Top Tip for Aerating

**Orfy** · 12-29-2006, 10:19 AM

I know.....O2

But for those that don't have it then I thought a few tips in one place may be good.

Shaking the crapolla out of a glass carboy is not good.
I try to get as much air in along with the wort by what ever method.

Then take a tennis ball, place it on the counter, put the carboy on top and you can shake it for as long as you need without having to risk dropping the thing or holding the weight of the carboy and 5 gallon of wort.

Any other tips?

wild · 12-29-2006, 11:36 AM

If you have a carboy, why can't you aerate in your boil pot before racking/straining your wort into it? Then all you'd need is a whisk. Or put a diffusser on the end of your siphon hose.

Wild

homebrewer_99 · 12-29-2006, 12:30 PM

Also, there's an attachment they sell to connect to your drill that will stir the wort...I don't have one, but I've seen them.

dougjones31 · 01-04-2007, 03:03 PM

I have been brewing for 12 years.

I use carbon filtered water for my boil and I also put a few gallons in the freezer until they start to freeze. I use this water to cool the wort and bring it up to 5.5 gallons.

I always just put the wort into the carboy, and stretch a balloon over the mouth and lay it on its side on the carpet floor. Then I just roll it away from me and then back toward me in short quick motions. I get a good foam doing this. I let it sit for a min then I remove the balloon and add the yeast(this lets more air into the carboy) and then replace the balloon and repeat the roll.

I have never had any problems at all with stuck or slow ferments. I always pitch 1 quart starters.

Evan! · 01-04-2007, 03:24 PM

I'll say it before and I'll say it again: the cheap, easy and effective solution here is the $32 aeration kit that AHS sells. It's much easier than all these various shaking/rolling methods, and much more effective at getting oxygen infused into the wort. Plus it has a HEPA filter built in.

I sound like a goddamned AHS commercial, but I'm just a huge fan of this product. It's the most hassle-free method short of having to actually buy O2 tanks all the time, and since I started using it, my attenuation has increased, on average, by about 10%. Sometimes, I even surpass the listed attenuation...

zoebisch01 · 01-04-2007, 03:34 PM

The method I use, is I have an aluminum strainer that sits nicely on my bucket. It is not a mesh strainer, but the kind of thing you use to strain tomatoes for sauce (usually comes with a conical dowel). I just take my kettle, rest it on my hip and pour down into the strainer. The wort comes spraying out of the hundreds of little holes in streams. It leaves a big frothy wort and helps filter the hops and break. I have had great success, I even pitched a vial of WLP550 straight into a 1.07 wort with zero problems (FG was 1.009). This is the method I will always use, if it aint broke don't fix it

Like this w/out the legs

**Bobby_M** · 01-04-2007, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dougjones31

I have been brewing for 12 years.

I use carbon filtered water for my boil and I also put a few gallons in the freezer until they start to freeze. I use this water to cool the wort and bring it up to 5.5 gallons.

I always just put the wort into the carboy, and stretch a balloon over the mouth and lay it on its side on the carpet floor. Then I just roll it away from me and then back toward me in short quick motions. I get a good foam doing this. I let it sit for a min then I remove the balloon and add the yeast(this lets more air into the carboy) and then replace the balloon and repeat the roll.

I have never had any problems at all with stuck or slow ferments. I always pitch 1 quart starters.

Hey doug,
I like the fact that you mention how long you've been brewing because it does add a level of credibility, but you know as hobbiests that we should always be open to alternate techniques to improve things. Never having a stuck or slow ferment is all relative. If you're happy with how things progress, that's great. In my short brewing lifespan of only 9 months, I've tried your method and then tried pure O2 and didn't take 12 years to see the difference.

In your case, you're using a starter which somewhat negates the need for a perfect yeast propagation environment. You also are not doing full boils so your top up water is already bringing O2 back into the batch.

I'm actually thinking about trying an experiment to remove any bias. The only problem is, I don't have two similar small 1gal fermenters. Once I get some, I'm going to boil up 2 gallons of 1.050 wort and split it. I'll pitch equal amounts of dry yeast then shake the heck out of one and inject pure O2 in the other. Then I'll do a time lapse video of both and test the gravity at certain intervals. Hopefully the results will put this debate to rest at least temporarily.

What do you guys think?

zoebisch01 · 01-04-2007, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby_M

What do you guys think?

Sounds easy enough, but use the same pack for both. (Well that small I guess it is a no-brainer)

**the_bird** · 01-04-2007, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evan!

I sound like a goddamned AHS commercial, but I'm just a huge fan of this product. It's the most hassle-free method short of having to actually buy O2 tanks all the time, and since I started using it, my attenuation has increased, on average, by about 10%. Sometimes, I even surpass the listed attenuation...

The O2 tanks are supposed to last like twenty batches, though, which I guess for you would last you a good two or three months....

How long do you use the pump for? Personally, I'd rather be buying tanks once or twice a year and only having to aerate for a couple minutes. I want to get the yeast pitched and the fermenter sealed up ASAP.

dougjones31 · 01-04-2007, 04:10 PM

I guess you are right. I may be an old timer stuck in my ways, but my recipies are fine tuned to my technique and I really do not want to screw with attenuation and cause me to have to tweak my recipies because my brew turns out too dry.

The only thing good that could result from me switching to bottled O2 or pumps is that the attenuation will increase. I get fermentation usually in a few hours and it usually lasts 2-3 days, so I cannot improve on that.

I guess I could increase attenuation and lower the calorie content of my beer, if I was concerned about that type of stuff.

Taste is everything....I have that perfected and I think I will stick with what I have spent 5-6 years trying to perfect. If I was starting out now....I might go with O2 ariation and build my system around it, but back when I started that was unheard of. But I do not have the energy to start all over from scratch.