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Low oxygen brewing: Difference between revisions

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Although the evidence is not entirely convincing that limiting oxygen uptake in the brewhouse manifestly benefits flavor stability, there are many brewers who strive to minimize air ingress at all stages in the brewery. It certainly makes sense to take sensible precautions (of the type listed in the box “Factor impacting on flavor stability”); however, to go to extremes such as operating the entire brewhouse under an inert atmosphere is surely overkill. It may even be detrimental—e.g., to haze stability. Intermediate between the two extremes (doing nothing to prevent air ingress or the oxygen-free brewhouse) are precautions such as mashing in with deaerated water or purging the milled grist with nitrogen. To get an idea of the relative worth of each of these, the water may contribute 10 g of oxygen per ton of malt, whereas the grist may have trapped within it some 600 g of oxygen per ton.<ref name=lewbam/>
Although the evidence is not entirely convincing that limiting oxygen uptake in the brewhouse manifestly benefits flavor stability, there are many brewers who strive to minimize air ingress at all stages in the brewery. It certainly makes sense to take sensible precautions (of the type listed in the box “Factor impacting on flavor stability”); however, to go to extremes such as operating the entire brewhouse under an inert atmosphere is surely overkill. It may even be detrimental—e.g., to haze stability. Intermediate between the two extremes (doing nothing to prevent air ingress or the oxygen-free brewhouse) are precautions such as mashing in with deaerated water or purging the milled grist with nitrogen. To get an idea of the relative worth of each of these, the water may contribute 10 g of oxygen per ton of malt, whereas the grist may have trapped within it some 600 g of oxygen per ton.<ref name=lewbam/>
Brewers are increasingly concerned to exclude air, or rather the oxygen in the air, from their beers and from the production stream.<ref name=bsp/>


Factors Impacting on Flavor Stability<ref name=lewbam/>
Factors Impacting on Flavor Stability<ref name=lewbam/>