Shake it or not ?

I want to know if shaking the carboy during the fermentation helps fermentation or any nice influence on beer ?
thanks.

It is bad, it can and probably will introduce oxygen into your wort which will lead to off flavors. The ONLY time it is good to shake a carboy is before you pitch yeast to oxygenate the wort. After that you never want to shake it. You can gently swirl it, but that may or may not even help at all. The yeast should do their job regardless.


Cheers.

I thought I heard it was good to swirl it around once in a while during dry hopping.

Because there is a layer of co2 that has formed above the beer as a result of fermenting a gentle rock won't hurt it, but if you give it a shake, you can disrupt the co2 layer and get oxygen into it.

What happens if oxygen does get into it? I mean, why is that bad?

It oxidizes the beer and the result is cardboard-flavored beer.

Read this on the differences between aeration and oxidation.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-9-3.html

It's not, unless you want your beer tasting like a cereal box. If you introduce oxygen into your beer you get oxydation. Creates a cardboard off flavor.

damn... Ace beat me to it.

Just curious as to how you would oxygenate the beer? If the yeast and the airlock are doing their job - shouldn't the oxygen be forced out at the beginning of the fermentation? How does oxygen get re-introduced to the fermentation vessel?

Noob question - I know.

Why would you want to shake the carboy or fermentation vessel anyway?

BrewFrisco said:

Just curious as to how you would oxygenate the beer? If the yeast and the airlock are doing their job - shouldn't the oxygen be forced out at the beginning of the fermentation? How does oxygen get re-introduced to the fermentation vessel?

Noob question - I know.

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Yeah I don't understand how oxygen is going to get in either unless you have a leak. After a week of fermenting I'd guess the headspace in the bucket is 100% CO2.

That said there's no reason to shake the bucket unless something went wrong. If the yeast have stopped fermenting and your gravity is still WAY too high, shaking them back into suspension could help. But it's not something you need to do on every brew.

mixedbrewer said:

Why would you want to shake the carboy or fermentation vessel anyway?

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Bring settled yeast back into suspension. Can work for stuck or slow fermentation. It's worked for me in the past - I had a batch stuck at 1.024 for a few days. I gave it a shake, and the gravity started falling again.

While I certainly agree you don't want to oxygenate your beer - there shouldn't be much of any O2 left if everything is doing its job.

I would definately swirl with vigor before shaking. carboys can be heavy and when shaked, could cause injury. the CO2 barrier should have been formed in the first week or so and not let O2 in at all. should doesn't mean will.