Aeration???

Starting wiyh an american amber ale kit from brewers best. The kit does not state any thing about oxygenating wort before adding yeast. Any suggestions??
thanks.

I recently started using a drill-mounted aerating wand, much like a paint stirrer. It works really well, is fast, and fairly inexpensive. Beats the crap out of pouring through a strainer and mixing, IMO. Just a thought. Do what works best for you.

recently got a small aquarium pump and airstone, run that in the wort for 15 minutes, longer for big beers, and it seems to really help. shorter lag times and faster FG's in the two batches i've used it on, one a RIS from 1.097-1.023 in 6 days at 64 degrees, can't complain about that.

Here's what I do.....run the chilled wort through a hose with an inline vacuum T. Pulls air right into the wort as it is transferred to the fermentor. As you can see by the bubbles in the fermenter it works pretty well.

chumpsteak said:

Here's what I do.....run the chilled wort through a hose with an inline vacuum T. Pulls air right into the wort as it is transferred to the fermentor. As you can see by the bubbles in the fermenter it works pretty well.

Click to expand...

nice!!

unionrdr said:

That's different. How do you keep it from squirting out the open side of the tee?

Click to expand...

inline vacuum, guessin' the 'T' only lets air in, nothing out.

unionrdr said:

Hmm,at any rate,it looks like it works about as well as my strainer routine. That's def one for the books!

Click to expand...

looks like it works really well. looks like he's diffusing air right into the wort, yet he's obviously not. i may have to try that when i get a bigger kettle, that 'T' can't be expensive at all and it looks like it works very well.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but the line into the T is slightly bigger than the line going out. Wort never goes out the top of the T unless you get it lower than the brew kettle. Creates a nice and loud vacuum when it's working right. Best part is I found the T in my toolbox and used hoses I already had. Free mods are the best mods.

A venturi gadget inline is a good cheap way to do it--cut off 4" of racking cane and punch some holes through it with a paperclip, attach it to your racking hose, and then run another foot of hose after it. Looks like chumpsteak's using the same principle with his vacuum T.

PHYSICS !!

Just goes to show that Science is always funner with beer.

chumpsteak said:

Free mods are the best mods.

Click to expand...

fer sher, man! i'm definitely gonna give your method a try when i upgrade my kettle.

elvestinkle said:

A venturi gadget inline is a good cheap way to do it--cut off 4" of racking cane and punch some holes through it with a paperclip, attach it to your racking hose, and then run another foot of hose after it. Looks like chumpsteak's using the same principle with his vacuum T.

PHYSICS !!

Click to expand...

Just make sure the Venturi section is narrower than the rest of the tubing. This will cause the liquid to speed up, which creates a negative pressure differential in the perforated tube. This will pull oxygen in, and keep wort from dripping out.

Yeast need oxygen or some other chemical to propagate as they use it to build the cell walls. If you use liquid yeast it doesn't contain enough cells to properly eat all the malt sugars so you need lots of oxygen. The dry yeast packets are supposed to contain enough cells that you don't need to propagate more for the average beer. It still is a good idea to get them some oxygen but they simply do not need as much and you can get by with dumping your wort into the fermenter from a height and stirring with a spoon. As you get more experience you may want to experiment with power stirring, aquarium aerator pumps, pure oxygen, and maybe even olive oil as it can provide the chemical needed to build the cell walls.

Thanks for all the advice Ill let you know how things go

When I top off an extract batch I hold the top off water above my head so it falls 4' to the fermenter. I also run my wart through a strainer. All the aeration I have needed. Usually have foam to the top of the bucket.

Never heard of the olive oil thing ... Interesting! ! I just use a tube from the pick up tube on my brew kettle into top of my fermenter, seems to get plenty of air, bubbles up quite a bit ... and it is cheap

From the stuff I've read, the olive oil contains the sterols the yeast need. It only takes a slight amount. For a 5 gallon batch, dip a toothpick into the olive oil, shake off all you can and then stir what is left into the wort. I plan on trying it sometime.

Let me know if it works out, guess you would have to be careful not to aerate for experimental purposes though.

I do the pour from bucket to bucket a couple times aeration method. Works pretty well.

This is from a Rye PA I made last weekend....it appears I got massive amounts of aeration from using just the vacuum T while draining into the carboy. That's not Starsan foam, that's coming straight out of the wort.



Been getting massive amounts of blowoff from all my fermentations since going to the inline T and am really happy with my current aeration levels.