Next best to the moon would be a big purged glove box that fits your system. No meta no mashcaps. Man you could stir and splash, hell even use a drill mounted paint mixer as a mash paddle!
I like it.
And think about the cold side: fermenting, dry hopping, transferring and kegging or bottling in such a bubble...a dream. Wonder why no one of the homebrewing gear manufacturers has thought about such a thing yet. I would buy it immediately if I had the cash and the space and no family and no wife.
IMO.. Munich, Pilsner and caramunich or carahell are the only malts you should need to make a good bock. Any more and you just muddy the flavor. The most important ingredient is process.
As with most beers and brewing, I think this is half right - yeast (ingredient) and it's management (process) are the single most important aspect of brewing. This is perhaps even more important for lagers. Tend to yeast and fermentation and you are at least 80 percent to your goal.
I close on a 20 acre farmette the end of June. I'll have my own dedicated winery/brewery and 4 sources of water on the property. A natural spring fed 2 acre pond stocked with fish, a deep ass huge rain water fed cistern, a deep fully functioning well and municipal water, RO filtered.
Wife wants a root/storm cellar right off the bat. I said sure, I'll dig you one no problem, as long as you will share it with my wines & lagers I'm going to dig it out in a north facing hill good 8' x 12' and at least 8' deep. Then lay in drain tile and pour it all in concrete.
That sounds fantastic!
After reading a few of these German brewing and LODO discussions, I felt compelled to write an e-mail to the Faculty of Brewing Sciences and Beverage Technology of TUM at Weihenstephan, in an attempt to see it a bit clearer for myself. They were kind enough to reply. Here in summary what they had to say about the subject:
- HSA is real (no surprises here).
- They would not state it clearly, but you can read between the lines that the usual suspect Bavarian breweries (Weihenstephan & Co.) are not degassing their brewing water. While this is also a possibility for breweries, they said that in most cases structural constructions in the brewhouse are cheaper and sufficient for taking care of HSA.
- These structural constructions and process steps involve e.g. the Vormaischer, filling vessels from below, and specific designs for the stirring elements and pipes. All this is well known to most of you, of course.
Please note that through this post I am not trying to debate against LODO at the homebrewing level. I kind of see the point that if you want to achieve the same low levels of hot-side O2 ingress as those industrial breweries through our minuscule and low-tech setups (with way higher surface-to-volume ratios) you might need to resort to water de-aeration, antioxidants and so forth.
I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.
You got a source for that? Last time I checked industrial process details are hardly "common knowledge". I certainly never heard it mentioned on TV.I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.
Just my own two eyes on a closed late night tour with a master diplo brewmaster and teacher at W. I was probably just hallucinating, even though we had a specific discussion about it.You got a source for that? Last time I checked industrial process details are hardly "common knowledge". I certainly never heard it mentioned on TV.
I can say with 110% certainty, they are degassing water at both W locations for a fact. It's common knowledge, hell even SN degases their water, wet mills, and whatnot.. The rest you say is correct.
Further: The antioxidant power of malt is already high enough, so that this really isn't a problem.
Precisely. The "malt antioxidants" are the very polyphenols and other compounds that constitute the flavor of malt, and that will be the last line of defense against intolerable staling in packaged beer. The goal therefore is to preserve them intact through the brewing and packaging process. It is further made perfectly explicit in Kunze -- whose work is of course descriptive of SOP in all German commercial breweries -- that ALL water, including mashing-in water, MUST be degassed. The only wiggle room offered is that in mashing-in water a maximum of 0.1 ppm oxygen may, in the worst case, be tolerated as the upper limit, whereas the absolute limit is 0.01 ppm on the cold side.Are you sure about your translation? That antioxidant is your beer flavor.
Could you please stop with this nonsense? There is no such thing as "SOP in all German commercial breweries". All that shiny equipment comes at a cost and German commercial breweries, like any other enterprise, have to be able to remain commercially viable. It doesn't matter what Kunze writes, if you go bankrupt you'll have to cease operations like many breweries have already done since the end of WWII. If you actually visited some of the older German breweries you'd be surprised at how basic their processes and equipment actually are.It is further made perfectly explicit in Kunze -- whose work is of course descriptive of SOP in all German commercial breweries -- that ALL water, including mashing-in water, MUST be degassed. The only wiggle room offered is that in mashing-in water a maximum of 0.1 ppm oxygen may, in the worst case, be tolerated as the upper limit, whereas the absolute limit is 0.01 ppm on the cold side.
It's not really two sites. They have a commercial operation ever since the State of Bavaria took over the historic brewery and then they have the research operation as they are a University after all.Btw I wasn't aware Weihenstephan had 2 production sites. Where is the second one located?
Are you sure about your translation? That antioxidant is your beer flavor.
It's not really two sites. They have a commercial operation ever since the State of Bavaria took over the historic brewery and then they have the research operation as they are a University after all.
Well gents, I'm going to have to put my studies on hold for a while. I have a house, a wood shop to pack and move, along with my sawmill and skidsteer, turkeys, chickens, dogs and the wife.
But man oh man... what is up with the shade bein thrown?!?!
I guess my big boy pants just aren't big enough here.
I know this is off topic and probably innappropriate. I just don't get it.
Again- thats my fault only. Need my big boy pants i guess.
I'm bound and determined to learn how to brew a decent Traditional Bock. I've attempted a traditional Bock several times with various levels of success. All drinkable, but not close to authentic and what I've drank while visiting Germany.
Maybe I missed it, but did the OP ever say specifically witch "authentic" beers he was referring to?
Does authentic=industrial macro beer?
Could you please stop with this nonsense? There is no such thing as "SOP in all German commercial breweries".
BTW you mention degassed water on the cold side. Are you aware that in Germany it is forbidden to dilute beer after yeast has been pitched? You can only dilute wort before pitching yeast and you're certainly not going to use expensive degassed water to do that considering that you're about to actively oxygenate the resulting, diluted wort before pitching yeast.
When someone writes about "all German commercial breweries" then I have to assume that is what they actually mean. Your trying to then narrow it down after the claim has been challenged repeatedly looks to me like an attempt to furiously backpedal and certainly does not increase the credibility of your side of the discussion. Anyway even if you narrow it down to the names you've mentioned your claim is still untrue because there is no such an SOP in Germany.Typically we are talking about the large scale German brewers here: W, Ayinger, Augustiner, Andechs, Hofbrau, Paulaner, Bitburger, etc. In these breweries, there is an SOP that includes the type of stuff Kunze and Narziss, etc. have talked about for years.
When someone writes about "all German commercial breweries" then I have to assume that is what they actually mean. Your trying to then narrow it down after the claim has been challenged repeatedly looks to me like an attempt to furiously backpedal and certainly does not increase the credibility of your side of the discussion. Anyway even if you narrow it down to the names you've mentioned your claim is still untrue because there is no such an SOP in Germany.
I just got a more clear reply following my insisting second inquiry : They are not aware of any brewery degassing their water for the brewhouse. Degassed water is being used but only in the cold side (filtration, filling). Further: The antioxidant power of malt is already high enough, so that this really isn't a problem. You need to make sure that no vortex is being built, that would continuously introduce O2 into the mash. The most extreme measures he is aware of are the use of intert gases to cap the mash and the use of antioxidants (it is safe to assume that Weihenstephan and most other traditional bavarian breweries are not using those...for sure not antioxidants as that would go against the Reinheitsgebot).
Sorry for this somehow sloppy direct translation from German.
Now this guy is the technical director of the research brewery at TUM in Weihenstephan. They are directly associated to the Weihenstephan brewery... if this guy does not know what they are doing, then who does?
If your argument is that the two major brewing textbooks in the brewing world, Narziss and Kunze, which as you know are German, are not truly SOPs, then I think you won the argument.When someone writes about "all German commercial breweries" then I have to assume that is what they actually mean. Your trying to then narrow it down after the claim has been challenged repeatedly looks to me like an attempt to furiously backpedal and certainly does not increase the credibility of your side of the discussion. Anyway even if you narrow it down to the names you've mentioned your claim is still untrue because there is no such an SOP in Germany.
Hello there
I am afraid this brewer did not understand your question or is pulling your leg or is not really at Weihenstephan
Is "degassing" as easy as just boiling the water? If so, I might give it a try next pilsner. Seems easy enough, really. Regarding capping the mash with CO2 etc, yea not going that far
Or maybe another someone will not concede defeat no matter how strong the evidence against his position might be?Of course he may be pulling my leg, who knows...although I'd be surprised...maybe I'm just ingenuous?
Not trying to be argumentative here but yout last post really makes no sense to me??If your argument is that the two major brewing textbooks in the brewing world, Narziss and Kunze, which as you know are German, are not truly SOPs, then I think you won the argument.
For this discussion, state-of-the-art knowledge and SOP seem to have the same meaning; but your disagreement is noted.
Unfortunately it isn't. Once the water cools down (it has to if you're going to be using it for sparging or cold-side dilution) it will start absorbing O2 from the atmosphere. To avoid that you need to provide for an O2-free environment for the water to cool in. I think it's doable at the homebrew level using kegs and CO2 but it's still a bit more work than just boiling. It's also energy intensive but that's more of a concern for industrial operation and one of the reasons while they use technologies that allow the water to be degassed cold.Is "degassing" as easy as just boiling the water? If so, I might give it a try next pilsner. Seems easy enough, really. Regarding capping the mash with CO2 etc, yea not going that far
Unfortunately it isn't. Once the water cools down (it has to if you're going to be using it for sparging or cold-side dilution) it will start absorbing O2 from the atmosphere. To avoid that you need to provide for an O2-free environment for the water to cool in. I think it's doable at the homebrew level using kegs and CO2 but it's still a bit more work than just boiling. It's also energy intensive but that's more of a concern for industrial operation and one of the reasons while they use technologies that allow the water to be degassed cold.
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