Bending Bucket during Boil

on my second batch i boiled at home on an electric stove with a 40qt pot. To maintain the correct 160ish temps I had to take the pot off the burner once or twice to keep from getting towards 170. When replacing the pot. The bottom would buckle and it would cause turbulence/splashing in the beer (i guess still wort or beer tea at this point?) Is this going to spoil my peer through oxidation and is there something that I can do to keep this from happening?

Thanks, Mythic

mythicALE said:

Is this going to spoil my peer through oxidation?

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Absolutely not .... don't worry about it....you WANT a lot of oxygen in it when you initially pitch yeast....it's when fermentation is slowing/ending that you want to minimize oxygen for fear of oxidation, although I think it's more fear than practical reality....have brewed hundreds of gallons of beer in the past, took steps to minimize oxidation (avoid excessive splashing when transferring to secondary or bottling) but wasn't anal about it (never ever used CO2 to blanket beer in carboy/flood empty carboy), never had a single bottle of oxidized beer....relax, you want to aerate the hell out of it in the beginning

^^^ I don't think he read/understood the post.

What you're asking about is called hot-side aeration. It's a risk, but it's a very tiny one. It's going to be very difficult to accidentally introduce enough oxygen into hot wort to cause oxidation off-flavors. I would not worry about it at all.

I've mashed in a kettle on an electric stove before, and I find that if I keep the burner on around 2 or so it holds the temp fairly well. You shouldn't have to turn the element all the way on and then turn it off because, as you have found, it can make it tough to maintain a temperature.

What temps are you mashing at?

I think HSA is especially no big deal pre boil.. you are going to boil all of the oxygen out of solution still.. I think the main concern is oxygenating post boil above 80 degrees.. although even then I think its a very small concern

The theory of HSA (I think) is that oxygen in solution with hot wort reacts faster and causes oxidative flavors more immediately. It's a really teeny tiny concern, just don't pour it back and forth at near-boiling (why would you?). Oxidation risks are overstated across the board, unless you are aging.

I am steeping my grains (mashing?) at around 150 to 160. Then brining to a boil to add my hops and sugars.

Also while adding my Liquid Sugar (LME?) i take it off the burner to avoid burning the sugar on the bottom of the pot. So going back on to bring it back up to a boil I also get this effect.

So to summarize here. It shouldn't be a problem but I can still try to minimize oxygen exposure specifically post boil (Flame out?)

Thanks, Mythic



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Yes, that's the gist of it, reasonable steps to minimize, but nothing crazy. Stirring or something is not a problem, just avoid directly pouring or sloshing the wort from one container to another when hot (or just letting it fly out the valve without a tube, or something).

If you are having problems with your steeping use the oven technique - works perfectly.

As you warm your steeping water turn the oven on as low as it goes. Once you add your grains to steep. Turn your oven off (170 degrees?) and put the pot in the oven, close the door and watched TV for 45-60 minutes.

The pot will stay a perfect temp throughout the steep. The oven will cool and the wort for the 1st 10 minutes (the most important minutes) will be perfect.

Remember - DO NOT squeeze the grain bag to get the last drops. Be gentile. You don't want a lot of tannins to squeeze out.

I can say from BIAB experience that bag squeezing is happy and good, despite contrary rumors. What you squeeze out won't be different in composition from what seeps out by itself, just more concentrated.

You can taste what's coming out of it and identify tannins when they're present ("over-brewed black tea" flavor). If you're really worried about tannins, adjust steeping pH (with grains already steeping, not your water pH) to the low fives, same as a mash. I imagine you don't usually need to do much pH adjustment with grain steeping because you're working with darker grains than a normal mash, and you aren't sparging, so the opportunities to extract tannins are minimal.

(Not to get off on a rant.)

Grinder12000 said:

Remember - DO NOT squeeze the grain bag to get the last drops. Be gentile. You don't want a lot of tannins to squeeze out.

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Squeeze away. This has been shown not to be true by many members on these forums.

LovesIPA said:

Squeeze away. This has been shown not to be true by many members on these forums.

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Every brewing book is wrong then???


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Most brewing books are hypercautious and filled with information from the 90s and before, yes. Try it yourself.

Most of them also say secondary is mandatory, even though they advise absurd precautions against oxidation in every other respect.