How Long Are You Aerating?

I'm using a wine degasser attached to a drill for a couple of minutes and was just wondering if i'm doing enough to aerate?

Whats your practice?

I show it a picture of chuck norris and it turnds directly into the greatest beer ever.

I do the same thing and it has been working fine for my low-med gravity brews. But I am planning to add pure O2 for my 1.065+ beers.

I use an aquarium aerator, for about 20-30 minutes while I clean up the kitchen and the brew pot. It does get very foamy on top.

i shake till i'm tired. usually about one minute... the yeast know the drill, get a good breath before i seal the carboy up...

violent shaking of the carboy for about a minute.

You know- it just occurred to me. When I did extract boils and used top off water, stirring/shaking seemed to be enough. I guess the difference for some of us is full boils and AG vs. partial boils. If you are using water to top off, there is alot of oxygen in there. That's why a lot of us who do full boils actually have aerators or oxygen systems.

YooperBrew said:

You know- it just occurred to me. When I did extract boils and used top off water, stirring/shaking seemed to be enough. I guess the difference for some of us is full boils and AG vs. partial boils. If you are using water to top off, there is alot of oxygen in there. That's why a lot of us who do full boils actually have aerators or oxygen systems.

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I guess I am an exception to that, I do full boils & shake ye old carboy...

I just let the wort fall 2-3 feet from the CFC into my fermenter. This results in very good aeration.

My system has worked very well for me, and is very easy on the back.

I take the cooled wort and transfer to my bottling bucket using a sanitized pitcher and pouring through a strainer. This helps both to aerate and also catch break and hop materials.

Then, when it is about half in the bottling bucket, I just pick the whole thing up and pour through the strainer.

Once in the bottling bucket, I put the bottling bucket on a table or counter, with the primary under the spout. I then put the strainer on the primary and open the spout.

This causes a ridiculous amount of aeration in my wort and since it is all gravity fed, it is very easy on me and allows me to clean while it is doing its thing.

My average beers typically start in <4 hours and reach final gravity in <4 days.

I dump my wort through a filtered funnel and then shake the carboy for five minutes after pitching. That's probably overkill, but it's also kinda fun.


TL

Right now I have a syphon sprayer attached to the end of the hose that goes from my plate chiller to my fermenter and it sprays all over in the fermentor. It works great but I am assembling the things for an oxygen injection system right now.

it's amazing how many different methods for aeration there are out there...


i'm do partial mash / extract, and I buy bottled spring water for my brews, so my aeration looks like this...

1. pour a little bit of each gallon of top-off water into the carboy, just enough to give me some headspace in each gallon

2. shake the heck out of each gallon, probably 2 minutes per

3. after adding cooled wort and top-off water, i shake the carboy for a couple of minutes.


this has always provided more than enough oxygen for my little brewers.

TexLaw said:

I dump my wort through a filtered funnel and then shake the carboy for five minutes after pitching. That's probably overkill, but it's also kinda fun.


TL

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I can see shaking some things for 5 minutes fun, but a full carboy is not on that list.

30-45 seconds with pure oxygen and a stainless airstone.

i have very strong fermentations.

I use the mix-stir paint stirrer. About 2 minutes and the foam is to the top of the bucket. I don't make anything bigger than 1.080 so this is good

I filter through a screen into my bottling bucket. Then I use a whisk to whip the beer into a yeast fueling frenzy. I then drain into the carboy.

2 Minutes of pure O2 with a .5 micron stone for me.

I shake that ***** like it owes me money until my arms are tired.

I had been using an aeration stone on a aquarium pump for 45 minutes. I was getting a TON of foam. I decided to try White Labs Bohemian Pilsner yeast (WLP802) on my Stella clone and noted the instructions with the yeast said to NOT use the stone. Just let it bubble for 25 minutes or so. I gave it a try. Still in primary so it is hard to tell how much of an effect it had yet.

Canned O2 with a .5 micron SS airstone for about 2 minutes. I have alway had good luck with that system.

Oxygen cylinder & an aeration stone for 90 seconds. Pure o2 is the fastest, easiest, most effective method. The cost to get into it is not really all that bad.

ok we got some of you going 30-45 minutes with the O2 and some going 30 seconds to 2 minutes, what gives? Also Is there such a thing as over aeration?

yes- You want 8ppm not 30. It can mess up the beer. I believe the 45min people are doing regular air wich is only 17% o2.

stever said:

ok we got some of you going 30-45 minutes with the O2 and some going 30 seconds to 2 minutes, what gives? Also Is there such a thing as over aeration?

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According to the yeast manufacturers, it is not really possible to over-oxygenate homebrewed beer, unless you are running continuous O2 through fermentation.

Everyone has their own preferred method and length of time for aerating/oxygenating -- but interestingly, most people go longer than necessary (which is certainly better than not oxygenating/aerating long enough, I suppose).

Here is a great article on oxygenation from the Wyeast website:
http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm

It recommends splashing/shaking for 40 seconds or aerating with an air pump for 5 mins to achieve 8 ppm O2 (the maximum that can be achieved by aeration). To get higher than that, you must use an oxygenation system. A 60 second blast with an O2 tank will give you 12 ppm, which is ideal for typical gravity worts. You can go longer to achieve higher O2 concentrations in the wort for higher gravity brews.

I rigged up a 6" spout straight down from my keggle and drilled a whole bunch of tiny holes in the spout. Kinda looks like water coming out of the kitchen faucet when it's pouring into the fermenter.

Oxygen wand. Gave up on aerators that keep failing. 30 seconds of oxygen and all good.

I make big beers and the yeast goes bananas with no aeration other than pouring from brew kettle spigot into my BMB fermenter with a drop of about 2-1/2 feet. Last two batches, I lost a good bit out the top. Furious fermentation for about three days then it settles down and bloops away for 3 more weeks. I don't dare add supplemental O2 before pitching, but I am thinking about a shot of oxygen after the first flurry of fermentation, just to invigorate the yeast a bit and ensure a nice low FG. I am thinking a minute or less, three days in, at about 2 PSI through a diffusion stone. Would this be helpful, or hurtful? Using HotHead and also Voss Kviek indoors at room temp.and OG between 1.090 and 1.105 lately. Nearly everything I have ever brewed has been at least 1.060 OG. Results have been quite satisfactory so far but any further improvement at modest cost would of course be a good thing.

GrowleyMonster said:

...but I am thinking about a shot of oxygen after the first flurry of fermentation, just to invigorate the yeast a bit and ensure a nice low FG. I am thinking a minute or less, three days in, at about 2 PSI through a diffusion stone. Would this be helpful, or hurtful?

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Conventional wisdom says to avoid oxygenation after pitching the yeast.

BrewZer said:

Conventional wisdom says to avoid oxygenation after pitching the yeast.

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Yeah, I know. And conventional wisdom is "usually" right, too. But I have to wonder if a LITTLE bit would help or hurt or none of the above.

I pitch then immediately dose with O2. No more oxygen or air from that point on. I think ^that rule^ is screwed on too tight

If facing a huge brew (like over 100 points) some presumably knowledgeable folks recommend a second dose of O2 at Pitch + 6 hours. I have never done same, but the premise is the yeast are still ramping up cell counts and as they typically exhaust the initial dose of O2 quite quickly a second round can inspire larger cell counts, quicker. I've never read of a similar recommendation beyond 12 hours post-pitch...

Cheers!