Homebrew Beer Blog

A couple requests on my adventures, so an quick update.

Thursday I'm planning a full double batch. This should test the theories in production. I started the yeast on Sunday and will be ready to go. One will get 12 ppm and the other will be saturated.

The test batches don't seem to offer glaring results. I need to really sit down with them and probably pass them around for second opinions. If they have EA, either it's slight, or something is really confusing me. I'm calling the first batch inconclusive since there's weird stuff going on, but seems negative for EA. The second test batch should be done by now, so I'll pop the top here shortly. I've got some bottles of the first batch carbonating and I'll revisit with some other opinions.

One interesting thing, the super saturated test has a honey-like aroma. At first I didn't know what to make of this, because these are unhopped beers. I thought maybe it was just all that unbalanced malt. Since, I've read that honey aromas could be a sign of oxidation. That's kind of interesting if all that O2 before pitching resulted in oxidization damaged.

Anyway... here's what I've been mulling over. So far, my dissolved O2 tests have just been 1 gallon jugs. These "tests" have kind of taken some notice and may have ran further than they should have. Mostly, I was just testing out the O2 meter and playing around. So, I figured I should try doing this with full 5 gallons in a carboy, and for the heck of it, also in an open bucket. It seams reasonable that a bucket may not hold O2 the same as a carboy, and a lot of brewers use buckets and similarly top shaped conicals.

Two interesting observations... one, a buckets holds on to O2 just as well as a carboy. 24 hours later, the open bucket didn't loose much more O2 than the carboy. In fact, I think it was about the same. Second, greater the O2 pressure, harder it is to oxygenation.

So what does that mean? The batches where I was careful in oxygenating with lower pressure oxygenated fastest. I went lower because I didn't want to over shoot, and where I went higher it was because I wanted to get as much in there quickly. More pressure made bigger bubbles, bigger bubbles left the water faster. This is so obvious, but completely blind before I had a meter to verify. I kind of assumed even though more O2 was leaving the solution, more put into solution would more than compensate. This is interesting, because I know a lot of homebrewers, myself included, who blast O2 thinking they're getting more in there. This is tested using 30, 20, 10, and <5-2 psi. Turning it to just move the needle seemed to oxygenate the best.

So, this could be an interest next batch. The world will right itself if the problem was really oxygenation technique with these lager strains, and not over oxygenation. That makes perfect sense and I can switch gears towards figuring ways to consistently oxygenate wort. However, there could still be something to be found with over oxygenation. I think clearly the O2 isn't going anywhere and all that resulting fermenter growth may not be as desirable as designed growth.

Anyway... there's what I've been chewing on...