Awesome Lager talk by the Weihenstephan and Sierra Nevada brewmasters.
First question they answered was on HSA.
Also good points on fermentation temperature and lagering time.
I couldn’t listen in real time. I will soon.
I wish the timing of these were earlier in the day or later in the evening. As it is I am always on my way home home. I caught parts oof the last 40 minutes while I made dinner.
Thank you for posting this. Very interesting.
Nice, thanks for sharing.
I didn’t find that the HSA discussion was particularly enlightening. I was intrigued by a comment from Tobias at around 1:32:15 that even after cooling to 0C the yeast are “still working” and removing polyphenols, etc. albeit at a slower rate.
If you heard it all before and you agree, then it wouldn’t be particularly enlightening.
This is just to confirm what Kunze and Narziss say in their books. That big breweries are very concerned about HSA, and at least for these styles, LODO beer is better beer.
If you then reason that in homebrewing we have at 20-200 more surface area to volume (20-200x more potential exposure to oxygen), it would make sense that the topic is rationally discussed in forums where improvement of lager brewing skills is pursued.
The answer to the first viewer question was very enlightening about the lengths those two breweries go on the hot side to preclude oxygen.
While there wasn’t a lot of HSA information there, I did find it interesting to finally hear someone from a large commercial brewery affirm that they deoxygenate their mash water (I do know Kunze recommends it in TB&M, although kind of almost in passing).
There’s a flipside to that too though; consider Scott’s comments and description of the wet milling process they employ at Sierra Nevada.
Anyway, there’s some interesting nonHSA-related info there too. It was definitely worth the listen.
Yes, Tobias talked about deoxygenating the process water in addition to the brewing liquor. I hadn’t thought about that because I don’t have any process water and I am not familiar with large-scale brewing. That whole discussion was about a process so far removed from what I do that it was not relevant to me. It just made me glad I don’t have to deal with everything they do.
Can you elaborate on the flip side you mentioned?
I understood that he meant that they wet-mill under nitrogen. This is to avoid the oxidation spikes (see Kunze) one gets when mixing grains with air pockets into the brewing liquor.
Did you understand something different?
It’s relevant to homebrewing in that we get 20-200x the oxygen exposure that they get. So if they take precautions, shouldn’t you with 20-200x more oxidation potential?
Not necessarily. We don’t have a board of directors or customers to satisfy. Just ourselves.
I didn’t say not to take precautions, but I can’t take the precautions they do, so their procedures are irrelevant. I don’t have any process water to deoxygenate. I deoxygenate my brewing liquor but their procedure for doing it is way beyond what I can do, so hearing what they do doesn’t really help me.
You sound like Ken Grossman. That’s why the have the green energy. That’s why the have multiple labs.
Very true. But they do have customers.
You can’t do anything exactly like they do it, but you can adapt all the concepts.
Eg,
Deareating water is simple. Precautions can be taken to minimize oxygen uptake.
I strive to give my one customer a product with the same attention to detail and quality the macros give to their many customers.
The thing that surprised me was the lengths those commercial breweries go to in reducing air contact throughout their brew house. To anyone that says LODO is BS, I have to point to this evidence of actual brewers and reams of textbook instruction.
I still say that LODO brewing doesn’t benefit all styles, but there are styles that do and the effects are impressive. Homebrewers are wise to do more in reducing hot side aeration in their system and procedures.
I just meant that while commercial brewers have the advantage in terms of more favorable surface area to volume ratios, there are a lot of areas where I think homebrewers have an easier time reducing oxygen exposure (milling process, smaller volumes of water to deaerate, not having to pump huge volumes of beer long distances thorough large diameter tubing, etc.). And I think the surface area to volume issue can be pretty easily mitigated by employing a mash cap.