With the interest in low DO brewing methods, an interesting finding is the method’s effect on malt flavor. Generally, this is a positive result. However, there is anecdotal evidence that LODO may not provide a positive improvement in the flavor or perception of dark roasted grains in the grist.
In the interest of furthering this subject, I’m asking brewers to respond here with their observations of their resulting beer flavor perception when LODO methods are used on grists with perceptible roast grains. This will be more telling if you have brewed side by side batches or have used the same recipe with notable and differing results.
I’m interested in that as well, haven’t figured out what causes the ashtray aroma in some beers. With cold brewed dark grains I haven’t had this, but havent tried beers with lodo method. But I did make split batches of schwarzbier this weekend, with 5% Carafa S3. Dough-in at 35C into water with 0.5g/l sugar and bread yeast, and added hot water with 33mg/l total, no sparge.
Much like other things in low oxygen, malt flavors are enhanced. We all know how strong the roasted grains are in normal beer making. Its much in the same in that, since roasted grains are already used sparingly. But they are very amplified with low oxygen. I was able to identify is in as little as .2%. I will be the first to say I am not a fan of roasted grains, and all German brewing literature points to using the UP TO 1%. Maybe people will be a fan, but it may be overwhelming for others. If you are brewing stout or dark beers that call for roast, it may benefit one to split the roasted addition between mash and a cold steep to start.
I used Carafa 2 or 3 in a rochefort clone (Holtropp recipe) recently, and it didn’t have any detrimental effect on taste. I’m wary of giving any view on whether it improved things, as I missed my targeted gravity by 10 points, so is quite different from the hoped Rochefort 8, and wasn’t done as a side by side with anything else to compare to.
I’m curious about it, too. My American Stout is pretty roasty as is, and I’d be tempted to back off the roasted barley and chocolate a bit under the lodo format. Next time I brew it or any other roasty beer, I’ll post.
It’ll be interesting to see how low oxygen brewing plays with all the other ale styles people brew. I think my first full blown low-oxygen attempt will be with my go-to bitters recipe: 92% MO, 7% torrified wheat, 1% pale chocolate. Wondering if that 1% pale chocolate will become more than just color and slight accent.
While there my be some difference in LODO and typically mashed wort flavors, I don’t find that I can extrapolate wort flavor to beer flavor. I’m not sure that this is going to tell me much.
Especially for me with roasted grains. The dusty, fine material always leads to some added harshness and “ashtray” flavors for me that are reduced at each step on the process, up to and including conditioning of the finished beer.
Last night I kegged up a batch of Irish stout I brewed a few weeks ago using LoDo methodology. I’ve brewed this particular recipe numerous times in the past as I like having a dry stout on tap during the winter. It wasn’t a side-by-side comparison, so my perception is completely subjective. But… the malt flavor was pretty damn awesome with nice roasty flavors really coming through. My personal experience is that if the beer tastes great at kegging when it’s flat and warm, it’s going to be really great when it’s cool and fizzy.
My experience with toasted malts (victory, biscuit, amber, brown, etc) have been that they impart a HUGE amount more character in a low o2 process than they do in a more traditional homebrew process. It’s hard to put a quantity on it but off the cuff I would say 5-fold (e.g. 3 oz of amber in low o2 tastes something like a pound would in a more traditional process). In other words, toasted malts are very easy to overdo from my experience.
The last brown and stout I brewed I actually skipped the deoxygenation steps prior to mashing just to avoid those excessive characters from the toasted and roasted malts.
Yes, I’m finding that as little as 1% roasted malts have a huge effect. I have an altbier that is about 11 SRM on tap that used around 1% carafa III and the roast character is quite apparent to me. The same was true with my last Vienna lager that used around 1% for coloring and was about 10 SRM. Never had it be so apparent before low oxygen. My black IPA, which is 7% midnight wheat, is super coffee/chocolate, more than usual; it’s definitely overpowering the hops that are usually much more pronounced.
The IGORs at Experimental Brewing are doing a test with Brewtan. Not completely LODO but one participant is brewing a CDA. Maybe he’ll be able to provide some insight.
“Extremely complex methodology”? This hints that they’re looking to prove it wrong, but without measuring the dissolved oxygen, it is hardly a valid experiment.
They’re testing to see if it affects the flavor. Flavor is a subjective thing therefore measuring dissolved oxygen is irrelevant. Is enough tasters can detect a difference in a blind the test then it would be valid. Granted the title is a little misleading so they might want to change that. It would also be nice to see them all do the same recipe on the same system but that is a limitation.
