Aeration

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jalgayer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2010
Messages
493
Reaction score
0
Location
Carbondale, PA
Hey All

To aerate the wort, I generally pout it back and forth between kettle and fermenter and shake the bajeezus out of the carboy.

It seems the other options are use pure oxygen or air stone aquarium type unit.

Has anyone tried multiple techniques and noticed differences?

It would seem like one would have to try several methods over many trials and take lots of notes to find a difference.

looking forward to a discussion on aeration from everyone.
 
the beer is only going to absorb so much O2 no matter what you do. pure oxygen gives you the most. as far as mixing techniques i don't see the point.
 
I use 02 through a stone as I do not get acceptable results from my lager yeast at 8 ppm dissolved o2. YMMV
 
I've used both an airstone with pure O2 and shaking and have had similar results from both methods for ales and lagers. Always with plenty of healthy yeast.
 
I made an aerator out of a 6 inch piece of racking cane. I drilled about 8 or 10 3/16" holes in the cane and put it in the end of my racking hose when siphoning from the brewpot to primary with the hose clipped to the side of the fermentor so the output is above the liquid line as it fills. I wind up with a nice foamy head and plenty of oxygen in my wort.
 
I also do the shaking the carboy method but am inclined to try pure O2. I sometimes have head retention problems with beers that I don't dry hop and I'm thinking that foam created during shaking is gone when comes time to have it available in the glass at serving time. I'm think that with O2 for 60 secs would give me the proper disolved PPM without too much foam. Not sure if it's true though...
 
I usually just beat air into it in the bucket before I put the lid/airlock on. It's worked fine for me so far.
 
I found shaking for more than half a minute to be a pain and worry about spilling the wort. I thought of a way that seems much easier last night. Only tested with water so far. Since I take my wort down a floor to the basement, I can use a bungie cord to strap my pail into a hand truck, put an airlock in the lid (sacrificial since it might splash out some?) and then all I have to do is tip the hand truck and roll it back and forth vigorously to slosh it around good. It seems physically easy to do for an extended period and I don't have to worry about dropping it. For a carboy I would probably use more than one strap and a solid bung with something else to make sure it didn't fall out (foil?).

I haven't done extensive testing with wort aeration yet, but I have generally been trying to get some air mixed in for some time since I heard about it.
 
I strain through a fine mesh chinois a couple times betwen BK and a graduated bucket. Gets rid of the hops, allows me to measure the wort, and aerates. In my world carboys are for filling and leaving alone.
 
I use a wine degasser to aerate my wort. It's a rod that attaches to a power drill and at the end of the rod there are fins that really mix the bejeeezus outa the wort. It's easy and seems to work just fine.
 
I've not tried it, but I read somewhere that putting the bucket on a football makes it easier to shake.
 
Pour wort into carboy and shake for two minutes. This was listed on wyeastlab.com as a viable option to increase oxygen in the wort prior to pitching yeast. They have a chart on there detailing what certain methods yield.
 
Back
Top