Hi James. Thanks! Starters are all about growing yeast cells. Yeast need oxygen to reproduce/duplicate. So feeding them plenty of oxygen helps grow biomass in your starters. Some yeast labs continuously add oxygen through their production to get as any cells as possible. If you want a lot of healthy yeast and great fermentation performance, add plenty of pure O2.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 well I always use O2 before pitching yeast into my wort, but I guess what I was getting at was It was my scientific understanding that the stair plate constantly introduces oxygen into the wort, is that not the case?

@@jamesp1979 The stir plate does introduce some oxygen but its primary role is to release CO2 from the starter wort. Surface transfer of oxygen can not compare or compete with pure O2 being blasted in.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 what advantage does releasing co2 from the starter wort have?

@@jamesp1979 CO2 vs O2. When it comes to yeast, they are opposed. When you want to grow yeast, you want as much oxygen as they can take in. CO2 has the opposite effect, so you want to drive off the CO2. The opposite is in play when you store yeast. You want a 100% CO2 environment so they pretty much go to sleep. Any oxygen will make them perk up and use up their reserves.

Hello, sorry for the late reply. SMB does eat up oxygen but it leaves sulfate behind. So the community uses bakers yeast to deoxygenate the strike water (YOS method) and saves the SMB for the actual mash and rest of the brew day. I have a video on my channel about it if you want to learn more.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 I have learned from your videos that excess metabisulphite can affect oxygenation of yeast in the initial stage of fermentation. I saw how you handle that by adding extra oxygen to the wort.

@@jauld360 Yes. It is not bad to use a lot of SMB but you need to account for it when you get to the oxygenation stage. You first need to expend all of the suflites to where they are exhausted. Only then will you start actually oxygenating the wort. This is only learned by trial and error with your system with the use of a good Dissolved Oxygen meter. You can see the sulfites eating the oxygen as you put it in the wort. Over some time the readings stabilize and then start to go up. I purchased a Go Direct DO meter for this purpose - www.vernier.com/product/go-direct-optical-dissolved-oxygen-probe/

I try to limit the sulfite use to match my system. Over use of sulfites leads to very clean but bland beer. It is a balance per style and how your brewing setup performs. A lot of levers to pull!

Yes I use 1 jar per batch which is more flavor driven and pH driven. My sauergut is usually worth about .25-.3 pH points lower in the boil. This is tricky at the home level to know exactly how much acidity you created. It comes down to trial and error, measuring before and after the addition etc... I like to drop my end of boil down to pH 5.1 so a little more lactic acid is usually needed since I run my mashes at pH 5.6.

Thanks. I am glad it helps! Yeast can be complicated.

Hello, it is a Team Far stainless steel cake pan from Amazon. I fabricated the pass through.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 thanks so much!

Hello Ryan, I do not think the energy source matters. The process and attention to details would have the most impact. A lot of different systems can accomplish a successful low oxygen beer. What I would recommend is having an HLT and a way to underlet your into your mash tun. This allows you to deoxygenate your strike water then introduce the water from the bottom of your mash tun. This is a critical step in the process which is tough to execute in an All In One type of brewing setup. I also like having a separate mash tun and boil kettle as it results in clearer wort into the BK. If you want to learn about low oxygen brewing then head over to www.themodernbrewhouse.com and you will find all the info you need!

Time spent with a cat is never wasted. - Sigmund Freud

You are welcome. Thanks for the advice. I agree and things are always being improved. Sometimes what is shown in videos is not the complete normal practice as the video making process is drawn out etc... But I can not deny that I am a homebrewer so some of my practices are going to be geared towards convenience. Your point is valid though and I will take notice of conditions more going forward. Maybe get a burner someday as well.

I see a cat but no car. I imagine the car fumes wouldn't be too good for a brew but unless he's shaking a cat into his starter or trying to use lab standards for his yeast I think he's okay. I've been brewing for a decade and I've never had a batch go off. My kid has even sneezed in a brew as I pitched yeast in when she was sick and it turned out fine. If my sick toddler can full on spit in my beer, I think his cat being nearby is okay. Thanks for the content good sir, ignore the crap talkers.

I use an oxygen tank with a carbonation stone wand.

Thank you very much. I am glad you are enjoying the videos. I make them because I have seen so much improvement in my beers that I want to share what I have learned. It is really not that difficult and involves more UN-learning than learning in a way. Please have a look at my other videos as I try to cover all aspects of the process.

Thanks. It was an area that does not get a lot of study but does get a lot of use. I am glad the instrument can be trysted as it is so easy to use & useful.

You are welcome. Glad you liked it.

Hello, the process works with any yeast. Freezing straight from the package is the cleanest way.

Great. Glad it helped.

I got the up, down thing around the wrong way last time so I agree with how your readings drifted.

Interesting behavior. Luckily these were pretty small movements (1/2 a plato total). Glad to see the direct, quick method is the best.

I have not. It might work with low oxygen if one could keep it sealed off, but I think it is best to keep the mash period as short as needed. The mechanics would be difficult with step mashing. So it might be more of a bother than a time savings for me. Thanks for your input.

Hello, I removed it because it was flawed in the approach. I will re-shoot it and post again soon. Thanks.

Hello, I use Beersmith software and have a profile set up for this setup. I am not an expert and have tweaked based upon brewing outcomes. My brewhouse Eff. is set to 66%. My mash Eff. is showing 80.4% My trub losses are set to 1.2 gal. I try to shoot for 1/2 gallon or under with boiloff. I do not focus on efficiency very much. Basically 11lbs of grain will get me a 12ish plato beer. Not setting the world on fire. I am more concerned with learning to create malty flavors as well as determine attenuation.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 Thanks! Your mash efficiency is much higher than I'd expect from underletting and stirring once or twice. I'm toying around with doing something similar to you where you don't lift the bag but transfer to another vessel instead. My current grain absorption with some squeezing of the bag is .4 qt/lb but imagine it would be more like .55 qt/lb using your approach. I'm very interested in giving the LODO thing a try but don't want to invest much money yet. I'll rewatch your 4 brew video but was curious if you might share some insight on the low hanging fruit or most bang for your buck things that I can try first. I can certainly do YOS, add kmeta, and underlet but don't have any mash caps.

@leftiesrule Honestly, it is just the number shown on every recipe. I did some number crunching at the measured is closer to the mid 60's. I do not know the absorption rate. I start with 8.25 gallons of water and 11lbs of grain to get a 12.2-12.7 plato beer. Your best bang for the buck low oxygen steps are taking the oxygen out of all of the water, a slow underlet and using sulfites. That will do the bulk of all of the lifting. Things a lot of brewers can easily accomplish. If you can not underlet you can try to introduce grain slowly in small amounts and use a bit more sulfites to taste & performance. In the four batch video, the #2 & #3 ranked beers were fairly close in the finished beer. They were a little more acrid, but still much improved over the full HiDo batch.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 I rewatched your 4 brew video and was curious about the switch from boiling in the foundry to using the other kettle. Was it simply to accomodate your updated chiller setup or other reasons? My plan is to incorporate YOS, sulfites, and underletting for my next brew. Still formulating a plan for chilling, either use my copper immersion chiller or recirculate back into kettle through stainless steel CFC. I'll also try to avoid bringing trub over from mash to boil as well as from kettle to fermenter. Hopefully this will help me make an educated decision on whether this is worth it for me.

I moved to the separate boil kettle for time savings as well as less pumping (oxygen uptake) of the wort. When I had the 'holding pot' I lost temperature while it sat there and I cleaned out the Foundry. This added about 30min. to my brewday! Now it is just run it over and turn the heat on right when there is enough liquid to cover the bottom. Much quicker and better overall. With your chilling, either way, you would benefit from a settling period after the chilling. Then drain the clear wort in to the kettle. One tip - the more you 'brew clean' the more the need for yeast nutrient or just zinc is needed. In the end, if you do anything with yeast like harvesting, brewing clean is the only way to go. But it does help to give the yeast that little bit the the trub might provide. Copper is quicker but SS is better for low oxygen. Tough decision. Low oxygen decisions are tough because you need to have some experience to execute a good low oxygen brewday to be able to see the benefits to make a decision! Let me know if you have any more questions@@leftiesrule

Thanks. I will think about it.

Great! Let me know what you think.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 What I took from this was I rush unerleting. I meet to watch it again as although I had it on in the background ( I did get to the end) while I got ready for Christmas Day I didn’t give it the attention it deserves.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 I to use a speed control on my pump, I now say it’s better for the wort but in reality it’s just because I found twiddling a valve too clumsy.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 I’ve started milling straight into the strike water. Saves one water transfer. Any thoughts? My mill is very slow

@@Margarinetaylorgrease Some people do this but it takes away the practice of underletting which is best for low oxygen brewing. The absolute best is the German brewing practice of milling under oxygen free water. But that is beyond the scope of homebrewing techniques.

You are welcome. Hope it helps!

Hey, thank you for the kind words. Glad to hear your beers have improved with attention to oxygen. I hope seeing some of my practices help you to calm your transfers and brewing. I think it needs to be fun and relaxed but I have had my share of yelling and foul language! Planning and having a repeatable process really helps keep things working well. Keep up the learning and try to make notes of your beers as you go. Low oxygen can go too far as well and remove all flavor. The goal is to find the right balance for your palette. But it is good practice to learn how to get to that limit. Thanks for the tip on QDs. It is frustrating how some work well and some do not. Even the new Kegland QDs seem to have variation as I have struggles with them on different kegs. Someday I need to pay up and replace all of the posts on all of my kegs to ones that do work well with the QDs. But that will probably never happen!

Hello Richard. Thanks for the comment and glad you liked the video. The induction burner is a 3500w 220v model I purchased from Ebay for $150. www.ebay.com/itm/304747087673?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=5EmlTihOTbe&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=j_WqJJSUS16&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY The kettle is meant for induction with the three layer bottom from SS Brewtech 10.7 gallons. Yes, the decision to start brewing low oxygen is sort of a reverse engineering decision. You need to have the right equipment to be able to do the process. The two most important factors are being able to remove the oxygen from your strike water and to underlet your dough in. After that, it is about trying not to abuse your wort the rest of the day. If you could put the spray mechanism under the wort level it would be fine. Brewing this way produces very clean beer without the normal muddiness associated with homebrew. But it is a choice. One can brew HiDO on pretty much any system. So you can always go back. My setup was built a little bit at a time as I learned more about the low oxygen approach. It comes down to little tweaks like recirculating through the mash cap and having a way to transfer through a pump without agitating too much. I have filmed two brewday videos which will be posted soon. I hope they help you make a decision. It is a more involved brewday compared to a normal AIO experience. But you can determine how far you want to go into it.

Thank you very much! I hope seeing another's setup helps in some way. My main goal is to show how simple all of these techniques are in practice. Prost!

Thank you. Hope it helps out. Silicone has pretty horrible oxygen barrier properties. The tubing I use is Sontoprene which is a cheaper version of the best - Tygon. Tough to know how much O2 would get in and affect a mash, but the Santoprene is $1.70 a foot at McMaster Carr (or was a few years ago). So why leave any doors open?

Hello, I like the immersion chiller because it does not require and pumps to work! Easy. I also do not have cold enough ground water to be effective with a CFC. Oxygen ingress slows as temperature decreases. So gently stirring chiller wort is a lot safer than say splashing mash temps. So immersion chilling and some movement is not seen as much of a risk compared to a spray operating in a mash or sparge. But, that is also the role of using sulfites as "protection" through the brew. Also, if I was using a CFC, I would want to run the wort back into the kettle for the same settling period before transferring to the fermenter. The immersion chiller is a better overall approach as the wort never leaves the kettle. Hope this helps!

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 Appreciate the reply. That all makes sense to me. It sounds like your goal is to get the clearest wort possible into your fermenter. Do you happen to know the impact of cold break in the wort in the fermenter? I currently use a hopstopper 2.0 to single pass kettle through CFC to fermenter which means all the cold break goes to the fermenter. Other than that it does a phenomenal job of filtering the other stuff out.

Hello, There are others' who know way more about gas exchange than I do, but I will share how I think of it. In short, yes I do see some pitfalls with your method. It is important to not see gases like oxygen in terms of "flow". Meaning they do not move like water or common flow forces. If there is any kind of opening, Oxygen will find a way in. Even if there is gas coming out to some extent. Pressure and gas exchange are separate. This is how a pressurized container like a keg will still have oxygen pass through its seal for example. I find distance is a little help. So instead of pulling the PRV which is attached directly to the keg, I bleed 3 feet away from the keg. Because when you pull the PRV, there is an opening for O2 to get in. And it will. Yes it takes that level of detail to deal with oxygen! I like the bottle approach because I can equalize the pressure which results in a slow flow I can control and also allows me to see how clear the wort might be to know when to stop letting it out. In this case, I do not think there is much difference in both ways when it comes to oxygen. If I had purged the bottle first, then it might make a small difference. But this step to me is all about filling the line with beer which pushes the oxygen out. It is very complicated trying to deal with something you can not see. Hope this helps.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 Agreed! It's not very intuitive to think about how gases mix, exchange through different media, etc. Another thing I used to do but got lazy was to fill the entire beer line with sanitizer, hook it up to the fermenter, and do the same thing with the measuring cup. Intuitively this seems like a more foolproof approach as the beer will push the sanitizer out the hose. I guess it's possible that there's still some o2 in the hose filled with sanitizer. Great videos btw!

Hopefully for the better! Thanks for your comment.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 I find it really hard to watch “normal “ home brew channels now, what with all the splashing and whisking the mash like their making a meringue.

Ha Ha. I agree. There is a balance to be had though. It is best imho to learn how to get rid of the oxygen (which takes a while to learn) then use it as a tool and dial back to your liking. Too much oxygen removal on the hot side can result in a "boring" beer as oxygen interaction does produce flavors in beer. It is good to remember that at the homebrew level, our small systems are very challenged from a surface area perspective compared to larger breweries. So we have a more difficult task. Give the methods a shot and get used to the flavor of the brews. See what you like and adjust. I like how low oxygen brews are very focused without muddy flavors making a bunch of noise. It is said that this type of brewing is more about removing unwanted flavors than adding anything.@@Margarinetaylorgrease

Low Oxygen brewing is a pretty small segment of the homebrew world. It is slowly growing in awareness, but still not mainstream. I hope to help some brewers get acquainted with the practices through my channel.

Thanks Michael. Glad you liked the video. What you are experiencing is leftover sulfites in the fermenter. The Low Oxygen community discovered that leftover sulfites that were not expended during the hot side can interact with the yeast and create excess sulfur. The fix is to oxygenate more than usual right before pitching your yeast. So what I and many do is run pure O2 for 3-4 minutes at .25 or .5 LPM. Then let the wort rest a while and come back with 2 minutes at .25 LPM. This might be over-oxygenating but it expends all of the sulfites for sure. The other side of the coin is to "tighten up" your system so you can use less sulfites to begin with which requires less O2 at the end. For a 5 gallon batch I use around 1 to 1.2 grams of SMB total. It is a rabbit hole but easy and interesting. I do not have a Dissolved Oxygen meter so my oxygenation numbers are based upon talking with those who do have DO meters. Otherwise we are guessing!

Thanks a lot for your answer! That is very specific, I can work with that for sure! In general I am thinking about to flush my mash-tun with pure nitrogen and then underfilling to add an extra”lets call it” layer of defence. However I became a bit scared for Smb, so I’ll carry out more experiments with the additional information gave me, but I am also going to look into vitamin C or otherwise called, Ascorbic acid. I have heard it to be also a thing in Lodo brewing and people have been using it in the same gr/l for mash-in water. Sorry for the long message, so long story short: do you have any experience or tips for using ascorbic acid? Cheers :)

Flushing can be useful but this has been studied and it is only really effective if you can vacuum purge multiple times. Meaning just filling the tun with nitrogen will not create a pure inert environment. So I do not want you to waste a lot of nitrogen gas without knowing the research. I will help, but how much it will help is unknown. The most important items to implement for low oxygen brewing are removing the oxygen from your strike water (boiling or YOS method), using sulfites to limit the negative reactions with the malt compounds and slowy underletting your mash. Ascorbic acid has some benefit but it can also become a super oxidizer. It is less intrusive than SMB (the yeast do not care if it is around) but most in the community do not use it anymore.@@michielvandenberg868

Yes. I brew 5 gallon batches.

Yes. My understanding is you want to limit yeast activity as much as possible and keep them in a sleep state. Some think a gradual move down in temp somehow protects the yeast, but Chris White said in a presentation that it does not harm the yeast to freeze quickly. I might update this video, so if it disappears from your link, you might want to find it on the channel again. Thanks.

Thanks and I hope the info helps. I started with pushing sanitizer out of a filled with tank gas. That method is completely fine. I moved to the gas purging because it is easier and does not need tank gas. Easier for me is being able to sanitize the keg with the same batch of sanitizer I mix up for the fermenter on brew day. I fill up my fermenter with sanitizer and start a siphon into the keg. So everything is done during brew day. When it comes time to transfer it is just hook it up and go. I like eliminating the need for tank gas outside of serving. The approach is all natural, 100% pure CO2 and you do not have to buy CO2 very often. Win-win.

@@timpolster Thanks for the details, super helpful. I'm going to use your method! Cheers

Fresh does make a difference. I try to keep mine 1-2 years then I replace as it is inexpensive and that first interaction at dough in is the most important of the day. So speed is important.

You are welcome. Good luck on your journey and make sure you watch my cold side video I just posted! I would not recommend no-chill with low oxygen practices. Keeping flavors created from low oxygen is tricky. They are fragile and disappear quickly. While you do add oxygen at pitching, that is acceptable because the yeast immediately get to work and start consuming it. When you no-chill you are exposing the wort you spent the entire brewday protecting from oxygen to oxygen for hours. Basically unravelling all of your work. If you could no-chill in a CO2 purged container it would be a viable option. Is that possible without being more hassle than it is worth?

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 makes sense, thank you!

@@alexh8714 You might want to check the oxygen permeability of the no-chill cube material as well. If it is like silicon which lets a lot of oxygen through, that is another concern. If you could no-chill in a 1/4 barrel keg you could purge it and things would stay quite O2 free.

Hello, Since the water bottle is only connected via the tubing and gas is flowing into the bottle, I do not consider it much of a risk. If it was connected for a longer period of time, yes, the oxygen would eventually travel into the keg. That is why I purge the tubing again after I disconnect and attach to the keg. This also lowers the pressure a little bit more in the keg to improve the transfer speed.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202I would recommend just equalizing the pressure in the bottle with tank gas or not equalize it all together. If you are only using it to clear the first bit of beer out of the keg it shouldn’t matter if it’s at the same pressure of the keg/kegmentor as you don’t need to maintain the carbonation level in the soda bottle beer you will eventually dump. Not connecting it to your perfectly purged keg will just reduce the risk of oxygen coming into the keg once the pressure equalizes.

@Averydrumz Yes, it is best to avoid any contact. I have just hooked the bottle up to the keg and it equalizes just fine. Tank gas is also good but I want to keep the process all enclosed without needing tank gas. Without any tubing on the inside of the plastic disconnect going in bottle, I would rather keep the gas disconnect clean with slow flow (without spray). So I did it the other way for the video. I will try it with a little bit of tubing to extend further past the gas disconnect next time.

Thanks for your input. Your method seems fine. I am not sure if it matters if you boil before or after the lacto does its thing? I boil before the inoculation. It is pretty easy to put the boiled wort into the jars and sous vide though.

You are welcome. These beers are long gone, so I can not test them anymore. I did share them with a few different folks and some could notice the difference and some actually preferred the HIDO. So this stuff is subjective. For me, the difference was very obvious. In general, the LowOx beers stay fresh longer because they have much farther to travel to get to the same place.

Thanks! In the video I used 50PPM which is about 1.5 grams. (8 to 8.5 gallons of strike water) This can float around per beer style or system improvements. Now I use 1.2 grams after I improved some things.

So how does one properly calculate the additions for 10 gallon batch for light lager, such as Helles or festbier?

@@copey979 I have a spreadsheet that calculates based upon strike water and PPM desired. Sorry, I can not send it to you but you can join "The Modern Brewhouse" to have access. How much total strike & sparge in liters water do you use?

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 Thanks! I'm on there under tacopeland

Great. Glad it helped. I have enjoyed this workflow. I only buy yeast once every couple years now.

The product purchased from Amazon is Vegetable Glycerin. I apologize for not meeting your production standards when I mistakenly referred to the Vegetable Glycerin as gelatin in the VO. Is a little bit of civility too much to ask?

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 You not only erred but also responded to somebody who pointed it out, again with no correction. That makes you unworthy of civility.

@@peterweeds4682 I don't know how much you know about making YT videos but I need to re-record and upload a new video killing this link in order to fix the current video. I have not had the time to do the changes. As if I need to explain or justify any of this to an entitled internet personality as you appear to be. These videos are made to help and share knowledge. I am happy to make them, even for you. Rudeness withstanding... BTW, being civil is more about yourself than others. This will be my last reply to you as I do not care to have this kind of stuff ruining my channel. Peace.

Hello, and glad you enjoyed the video. I have never used K-meta, but they are considered interchangeable for our purpose. In my experience, many brewers choose the sodium metabisulfite.

Hello, glad you liked the video. O2 reduction on the hot side has really improved my beers. I am a little unsure of your question. The metabisulfite is always added to help with the mash interactions and to act as insurance the the rest of the time. The "yeast" or "YOS" is added to the strike water to take away any oxygen that is present. So clear the strike water of oxygen then you are starting neutral so the metabisulfites can be used to their full extent. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thank you. My approach has been to buy fresh yeast and split that yeast into frozen vials. That gives my around 4-5 brews on one purchase. One could then make the decision to purchase more fresh yeast when depleted or gran slurry from each batch. While grabbing slurry can be forever, it is easier just to buy fresh. This avoids any risk of sanitation or mutation but on the flip side, keeps everything 1st generation which some think is not getting the best out of yeast. That is the beauty of this method. There are many ways to go about it. I might be remaking/updating this video, so if it disappears, it will be on my channel under a different link.

@@integrityhomebrewing7202 Yes there is no reason to buy fresh yeast every single time, at least for a few generations. Perhaps only for the freedom of choice to match the particular style. But freezing yeast is always handy regardless of how it's been propagated through generations or if it's single colonies picked on a plate etc. I will try your method of freezing soon in combination with an overbuilt starter on the first generation. I like experiments, so I am curious how one strain can adapt or mutate over subsequent brews of a similar recipe. I might try brewing with it and reuse it a few times, then after a few generations do a split fermentation from the same wort with both the original and the reharvested one to really get an idea how it has adapted.

@@mrknaldhat That is a good use of the frozen vials. Sort of a control to gauge how much the yeast flavor changes over generations.