Turkeyfoot Jr.
Well-Known Member
Let me start by saying that Im semi-new to homebrewing. Ive been brewing for almost a year now and I have around a dozen batches under my belt. One of the things I dont think Ive been doing well enough is aerating my wort. My normal process is to add the wort and chilled water to bring to 5 gallons in my carboy and then agitate.
The first issue I always run into is that the carboy inevitably foams out the top before I even get all the wort poured into it. I pour it through a strainer which I think is providing a lot of aeration itself. Once I get it all in there I cap it and agitate which generates more pressure and more foam and usually I have to let it sit and settle down for a bit before I have room to pitch my yeast.
I know that everyones first suggestion will be to purchase an aeration system but Im brewing on a tight budget and elbow grease is dirt cheap so Im sticking with manual agitation of some sort for the foreseeable future. I have other investments I want to make in homebrew equipment that I consider more important.
As I was pondering my options I was flipping through the latest issue of BYO and in an article about something completely unrelated the author made reference to transferring the hot wort into a plastic fermentation bucket along with water to make 5 gallons, agitating there and then siphoning into the carboy. This way theres less mess, getting liquid that needs strained into a bucket is far easier than getting it into a carboy, you can really agitate and you get a lot of contact with the air since the bucket is so open and you can stir the wort.
What do you guys think of this method? I know that aerating with regular air increases the risk of infection but in 12 batches that have all been air-aerated Ive not had an issue, knocks-on-wood. I was planning on using my bottling bucket as the aeration bucket that way I can just hook a line to the bottling spigot and run the wort into my carboy. Would doing so reduce the amount of oxygen I just added to the wort? Would it be better to still use a funnel with no strainer and just pour the wort into the carboy?
The first issue I always run into is that the carboy inevitably foams out the top before I even get all the wort poured into it. I pour it through a strainer which I think is providing a lot of aeration itself. Once I get it all in there I cap it and agitate which generates more pressure and more foam and usually I have to let it sit and settle down for a bit before I have room to pitch my yeast.
I know that everyones first suggestion will be to purchase an aeration system but Im brewing on a tight budget and elbow grease is dirt cheap so Im sticking with manual agitation of some sort for the foreseeable future. I have other investments I want to make in homebrew equipment that I consider more important.
As I was pondering my options I was flipping through the latest issue of BYO and in an article about something completely unrelated the author made reference to transferring the hot wort into a plastic fermentation bucket along with water to make 5 gallons, agitating there and then siphoning into the carboy. This way theres less mess, getting liquid that needs strained into a bucket is far easier than getting it into a carboy, you can really agitate and you get a lot of contact with the air since the bucket is so open and you can stir the wort.
What do you guys think of this method? I know that aerating with regular air increases the risk of infection but in 12 batches that have all been air-aerated Ive not had an issue, knocks-on-wood. I was planning on using my bottling bucket as the aeration bucket that way I can just hook a line to the bottling spigot and run the wort into my carboy. Would doing so reduce the amount of oxygen I just added to the wort? Would it be better to still use a funnel with no strainer and just pour the wort into the carboy?