to LoDO. Keep in mind that I BIAB and don't sparge. And I use a stainless steel immersion chiller (copper is a no-no).
1. Pre-boil mash water for about 15 minutes to drive off dissolved O2.
2. Condition grain
3. Mill grain in a CO2 rich environment. Mill directly into my grain bag. (I trickle in CO2 into a bucket that holds my grain bag and mill straight into that)
4. Cool strike water to strike temp using SS IC
5. Add salts, acids, and NaMBS (I use 50 ppm or about 0.19 grams per gallon of strike water).
6. Slowly lower grain bag into strike water and stir gently - you don't want to whip a bunch of air into your mash
7. Float a mash cap on top of your mash. It's basically a floating lid that minimizes the exposure of the wort to air. I use a big piece of tin foil shaped to fit my kettle.
8. Mash as usual
9. Boil - when the mash is over, start the boil. I bring it up to full boil to get a good hot break, then throttle way back to barely a simmer. Recommended boil off rates are about 8% - not sure that I get that low.
I think the only other thing that changes is pitching yeast. After cooling to pitch temp (again, without copper), pitch yeast and then aerate. Don't aerate prior to pitching yeast. The yeast will pretty quickly scavenge the added O2 for their own needs before it can damage the wort.
That's all the hot side practices that I use. It might seem like a lot, but it isn't. The biggest hurdles are stainless steel immersion chiller (cost), pre-boiling strike water (time), and the cost of NaMBS (not much). And frankly, I think grinding the grain while minimizing exposure to O2 is probably overkill, but CO2 is cheap and I have a few bottles sitting in my garage - it's easy so I did it.
Let me know if you have any questions.
PlinyTheMiddleAged
Thank you for summarizing!
Could someone kindly point me to a list of the best practices for achieving LoDO? Maybe it's out there and I just missed it with all of the discussions, side arguments, etc.
Thanks!
I have been following the LoDo thread with some interest. I think there's a lot of good information from both sides of the debate in there.
These are my concerns as it pertains to BIAB:
1) Time. Pre-boiling the mash water and then chilling will add significantly to my brew day. My understanding is that you should avoid stirring, which is what makes an immersion chiller so effective. I estimate my immersion chiller works 2-3 times as fast when I stir the wort the whole time it's running. Additionally, chilling after the boil will take much longer without stirring.
2) Water. I already use a lot just chilling my wort after boil. If I also have to chill my mash water down to my mash temp, and I can't stir while my chiller is running, I'm going to go through 4-5 times as much water to run my immersion chiller. I already feel a little wasteful running my immersion chiller for 10-15 minutes.
3) Cost. In my experience, thoroughly stirring the mash is necessary to achieve good conversion efficiency in a BIAB system. This seems to be mirrored by the OP who saw a decrease in his conversion efficiency. If I can't stir the mash, I'm going to need to use a bit more malt to compensate. LoDo practices also call for a very gentle boil. If my boiloff rate isn't as high as it normally is, I'll again need to add to my grain bill in order to hit my OG.
4) I bottle. As much as I try to avoid it, bottling is always going to introduce some oxygen. I'm curious if this would undo many of the benefits of minimizing hot side aeration.
If LoDo brewing produces better beer, it may well be worth the extra trouble. It's great that there are a growing number of people giving it a shot and I'll be following their results with curiosity. For now I'm sitting on the sidelines undecided about whether it's worth the extra effort
I have been following the LoDo thread with some interest. I think there's a lot of good information from both sides of the debate in there.
These are my concerns as it pertains to BIAB:
1) Time. Pre-boiling the mash water and then chilling will add significantly to my brew day. My understanding is that you should avoid stirring, which is what makes an immersion chiller so effective. I estimate my immersion chiller works 2-3 times as fast when I stir the wort the whole time it's running. Additionally, chilling after the boil will take much longer without stirring.
2) Water. I already use a lot just chilling my wort after boil. If I also have to chill my mash water down to my mash temp, and I can't stir while my chiller is running, I'm going to go through 4-5 times as much water to run my immersion chiller. I already feel a little wasteful running my immersion chiller for 10-15 minutes.
3) Cost. In my experience, thoroughly stirring the mash is necessary to achieve good conversion efficiency in a BIAB system. This seems to be mirrored by the OP who saw a decrease in his conversion efficiency. If I can't stir the mash, I'm going to need to use a bit more malt to compensate. LoDo practices also call for a very gentle boil. If my boiloff rate isn't as high as it normally is, I'll again need to add to my grain bill in order to hit my OG.
4) I bottle. As much as I try to avoid it, bottling is always going to introduce some oxygen. I'm curious if this would undo many of the benefits of minimizing hot side aeration.
If LoDo brewing produces better beer, it may well be worth the extra trouble. It's great that there are a growing number of people giving it a shot and I'll be following their results with curiosity. For now I'm sitting on the sidelines undecided about whether it's worth the extra effort
http://www.********************/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77&start=10#p888I'm a gentle stirrer. I gently stir just after dough-in (i.e. lowering BIABag into pot), mid-way through long rests, and during step ramping. The dough-in stir is the most thorough because I'm equalizing temperature across the entire mash but my effort and vigor are minimal to avoid aeration. During 30 minute rests I will stir at the mid-point just to move things a little. During the step ramps I also stir to keep the mash equalized in temperature; again, slow but deliberate every couple minutes. My goal is to never have grain tough the liquid surface, but I'm not perfect.
I erroneously tried one batch with just a minimal gentle dough-in stir and that was all - I took a 20%+ hit to efficiency. That's when I learned something
I'm sorry if this has already been asked/answered. So how are you accounting for the sodium metabisulfite in your water profile? Has anyone created a spreadsheet for it?
From a simplistic, ballparkish standpoint, I feel it can be looked as as having these modifications to water mineral levels:
-Increase sodium (+6-9ppm Na @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
-Increase sulfate (+18-29ppm SO4 @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
-Lower pH (~0.03-0.05 pH is lowered @ 25-40ppm usage rate, respectively)
As for a spreadsheet: BigMonk had created a spreadsheet for it ("Water" was it's name), but it has since been pulled from distribution for unknown reasons. There was also a more fully-featured brewing spreadsheet by the same person that allowed for complete recipe formulation, but I believe it was also pulled at the same time. My understanding was that they became too hard to manage with too many variations being requested. I don't know if any future release of either spreadsheet is pending - I get the feeling that it's not.
I did a little searching and the lodo paper does say 100 mg/l SMB = 24 ppm sodium and 76 ppm 'sulfur compounds'
I found somewhere else that says to use a dosage of 55 mg/l for no sparge brewing, so that's 13.2 ppm sodium and 41.8 ppm sulfur compounds
Your range of 25-40 ppm is much lower than the rates ive seen before, no?
Keg is empty! Time for a quick recap.
I brewed this simple NE IPA on Jan 22 and kegged on Jan 29. A full 8 weeks after kegging, the beer was still quite good. There was no slight darkening with time that I had previously experienced. Hop flavor and aroma really stuck around - there was very little fade that I had in the past. Previously, the hops would be gone extremely quickly.
I'm pretty happy with the results. Shelf life was as long as I needed it to be (drained the keg over a two month period and enjoyed it to the end). For a simple process, it gave me what I was looking for.
More experimentation with this process will follow. And, if you are at all interested in trying LoDO practices, I suggest that you try them out.
PlinyTheMiddleAged
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