Recent content by techbrau

:rolleyes: "Please help me solve problem X! But please don't tell me to use solution Y, even though solution Y has solved problem X for hundreds of other people."

Some people would say the same about a lager brewed with a low-oxygen mash, biological acidification (soured wort to adjust mash pH), boiled as little (and as gently) as possible, and naturally carbonated in the keg. That's if you want to make something close to what Augustiner, Hofbrau...

BTB is used to bind up stray metals such as iron and copper from the brewing water and wort. If these metals are allowed to stay in the beer, they act as catalysts for oxidation in the finished beer, analogous to how amylase enzymes act as catalysts for the breakdown of starch into sugar in the...

I have observed that the majority of the O2 in this case appears to come not from impurities in the CO2, but via diffusion through the gas line. Don’t leave your gas line permanently connected to the keg. Only attach it momentarily when you need to top up the pressure or do some serving...

Trigger warning: LoDO thread! If that's not your thing, then move along! Continuation of the discussion from here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=491294&page=5 I'll kick things off with screenshots of where that thread left off, before my posts were deleted with:

You might want to re-read the entire mashing chapter, paying close attention to the many times that he discusses the deleterious effects of oxygen on wort, especially on phenolic compounds from the malt. LOX is of minor concern next to peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase, superoxide dismutase, and...

One of the many, many times that he reiterates it. Read the last bullet point of Section 3.2.1.10: For anybody who might think that this is only a "big brewery" problem that doesn't matter at "home-brew scale", the reality is that oxygen ingress at home-brew scale is many times higher than at...

Pot, meet kettle. You can go get the degree at Weihenstephan or VLB and learn all of this. Or you can read the textbooks they use on your own. This one has an English translation: https://www.vlb-berlin.org/en/technology-brewing-and-malting Then I encourage you to keep doing what you're doing...

If the goal is to make something similar to the modern beers that are served nowadays in the tents in Munich, you guys are barking up the wrong tree with the decoctions and all that. Decoction mashing may have been commonplace 100 years ago, but the beers back then tasted nothing like the beers...

You could do that. It isn't done in Germany because of the purity law, but they have a way around it. There is a special mash you can do that takes advantage of the maltase enzyme to break down a fraction of the maltose in wort into glucose. The mash is called the Herrmann-Verfahren mash, or the...

One of the biggest reasons why it's used hasn't been brought up yet: malt extract is mostly maltose (a disaccharide), whereas invert and candi sugar syrups are mostly monosaccharides. Generally speaking, more monosaccharides in the wort leads to increased ester production by the yeast. It's the...

It shouldn't take more than 1-2 weeks of cold conditioning to produce very clear beer, without using any cold-side finings. The only exception here is if you are using a very low flocculating yeast. If it takes your beer more than 1 or 2 weeks to drop clear, even when using a yeast like 2124...

Forgive my lack of artistic talent. This drawing sums up my own personal experience with brewing. I think anybody who has spent enough time with LoDO can probably relate.

If you want an honest answer to the question of whether homebrew how-to books trump professional brewing textbooks, the answer is no. There is an enormous divide in the quality and depth of information in professional literature as compared to homebrewing books written by hobbyists-turned-gurus...

There is evidence that sulfites have been used as antioxidants in the mash and boil going back over 100 years (see "The Influence of Sulphites in the Mash‐Tun and the Copper" by A.E. Barry, 1905) On top of that, it was common practice during those days to preboil all brewing liquor, and...