I applaud the work you LODO guys are doing and if I were to bet on it I would say it was likely you were on to something.
It just seems like there is a lack of any evidence based analysis behind the work being done. The claim that "this beer I just made using LODO is better than the same beer I made a month ago without LODO" has almost zero value as evidence in my opinion. This is the sort of evidence that LODO is hanging its hat on at the moment. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Almost all of the low oxygen brewing principles are based on the work of German brewing scientist Wolfgang Kunze. If you visit the low oxygen brewing website they are detailed there. The LODO guys are simply attempting to put those principles and ideas into practice on a home-brew level.
Confirmation bias is real, and in some cases w/r/t LODO, may be present. Further, it's possible that extra care in the process while attempting LODO techniques might be responsible for flavor improvements wrongly attributed to the LODO techniques. This is me, as a scientist, noting alternative explanations for LODO results.
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That said, I've been trying to implement LODO techniques for about...six months now. I've tasted wort produced using LODO techniques and it's a shock--remarkably more flavorful and rich than wort produced in a high-oxygen environment. That right there was an eye-opener. Now, could that have been confirmation bias? Maybe, but I want to know if this is worth doing, and so I want THE answer, not a particular answer. If it's hokum, I want to know, and stop screwing around with process that's more involved and longer. And if the beer is significantly better (I get to decide that, with my palate), then I want to know if that's true, too.
Yet, I have had other evidence that this produces much better beer, though my consistency in producing that is still in the trial stages. I produced a beer on December 3rd, an Amber, that was the hit of Christmas Eve just 3 weeks later. *I* thought it was great, as good as any beer I've produced. What makes me think it's not confirmation bias is all the family members who also drank it, and had seconds, and thirds, and we had to get a pitcher filled because we were tired of filling single glasses from the tap. This is the part that made it not confirmation bias: three of the people drinking it never have beer at family gatherings; they drink wine. When the wine drinkers switch to drinking a beer I made using LODO techniques and they keep asking for more.....well, I interpret that a certain way.
This all is NOT easy to do, IMO. I'm still struggling w/ recipes. Brewed a California Common, and used a hop spider. Well, that kept a certain amount of bittering and flavor elements out of the beer, so the result is not as "bright" in those characteristics as I want. The hop spider is no more, btw, I've had that issue in a couple others, and would rather resolve the issues the hop spider addressed in other ways. Anyway, the CC could use more hop presence, but man....the malt backbone is impressive. It's not spot-on for the style because of the hops, but it's still really good. Really good.
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When I started out on this journey, I really wanted to find a couple bottles of LODO-made beer that I could use to determine if it was worth doing. I couldn't find them, of course, so I've taken much of this on faith--faith that the others saying it matters aren't imagining it, and faith in the chemistry of what O2 does.
Trust me, this is not easier. I had switched to BIAB, found that my brew days became deliciously lazy and relaxed. LODO is not that, at least not yet. Lots of moving parts, takes longer, more involved, more to clean.....
And yes, given that, perhaps the perceived benefit could be attributed to cognitive dissonance. But again, I've had others respond to the beer in very, very positive ways, and there's no reason they should be experiencing cognitive dissonance.
The journey continues. Brew day tomorrow. Going to try to refine my processes. And I will, I'm sure.