Does Ascorbic Acid Reduce Beer Oxidation? | exBEERiment
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
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Oxidation is a universally despised off-flavor, and brewers have developed a number of methods for reducing the chances it occurs. One such method involves using ascorbic acid, a chemical antioxidant, which can be added during the mash and/or at the time of packaging. Brülosophy contributor Will Lovell has experimented with ascorbic acid to see the impact for himself. What do his results tell us? Let’s find out!
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For oxidation tests, soon after kegging isn't really what I'm worried about. I'm interested in weeks/months later. Another way to potentially expedite this is to use an air stone to bubble air through the beer for like 30 seconds at a time and leaving it maybe 24-48 hours in chunks to apply equal measured amounts of oxidation to both batches and see which survives.
I've done split batches, one with olive oil, ascorbic acid and sulphate at packaging, the other without, on a hazy. The difference was night and day: I left them out on the side over night and in the morning the untreated one was aroma less, bitter, and dark like dirty dish water/a painters rinse cup. The treated one was still fruity, smooth, and golden. It wasn't even close!
yes! all their tests seems to be done on very young beer. wait 6 weeks then taste. that's when i find oxidation really kicks in.
Agreed. Don't know why they didn't consider that. I think they need to redo this exbeeriment personally.
sulfate or sulfite?
@@losFondos Good catch! Sodium/Potassium Metabisulphite
Very interesting. I’ve been using ascorbic acid in my mash for at least 3 years now. While I didn’t brew oxidised beer before, I am convinced that ascorbic acid keeps the fresh hop flavour in my beer for longer, no mater what style I brew. 1 tsp in the mash every time with every style. 👍🏻
I'll usually add it both during the mash and when packaging.
You can buy it in bulk in various places, so it can't hurt to do both
I swear every time i try something new in beer the next week there is a brulosophy video about it
I currently have a NEIPA (more like a double NEIPA at this point) that i added ascorbic acid to, which tbh doubles as enhancing fruity characteristics
great video btw
I'v been adding 1g/liter of ascorbic acid directly to the keg before purging it. I found that this extends the shelf life of beer significantly.
Plus, reduced oxidation very clearly.
Strongly recommended.
Have you heard about using Philly Sour as an oxygen scrubber? I watched an online seminar by Lallemand where they pitched Philly Sour into a non-sour beer post fermentation at different rates. It is apparently outcompeted so easily that it doesnt sour the beer at that point but does a great job of preventing oxidation. I think they recomended 1 or 1.5g/L if i recall. Would make for an awesome exBEERiment.
Well played at @11:51, Martin :D
Another great video and equally great comments from the community. I also would like to see the same experiment done over long term, 6-8 weeks, maybe more. @JohnnyReverse shared that his beers stay significantly fresher for longer, that is HUGE for brewers that send beers to competitions. Also, I am a long-time fan of Will and Tolkien. I just realized that Will reminds me of Thorin Oakenshield. This channel has everything!
I add about 2 grams of ascorbic acid (6 gallon batch) to my brewing water to neutralize chlorine and find that it drops the pH of the water. What was the pH of the mash after adding 5 grams of ascorbic?
Could you test the effect of bottle fermentation on oxidisation?
Would also nice to see comparison after couple months of maturing in bottles
I bottle ferment, eg brew and bottle with sugar drops rather than using CO2, eg the cheapest method. I’ve done Hazy NEIPAs (apparently the most prone to oxidation) without issue. I even open the fermenter to dry hop.
Possibly the secondary bottle fermentation scrubs any oxygen left, notwithstanding fermentation requires oxygen. I do think that some people love to complicate things. Obviously all Hazys should be drunk young, but I recall one hazy was 3 months old and still no issues.
I don't keg my beer, but bottle it from a bottling bucket with sugar to carbonate. With my process every brewer has been telling me to stay away from even trying neipa's at all costs. My first try actually turned out really well, although it would probably have been way better if it would have been a closed process. I'm curious how much my beer would have benefited from using ascorbic acid. Maybe far more significant.
Interesting results! I have a feeling that adding the ascorbic acid in the mash lowers the pH, which helps keep the hoppy beer flavors pop and keeps the beer fresher longer.
The idea of metal chelators affecting beer oxidative stability was discussed in BeerSmith Podcast 305 - Mash Hopping and Beer Stability with Scott Janish. Pomegranate extract has been found in recent research to be very good at reducing iron content in the final beer thus improving its oxidative stability.
Ellagic acid is the key component here.
I don’t add ascorbic acid into the mash anymore because it causes the copper oxide on my immersion chiller to dissolve into the beer. In other words my chiller comes out of the wort shinier than it went in. This is obviously not good.
For me personally, I'll try to wash off the oxide with a quick Star-San bath prior to throwing it in the boil.
Have you noticed it getting brighter when you didn't add the acid? That's still been my experience.
@@markduret9538it does not get brighter when I don’t add the acid but I have also started cleaning with starsan recently
Use brew tan b
I've had the shiny copper happen without using ascorbic acid. I plan on getting a stainless chiller eventually.
I drop my mash pH with all ascorbic acid. And make adjustments with it. My water pH out of my tap is around 7.5pH and drop it to 5.2-5.4. And my IPA's taste great! I have been doing this for the last five batches.
My wife has a significant aversion to off-flavors in things like iced tea, vegetables like avocado and artichoke, that taste completely the same to me as ones she doesn't have the aversion to. There's just off-flavor compounds that I can't taste that she's sensitive to. Might be interesting to separate tasters for this type of sensitivity and see the results, I suspect this might be why some tasters noticed big differences while others detected none.
I'm curious as to how much of a pH drop was seen with the 5g addition? Wondering how much I should reduce my Acidulated malt in a mash if I'm to add the Ascorbic Acid. Cheers, another great exbeeriment!
Great exbeeriment, thanks. Slightly off topic… I see you pitched from the package with no starter. Was the yeast super fresh or is 1 package of Imperial yeast enough for a 5.5 gallon batch?
Just depends on freshness and OG. I think each package says what the OG is that is appropriate for one packet. This hybrid does have some kveik, so it probably handles an underpitch better than conspecifics.
There's a thing about mixing ascorbic acid and Potassium/sodium sulphate at packaging? At mash doesn't make sense to me because we generally oxidate the wort before we pitch the yeast to promote yeast health. But on hazy beers I've taken to using olive oil instead of shaking the fermenter/splashing as it's put in.
I have tried Vitamin C in mash for couple of different beers (Kolsch, Bitter, Micro IPA and Weizen), and they all were much worse with the additive. First three had additional polyphenol-haze and bitterness (including Kolsch, that got only like 50 grams of total hops for 30l batch), while weizen's banana notes were completely muted. Went back to "normal" brewing, and the beers taste exactly like they should again. Adding vitamin C at bottling seems to only cause the issues with weizen, although it does not add anything good to the other beers either. Also you''ll get sick fluctuations in your mashing pH (very fast drop after adding, back to almost baseline level after an hour - I'm talking like 5.00 to 5.40)
Antioxyn SBT from AEB is a good product that serve this purpose
Leo
I love love your videos but the sample size should be 30 or larger for statistically significant results. Thats kinda of a lot of subjects (and beer) so 20 is okay if that’s what you’re able to do but 30 would be significantly better.
Should i be as worried about oxidation for a lager or pilsner was planning on primary fermentation in an old glass carboy transfer to keg for lagering
I bottle and when I make my hazy I add ascorbic acid to my bottling sugar which gets boiled with a bit of water and added and mixed in just before bottling so I don't have to measure and add to each bottle.
I add ascorbic acid once i transfer to my keg, and have done so for 4 years now.
My beers stay significantly fresher for longer since I've been using ascorbic in the mash
Ascorbic Acid add some sourness to the beer and some people are sensitive to the taste of lower ph.
Genus brewing claim that its right before bottling that the ascob help
I do love these experiments, but when it comes to anti-oxidants, these would have really benefited from a bit of research ahead of time. Ascorbic acid works by slowing down oxidative reactions. It also prevents browning by interfering with polyphenol oxidase. Both of these facts are easily google-able. As such, in order to measure the impact of an anti-oxidant addition, you need to do one of the following: (1) speed-age the beer by storing it above 110°F for a couple weeks, (2) dose the finished beer with a large (and measured) amount of extra oxygen at packaging, or (3) wait 6-9 months. It's only in these extreme conditions that anti-oxidants have a chance of making a significant difference. This is also the reason they're mostly used by large macro brewers, in order to preserve flavor for beers that may be sitting on a dusty shelf for who knows how long.
Ditch the ascorbic acid and use techniques that really work to stop oxidation - de-aerate your strike water, use metabisulfites, properly liquid or fermentation gas purge your kegs and spund for carbonation. These actions are simple but have been shunned by the homebrew community for a long time. It is a change in mindset. Just do it and your beer will be much better.
I'm sorry but 150 gram dry hop in a 5.5 gallon hazy batch is not massive. 300-350 grams - now we're talking.
150 grams of Lupomax is more or less equivalent to 300 grams of t90 hops, according to the vender.
Ass-sor-bik acid. There is no “k” sound.
Might want to Google that… I used to think the same, but I was wrong.
I see @mustyditch4703 has asked about pH below, and I was also interested to know: How can you be sure that oxidation was the variable you were testing? Is it not possible (or perhaps even likely) that the significant result of adding at the mash, and the strong preference for treating it could be related to the attendant drop in pH? I perceive quite different character (and tune for it) in my beers based on my mash pH, so it would be good to neutralise that variable by adjusting the non-dosed beer with lactic or some other type of acid. Fascinating stuff though, thanks for the continued work and insights!
There are not enough additives that we eat from our crap food so let's add some more in our home-made stuff. Brilliant!
Dude, it's vitamin C.
Vitamin C bro
Ascorbic acid is found is fruits, so relax. 😊
It's literally vitamin C. You know what is unhealthy and we put in all our homebrew? ALCOHOL. Stop being so afraid of chemicals and read up on stuff before blurting it out.
I heard some breweries even add dihydrogen monoxide into their brew, disgusting!