Hi!
I am quite sensitive to hot side oxidation flavours, mainly this dreaded almond flavour which I sometimes encountered within my brews. Switching back to BIAB lowered the intensity significantly compared to my not so well designed mash ton, but it was still there. To be fair, it was aging out with time, but still a bit of a pain. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it was barely there... but it was a constant companion.
So I started adding vitamin C (ascorbic acid) pre mash to the water, together with my water treatment salts. First beer was a hoppy american brown ale, that one is amazing. The hop flavour is after almost two months still like day one and there is no hint of the almond flavour.
The second one is a Miraculix Best Kitchen sink edition, added even a bit more vitamin c, just to see what happens. Bottled it today, not even the slightest hint of almond.
This shows me, the ascorbic acid really does something against hot side oxidation as well as oxidation in the bottle. I do leave just a small headspace in the bottle, to further lower the oxidation potential in the bottle, I think this is nowadays common wisdom, if not, just do it.
There are still some unknowns regarding vitamin c, this is why I wanted to create this thread, first to share my results and second to ask for the wisdom of the swarm.
My last batch had 3.5g of vitamin c, the final volume in the fermenter was 20l. This results in 0,175g per litre in the fermenter, this worked for me, but I do not have huge boil of rates. I actually add some water to the fermenter to lower the og as my kettle is a bit small and I am boiling with a higher OG than anticipated in the fermenter. This results in more Vitamin C per litre in the kettel, as I am diluting it afterwards a bit, not by much though. Only about 15-20% additional water.
Resulting questions:
1. The dosage should be high enough that there is some vitamin c left after the boil, to do it`s thing in the bottle as well. How to determine the amount correctly? I went with anecdotal evidence, which seems to work. But is there a taste threshhold? Or can one overdo it?
2. There are rumors that vitamin c can become a super oxidiser on it's own. You can read this all over the internet but there is no proof, no idea how this should work, basically nothing specific. I talked to a professional food chemist who is working with vitamin c since the 70s and he said that he never encountered such a behaviour of virtamin c within his whole career. My personal guess is, somebody somehow got his batch oxidised, blamed the vitamin c and everybody else copied what he wrote. I do not know. For me it just worked.
3. How about oxigenation of the wort before pitching yeast? Is the Vitamin C going to be used up by this step? It would be unfortunate. I do not oxigenate my wort, so I have no idea. Maybe the temperature is low enough to slow down the oxidising of vitamin c so much that the yeast has enough time to take in all the oxygen available.
4. How about long term aging, thinking of big beers? What will be going on there?
5. Impact on mash ph? I basically ignored the vitamin c, added the usual amount of acidulated malt and went with it. Efficiency and attenuation were as expected.
For now, I think this stuff is gread. It protects my beer in the bottle, it protects the mash, it is cheap, harmless and easy to use. All good!
What do you guys think?
I am quite sensitive to hot side oxidation flavours, mainly this dreaded almond flavour which I sometimes encountered within my brews. Switching back to BIAB lowered the intensity significantly compared to my not so well designed mash ton, but it was still there. To be fair, it was aging out with time, but still a bit of a pain. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it was barely there... but it was a constant companion.
So I started adding vitamin C (ascorbic acid) pre mash to the water, together with my water treatment salts. First beer was a hoppy american brown ale, that one is amazing. The hop flavour is after almost two months still like day one and there is no hint of the almond flavour.
The second one is a Miraculix Best Kitchen sink edition, added even a bit more vitamin c, just to see what happens. Bottled it today, not even the slightest hint of almond.
This shows me, the ascorbic acid really does something against hot side oxidation as well as oxidation in the bottle. I do leave just a small headspace in the bottle, to further lower the oxidation potential in the bottle, I think this is nowadays common wisdom, if not, just do it.
There are still some unknowns regarding vitamin c, this is why I wanted to create this thread, first to share my results and second to ask for the wisdom of the swarm.
My last batch had 3.5g of vitamin c, the final volume in the fermenter was 20l. This results in 0,175g per litre in the fermenter, this worked for me, but I do not have huge boil of rates. I actually add some water to the fermenter to lower the og as my kettle is a bit small and I am boiling with a higher OG than anticipated in the fermenter. This results in more Vitamin C per litre in the kettel, as I am diluting it afterwards a bit, not by much though. Only about 15-20% additional water.
Resulting questions:
1. The dosage should be high enough that there is some vitamin c left after the boil, to do it`s thing in the bottle as well. How to determine the amount correctly? I went with anecdotal evidence, which seems to work. But is there a taste threshhold? Or can one overdo it?
2. There are rumors that vitamin c can become a super oxidiser on it's own. You can read this all over the internet but there is no proof, no idea how this should work, basically nothing specific. I talked to a professional food chemist who is working with vitamin c since the 70s and he said that he never encountered such a behaviour of virtamin c within his whole career. My personal guess is, somebody somehow got his batch oxidised, blamed the vitamin c and everybody else copied what he wrote. I do not know. For me it just worked.
3. How about oxigenation of the wort before pitching yeast? Is the Vitamin C going to be used up by this step? It would be unfortunate. I do not oxigenate my wort, so I have no idea. Maybe the temperature is low enough to slow down the oxidising of vitamin c so much that the yeast has enough time to take in all the oxygen available.
4. How about long term aging, thinking of big beers? What will be going on there?
5. Impact on mash ph? I basically ignored the vitamin c, added the usual amount of acidulated malt and went with it. Efficiency and attenuation were as expected.
For now, I think this stuff is gread. It protects my beer in the bottle, it protects the mash, it is cheap, harmless and easy to use. All good!
What do you guys think?