Ok to vigorously shake fermenter after a week?

[GalenSevinne]

I am fermenting a barleywine with and OG of 1.090. Its been a week, I was thinking maybe I would shake the fermenter around to oxygenate the wort some just beacuse I could and maybe it would give teh yeast a kick. Is this advisable at this point? I was planning on leaving it in the fermenter for 3-4 weeks anyway.

Would it kick the yeasties a bit? cause no problems?

 

[scrambledegg81]

Wouldn't be much of a point 7 days into it, seeing as most of the oxygen inside has been converted to C02. AFAIK it's usually best to oxygenate just after adding the yeast & before you put the airlock on.

 

[RCCOLA]

Oxygen + beer= Cardboard. Don't shake it.

 

[rsmith179]

Do not add oxygen to your beer at this point, it will be bad! What's your gravity reading on the barleywine? Did you pitch the proper amount of yeast for this big beer? If not, your fermentation will go more slowly, but should still finish. Check your gravity and just wait. If it doesn't keep going down, you may want to try raising the temperature a bit and giving the beer a very GENTLE stir with a sanitized spoon to bring some of the yeast back into suspension.

 

[BillTheSlink]

In the old days in England they would "take the Barley Wine Out For a Walk", or roll the barrels around the lot while walking behind it. You have to remember though, those barrels were full (No head space). Hopefully you got enough Oxygen into the wort when you first pitched, and with a barley wine I don't think a simple shake would do it. An aquarium pump with air stone, or even better an Oxygen tank and air stone would have done it, but at this point you shouldn't put any Oxygen in the beer. At most, like someone else said, you would want to stir genteelly, but do not splash or whip, your beer.

 

[JesseRC]

I shake mine all the time just to move the yeast around and get some of the krausen off the walls, but dont do it to oxygenate. SHaking it is not going to oxidize it, if you have a carboy with an airlock, there wont hardly be any oxygen in there. I dont shake it madly, but I do swirl it around.

 

[Revvy]

THe recommendation form Chris White of Whitelabs is not ot add any more oxygen after the 12th hour of pitching yeast...after fermentation begins and you have beer in there, adding more oxygen is a bad idea...why do you feel you need to f- with it????

You're making a barleywine...that is thought of in terms of months if not years...not days or weeks. Just let it alojne and let the yeasts do thier jobs....it would be a shame after spending all the money that you more than likely did on such a large grain bill to end up with several gallons of wet cardboard because you doubted the yeast's ability to do their jobs...

 

[GalenSevinne]

After five days the gravity was 1.030 down from 1.090. I imagine it is still fermenting but I guess I was thinking a good shake of the fermenter would encourage more fermenting. The kit said the ABV should be 9.3% which means the gravity needs to be 1.20. I shook the bucket hard after pitching several times for the first hour so hopefully it was aerated sufficiently then.