New Lesson Learned

**Wus67** · 09-01-2011, 04:30 AM

Tonight around 12:30am I found out something very important while pitching yeast. I decided to try out a 5 gallon bucket mixer to aireate(?) my wort. Awesome idea, it gets a ton of little bubbles into the wort, except for one minor issue.... If you have a variable speed drill, make sure it's on the low speed setting. I didn't and ended up with wort all over the damn place. Thankfully my 11 month old isn't sleeping at night, and I had to take the bucket out on my driveway, a little risky? Hell yeah, but waking a sleeping child is worse than losing some wort to wild yeast. So, moral of the story... look at your drill before pulling the trigger, oh yeah, and don't hit the sides of the bucket, it'll scratch it all to hell.

mattd2 · 09-01-2011, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wus67

...Thankfully my 11 month old isn't sleeping at night, and I had to take the bucket out on my driveway, a little risky?...

That part just confused the hell out of me

Oh, I reread it (about 6 times) and get it now, you were out on the driveway because you didn't want to wake them, so not a huge clean up

**scrambledegg81** · 09-01-2011, 05:51 AM

Oof...I'd replace that bucket ASAP. Scratches in a plastic bucket are prime real estate for bacteria to move in to.

Boodlemania · 09-01-2011, 01:23 PM

Corollary to that lesson: a paint mixer on a drill is fantastic for dough-in. Low-speed and kept away from the manifold and sides of the MLT, of course.

jrg42 · 09-01-2011, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boodlemania

Corollary to that lesson: a paint mixer on a drill is fantastic for dough-in. Low-speed and kept away from the manifold and sides of the MLT, of course.

Interesting. may have to try that, but does it reduce the temp pretty quickly?

Use the paint mixer/drill inside a 6.5 gal carboy. You can use the high speed setting and get an awesome vortex going with no wort coming out.

**Wus67** · 09-01-2011, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrambledegg81

Oof...I'd replace that bucket ASAP. Scratches in a plastic bucket are prime real estate for bacteria to move in to.

I got lucky and missed hitting the sides, I had just thought of that when I was almost done mixing it up, realizing it would've really dinged up the inside of the bucket. No worries

**makomachine** · 09-01-2011, 05:05 PM

Disposable oxygen bottles, regulator, and aeration wand (Williams Brewing) was a great next step for me. I used a drill bit wine degasser (sp?) to aerate previously and this doesnt damage my fermentors, has minimal contact time with the wort, and gets me the desired results in a minute. Highly recommend it as an alternative. I always worried as I was mixing like crazy on the content of the air going into that blend...