Aeration

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TURBOANSARI

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Dear Sir or Maddam,
I have just begun fermentation of the highest gravity ale i have brewed so far in my career!:drunk: I want to ensure that all this sugar gets fermented. I have been reading up on aeration, but i want to know if anyone can explain to me until what part in the process i can add additional air before i oxidize the beer and create an off-flavor.

I violently dumped the wort into the fermenter and stirred to create foam. i capped the fermenter so air can no longer enter or escape. Can I pump in more air in when you see the airlock start to buble? if so, until what point should I stop adding air to the wort? it seems to me that there you can only get a finite amount of air into a 7 gallon bucket with 5 gallons of wort. will that oxygen run out before fermentation completes? if so can you pump more air in to try to get more fermentation and if so, when is it no longer appropriate?

My wife bought an exercise ball and it comes with this plastic pump. i sanitzed it and pumped more air into the fermeter before i saw fermentation begin because it took almost 24 hours for it to start. I am considering adding more when fermentation begins to slow to see if i can speed up the process.
 
The ONLY time to add air or oxygen to your "beer" is when you transfer it (wort) from the brew kettle to the fermenter. If possible, you want it cooled to 70 F or lower before you transfer and add air or oxygen.

That is the ONLY time you add air or oxygen to wort or beer.

(I know you're going to try it WAY before it's ready, but we all do.)
 
Brewer3401 said:
The ONLY time to add air or oxygen to your "beer" is when you transfer it (wort) from the brew kettle to the fermenter. If possible, you want it cooled to 70 F or lower before you transfer and add air or oxygen.

That is the ONLY time you add air or oxygen to wort or beer.

(I know you're going to try it WAY before it's ready, but we all do.)

I would tend to agree with this, except that right now I'm doing the opposite. Whitelabs recommends aerating everyday for five days to achieve maximum results with their wlp099 yeast strain. Of course this is a special circumstance, I just find it interesting that I'm doing this weird technique. I'm going to be almost as interested in how the beer handles the aeration as how it tastes and if the technique works. Day one was today, I'm more than a little nervous.
http://www.whitelabs.com/gravity.html
 
landhoney said:
I would tend to agree with this, except that right now I'm doing the opposite. Whitelabs recommends aerating everyday for five days to achieve maximum results with their wlp099 yeast strain. Of course this is a special circumstance, I just find it interesting that I'm doing this weird technique. I'm going to be almost as interested in how the beer handles the aeration as how it tastes and if the technique works. Day one was today, I'm more than a little nervous.
http://www.whitelabs.com/gravity.html


Red the Whitelabs site - didn't know about that with HG brews.

I've read companies that propogate yeast will introduce sterile oxygen as the yeast is growing. I think they use a 1.020 wort, because this yields good cell growth.

We're all nervous. What's that expression..........relax.............
 
Yeah, relax and do something I've not heard/read/seen anyone else do in real life! Something that every rational homebrewer does the complete opposite of! Sure, easy no problem. ;)
Seriously though, the beer is supposed to be sherry-like in the end so I don't think a little oxidation will hurt this brew too much. And b/c its experimental I only made 3gal so no big loss.
 
landhoney said:
Yeah, relax and do something I've not heard/read/seen anyone else do in real life! Something that every rational homebrewer does the complete opposite of! Sure, easy no problem. ;)
Seriously though, the beer is supposed to be sherry-like in the end so I don't think a little oxidation will hurt this brew too much. And b/c its experimental I only made 3gal so no big loss.

I think you're right following what White Labs says. They wouldn't steer you wrong.

Hope you can save a few bottles for 3-4 years.
 
Brewer3401 said:
The ONLY time to add air or oxygen to your "beer" is when you transfer it (wort) from the brew kettle to the fermenter. If possible, you want it cooled to 70 F or lower before you transfer and add air or oxygen.

That is the ONLY time you add air or oxygen to wort or beer.

(I know you're going to try it WAY before it's ready, but we all do.)

I am not saying that you are wrong because i follow the same guide lines for the majority of my brews, and here comes the But, I recently brewed with some friends and they did a JW Lees Harvest ale clone, somewhere around 15%. and they had aerated and added yeast for the first 5 days of fermentation, granted the OG was off the scale, somewhere around 1.210 or something like that, i just know that the hydrometer laughed at us when we put it in the sample.

I think that it is ok to aerate your wort for the first couple of days without a problem, so long as it is a stupidly high gravity brew. I am not saying that what they did is correct or standard by any means I am just merely stating an example. So far it hasn't seemed to adversely effect the beer in any way, I will let you know in two years when it is ready to drink how it came out.

Cheers
 
wop31 said:

WOW!

As far as aeration, I've never bothered to do anything more than pour my wort into the fermenter from 6 feet up (my height). But I've never brewed anything even close to that gravity before...
 
malkore said:
1.210?!! can you even stir it, or is it a solid mass? :)

Yeah it was fairly thick, a little thinner than pancake syrup. Like i said though it is a friends brew and I havn't asked him about it lately, maybe I will try to be over there the next time he pulls off a sample for a reading so I can see how it's coming along.
 
wop31 said:
I am not saying that you are wrong because i follow the same guide lines for the majority of my brews, and here comes the But, I recently brewed with some friends and they did a JW Lees Harvest ale clone, somewhere around 15%. and they had aerated and added yeast for the first 5 days of fermentation, granted the OG was off the scale, somewhere around 1.210 or something like that, i just know that the hydrometer laughed at us when we put it in the sample.
Cheers

I think 1.210 should give you way more than 15%. The brew I'm doing is going to be ~1.190 and should be closer to 19-20% if I get whitelabs reported 80% A.A. If you start with 1.210 and only get 15% alc you're only getting ~56% A.A. and a final gravity of ~1.092! According to my calculations.
 
landhoney said:
I think 1.210 should give you way more than 15%. The brew I'm doing is going to be ~1.190 and should be closer to 19-20% if I get whitelabs reported 80% A.A. If you start with 1.210 and only get 15% alc you're only getting ~56% A.A. and a final gravity of ~1.092! According to my calculations.

I did forget to mention that they WAY over shot their mark. They were aiming for around 180-190. First they started with about 35lb of grain and ran off 12 gal in to the boil kettle, then proceeded to boil it down to 4.5 gal. they were aiming for 5.5 but we all got caught up with other beers that were brewing at the same time. search my threads for one tittled 24 hour brewday, and you can see how we all were a little busy. I would post a link but I am a bit lazy and heading to bed.

Cheers

OK didn't want to be a complete a$$ here is the link:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=29954

BTW sorry for hijacking the tread, twas not my intention. the point was that the beer seems to be doing fine after being aerated and having more yeast pitched on it for the first five days.:mug:
 
Edcculus said:
I think you are getting some things mixed up. Yes you want to aerate your wort once its cooled. Once the yeast kicks in, you don't need to add any air or oxygen. The entire reason we have beer is because of yeast's anaerobic respiration aka fermentation. That is respiration in the absence of oxygen.

Sugar (glucose, fructose, or sucrose) → Alcohol (ethanol) + Carbon Dioxide + Energy (ATP)

We keep the alcohol, the carbon dioxide gets released and the yeast use the energy to keep reproducing.

Forgive me if you already know this. It just seems like you were under the impression that yeast need oxygen to survive.
anaerobic respiration, huh? before i started brewing, thats how i thought the production of alcohol worked. So why do we even need to aerate? i never quite understood this.

i havent added any more air into the fermenter, but i have been shaking the bucket with the airlock still in place. the fermentation has been going strong for about 40 hours now.

So after the bubbling stops or slows considerably, what would you recommend if i have not acheived my desired final gravity? Time or additional aeration? could any significant fermentation be taking place when the airlock is no longer bubbling?
 
TURBOANSARI said:
So after the bubbling stops or slows considerably, what would you recommend if i have not acheived my desired final gravity? Time or additional aeration? could any significant fermentation be taking place when the airlock is no longer bubbling?

Give it time, and yes just because you don't see bubbles does not mean it's not doing anything.
 
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