help me understand aeration

so I get that aerating the wort gets the yeasties off to a good start allowing them to multiply quickly.

The way I aerate is to shake the primary bucket vigorously before adding the yeast. What I don't understand is that there is only a little headroom between the beer and the lid (a bit over 1 gallon of space) Is there enough O2 there? Should I take the lid off every now and then to let new air get into that space before shaking again?

Yes. Even the air that starts out in the headspace is only 21% oxygen. If you by chance got all of it to dissolve in the wort, it's not nearly enough.

I use a similar method but I get a tennis ball, place the bucket on the tennis ball and move the bucket around. Using this method, I have never had a problem aerating my wort.

Has your beer been fermenting properly? If so, I wouldn't worry and stick to what has been working for you.

I think it's fermenting fine, although the two batches I've made took a day or two to get going. (using liquid smackpacks smashed about 4 hours before pitching) Both batches tasted great.

So what I'm hearing is that it's probably not ideal even with exchanging the air a couple of times, but it's enough to get the job done. I would have to balance that with taking the lid off and risking some contamination while the air is exchanging I suppose.

I'll grab a tennis ball for my next session.

I haven't gotten enough batches under my belt to really test my theory, but I sit my brwe kettle (post chilling) on top of the table, and put the fermentation bucket down on the ground and open the ball valve. The distance it falls is probably 3.5 ft, and when it hits the bottom there is plenty of bubbly action and it seems to aerate just fine. I haven't done any other steps to add oxygen and it seems to be ok.

I need to go back and check my yeast attenuation vs my OG and FG to see how well it went.

I'm a fan of the splash method. I do a high pour of my original boil (3gal) over the additional 2 gal already in the primary. My pour must be pretty high since my wife was practically screaming at me when I did it. LOTS of bubbles and swishing going on. But I always do a vigorous stir/slosh for good measure. It's just so much fun.

splashing makes sense. I suppose I also get some aeration when I sparge my specialty grains using a strainer into the fermenter.

I just stir vigorously after I have cooled my wort but before I pour it into the fermentor. Seems to work just fine for me. Even when pitching a vile of while labs yeast with no starter, I didn't have any problems.

or you can just use the HBT "cheap & easy aeration gadget" basically you can introduce a bunch of oxygen during your transfer from the boil kettle to the fermenter just by using a short section of tubing with some small holes drilled in it to help oxygenate the wort.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/cheap-easy-aeration-gadget-68218/

XXguy said:

or you can just use the HBT "cheap & easy aeration gadget" basically you can introduce a bunch of oxygen during your transfer from the boil kettle to the fermenter just by using a short section of tubing with some small holes drilled in it to help oxygenate the wort.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/cheap-easy-aeration-gadget-68218/

Click to expand...

wow, just read the whole thread. That sounds like a great setup. (and the price is right which makes my Dutch bits tingle)

Thanks for posting the link.