Brewed a NE Pale Ale yesterday (80% MO, 20% flaked oats, lots of late simcoe/citra/galaxy, WY1318, 2:1 Cl:SO4) using low oxygen techniques. I used “trifecta” rather than just SMB since I had BtB and AA lying around.
Have to say, I’ve brewed a lot of MO/EKG SMaSH beers and I’ve never seen MO come out as light and bright as this thing is. Brilliant day-glo light yellow. Pulled a sample for FFT this morning and I detect no sulfur from smell (although it reeked with massive hop aroma so it could be masking) and there was nothing out of place with the taste of the young beer/wort.
I’ll report back when I pull a sample at packaging.
I priced stainless to make a manifold like my copper version. I also looked at changing my copper CFC. I’m only changing them if, and when, I try the BTB. The Kolsch I’m kegging today does taste brighter. Is it blow my mind different, no, but improved. The main change I made was removing my copper sparge tubes in the top of my MT. I did not preboil my water. I just added a silicone hose to stay below my water line, and above the grain. I underlet the strike water. I stirred more cautiously. I made sure my MT drain hose was under the wort while filling the BK to prevent any splashing. Just being conscious of the splashing. Man it broke my heart to remove my trickling sparge manifold. It looked really professional when I started my fly sparge and lifted the lid to set my flow. I also recirculated through my CFC to the BK. The break left behind was huge. I had always ran to the fermenter in a single pass. Changing a little at a time and seeing if it is for me. More than an all or nothing approach. I had always not cared because HSA was a myth. I can tell a difference in the end product. This is the long and short of it. The beer is really nice. I’ve had trouble with bottling from the keg and the beer not staying fresh. All of this discussion has made me think more about tightening up all aspects of my brewing. Thanks to everyone for their discussion. I also understand everyone’s passion.
I just brewed with this “trifecta” mix yesterday as well. I’ve been referring to it as the antioxin mix. I’m hoping it works, everything seemed as it has been with egg drop soup and the wort tasted amazing, like honey and cereal.
1318 is awesome yeast, love fermenting semi-open and top cropping that yeast.
6 brews using Brewtan B and some of the LODO procedures…drinking a Pilsner and a Rye Pale and I will be continuing with the LODO procedures and trying to tighten it up some. I’m getting a larger hot and cold break and with no triangle test…I believe the brews are improved…both beers are near floated and fresh and clear…
Wanted to give some more data points regarding ale yeasts… I’m definitely picking up sulfur in my NE Pale Ale I brewed last week on the early samplings. I used “trifecta” (SMB/AA/BtB) at a rate of 40 ppm SMB. No sparge and employing almost every low oxygen technique that has been outlined. I used WY1318 as typical for this style. I’m wondering if many of the British Ale yeasts can’t handle the sulfites. I think I’m going to try a mix of just AA/BtB for my ales and save trifecta for lagers.
Perhaps HoosierBrew can chime in on this but I seem to remember him using 50 ppm SMB and the Chico strain (WLP001/WY1056) for a Pale Ale with no sulfur problems. This sulfite tolerance issue is really interesting. I’d like to see someone make a SMB dosed IPA with Super San Diego (WLP090) which many believe to be derived from the British strain WLP007 (Whitbread).
Yeah, I made the 1056 APA with 50ppm SMB and had not a hint of sulfur, so it sounds like it being strain dependent is likely. I’m surprised there was the sulfur issue with the trifecta mixture (with SMB being a smaller part of the whole). Maybe I’m remembering wrong but I was thinking that, at the proper mixture rate, SMB ends up at 30ppm. I could be wrong. Glad to hear the info. Hopefully the sulfur can be vented a few times and reduce substantially over time.
My sulfur bomb bitter with 1968 and 75ppm refused to release its farts for 3 weeks before I had to do something else with it. Venting improved it, but it was still pretty bad. I ended up using some copper to get rid of the sulfur eventually (stirred with a clean piece of copper pipe for 90seconds and then left it for a day) and the sulfur was gone.
Before you say it, I know copper is evil, but so is undrinkable fart beer.
The other possibility, which is highly unlikely, is that I’m not using very much of the SMB throughout mash/boil/chill. Or perhaps AA is picking up some of the slack and thus less SMB is converted to SO4.
It definitely yeast strain dependent. On a whole lagers yeasts absorb and produce like 10x the amount of what ale yeasts do. Admittedly I only use 2 yeast strains( 1056, and 2206) so I have a limited experience with the tolerances.
I used WY1318 on the last beer I made (following some of the LODO techniques, I still have a copper CFC), and I haven’t noticed any sulphur. Under what circumstances would sulphur be generated? Is this from reaction with oxygen, or as a result of adding too much SMB for the individual’s process/equipment.
Sulfites will be made from the breakdown of metabisulfite from oxygen. The sulfites will react with the yeast, in turn then incorporate it into amino acids through several more enzymatic steps. Sulfide that is not incorporated into these amino acids is converted to H2S in a pH-driven reaction. So if you start with too much sulfites, thats what starts the reactions.
Another update on this low oxygen NEPA. The sulfur is gone. I detected sulfur on some of the early and mid gravity checks out of the fermenter but now that it’s in the bottle (some spunded, some sugar primed) I can’t taste or smell any sulfur.
The beer is delicious and wonderfully pound-able. I’ve never had a pale ale that drank like water (in a good way) like this does. A bit dangerous, really. I’d play with my hop choices a bit next time around and probably get the Cl:SO4 to 1:1 rather than 2:1 to take a bit of the “roundness” out of it. Other than that, low oxygen appears to be well-suited (perhaps even intended?) for this beer style and yeast choice. I don’t know if I’d push SMB above 40 ppm, though.
My experience with the APA I made was pretty much identical to this. Good APAs are generally poundable, but this one was on a whole different level. Went down like water. Tell me, how well did your late hop character hold up? This was the first keg of APA maybe ever where I didn’t feel the need to add extra hops to the keg as the aroma dropped off. The aroma barely (if at all) dropped off. Very encouraging on all counts.
We’ll see how many bottles I’m able to hold on to. It’s delicious and I brew on a 2.5 gallon scale - I don’t think it’ll last long unless I stash some in a dark closet and forget about it. Out of the bottle early on, it punches me in the face with aroma. I split my hops between 0 min and a short 170F hopstand (no dryhop add in fermenter for this one). I want to drop simcoe from the mix the next time I make this.