Compromise Elsewhere.
We talk quite extensively, almost as an afterthought, about oxygen ingress and why we want to eliminate it, but what are the actual values? What can you expect in terms of numbers? Let’s take a quick look at some of the known quantities and review some scenarios. Many have asked about the maximum DO levels…
Beer foam is not only a necessity as far as appearance is concerned, but also paramount to the whole experience that is beer. It is something so important to me that I designed my logo around it: Now I am not talking about foam as it relates to a beer that is over carbonated or…
Introduction One of the remarkable things about Belgian Trappist ales is how they are simultaneously idiosyncratic yet instantly recognizable as kindred. Pour yourself a glass of Chimay, Rochefort, Achel, Westmalle or Westvleteren. You’ll be astounded by how the individualistic spirit of each brewery mates with the hallmarks of the “style”. Brewing beers like these are…
I have been eyeing a canning setup and researching industry best practices for canning methods for some time. Knowing what we know about oxygen ingress in general, it was not very difficult to realize that oxygen at packing was a very large concern. I went back and forth over it for quite awhile, but finally…
There are a lot of people using sulfite testing strips now and I get a lot of people asking me about needing to adjust pH for these strips to be accurate. I have always adjusted, and never gave it any thought. But it piqued my interest enough to start to take dual readings while brewing. Over…
A few years back, once we discovered the secret to success, I did a quick brewery reconfiguration to accommodate the new methods. I ran everything with silicon hoses to allow for easy reconfiguration as methods and processes evolved. After 250+ batches I thought I had enough experience with the system to start to lock things…
With the release of the paper and podcast, I was mobbed with emails, pm’s and requests related to Low Oxygen brewing methods. The common thread with the curiosities was how it translates, if at all, to other beer styles. After the 100th request I set out to try and put this all together and try…
The past month or so has been pretty busy for me: putting out the “Water” spreadsheet, trying to maintain the main Low Oxygen Brewing spreadsheet, etc. One thing that has come to light is that it is difficult to maintain all the various Excel sheets I have produced over the past year. As I revise…
The dread of every low oxygen brewer, even at the commercial scale, is packaging. Previously we spoke of spunding, which is a fantastic way to mitigate the ingress of oxygen for keggers and bottlers alike, but what about filling growlers and bottles for competitions and gifts? It’s an interesting problem, as we are dealing with…
It’s quite the conundrum, but basically all methods we have tested and verified use active yeast and spunding. Since we have to break our purge to add hops, and since we know our purges are far from perfect to begin with, its a necessity to use those yeast for their oxygen scavenging abilities. There are…