Timing of oxygenating wort

[PCL]

Had a question for you all regarding timing of oxygenating wort. I’ve read that oxygenating hot wort can be a problem. But how hot is “hot”?

I only have the capability of cooling my wort to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit. All grain batch cooled with an immersion wort chiller. So typically I oxygenate with a aquarium air pump at that temp, then throw the wort sealed in my temp controlled ferment chamber (chest freezer) to cool to fermentation temp. Usually late that night or next morning wort temp is where I want it and I pitch.

I don’t aerate right before pitching because I don’t want the fermenter open more than I have to risking infection and don’t want to keep the sterilized aerating equipment around all night after I’ve cleaned up. Don’t want to bust out PBW again etc to clean separately afterwards. And finally if I’m on way to work in morning it’s easy to pitch yeast but I don’t have the time to aerate as well.

Am I harming the wort by aerating/oxygenating at that temp? And is the oxygen diffusing out of the wort in the hours that wait to pitch? Any other oxygenation issues I should think of?

TIA

-PCL

 

[LittleRiver]

...I only have the capability of cooling my wort to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit. All grain batch cooled with an immersion wort chiller....

I assume you can only cool to that temp because of the temp of your water supply?

I also use an immersion chiller. What I do is recirculate my cooling water with an inexpensive water transfer pump. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of tap water. That water gets quite hot, so I put a lid on the bucket and save it to use as my wash water for cleanup. Then I move the hoses to recirculate from a cooler which holds 20lb of ice, plus 5+ gal of water. The water in the cooler gets warm, I save it to use as my rinse water for cleanup.

It's no problem to chill wort to the mid 60's.

Heat transfer is dependant on surface area, so using cube ice works much better than larger blocks you freeze yourself. I get a 20lb bag of ice for $2 at a local discount grocery store. Worth every penny.

 

[GnenieGone]

Couple of things. If your beer's FG is calculated terminal gravity then your fine the way you are. I do +10%ers and need to oxygenate by going back and forth between 2 sanitized containers. NEVER EVER had an infection this way. Unless your spitting/farting in your bucket or doing it in open air with bugs flying around/in your cooled wort. Infection chances are very very low.

 

[mongoose33]

Here's the issue I'd have with doing it as you are.

Oxygen oxidizes all kinds of stuff, including grain flavors in wort. You can't get away from at least a little of that happening because, well, yeast need oxygen (unless you use dry yeast prepared so it doesn't require oxygenation).

The sooner the yeast get going on that oxygen, the better; less time for the oxygen to spoil flavors. By doing it the way you are, you're giving two things time to happen: oxidation, and the oxygen will off-gas if it's a higher concentration than the air.

Now, the second is unlikely--you're oxygenating with air, so you're not going to get a concentration higher than the atmosphere, so I wouldn't worry about that.

I'm also a big proponent of this: how does the beer taste when you do it this way? And, do you think it might improve if you reduced the time the wort was exposed to oxygen?

Some yeasts can be pitched fairly warm and then brought down to fermentation temperatures. Thus, you could get the wort down to maybe 80-85 degrees, and if the yeast is similar in temp, pitch it and oxygenate, then bring down to fermentation temperature. And if it's dry yeast....well, guess what? Safale yeast are not recommended to be used with oxygenation, so you could just pitch. If you do the rehydrate thing, typically that's done with fairly warm water, so you might gain an advantage there.

 

[PCL]

I assume you can only cool to that temp because of the temp of your water supply?

I also use an immersion chiller. What I do is recirculate my cooling water with an inexpensive water transfer pump. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of tap water. That water gets quite hot, so I put a lid on the bucket and save it to use as my wash water for cleanup. Then I move the hoses to recirculate from a cooler which holds 20lb of ice, plus 5+ gal of water. The water in the cooler gets warm, I save it to use as my rinse water for cleanup.

It's no problem to chill wort to the mid 60's.

Heat transfer is dependant on surface area, so using cube ice works much better than larger blocks you freeze yourself. I get a 20lb bag of ice for $2 at a local discount grocery store. Worth every penny.

I had thought about setting something like this up, and you just sold me. Greatly appreciate the link to the pump!

 

[Qhrumphf]

Another thing to keep in mind is that solubility of oxygen decreases as the temp increases.

In an ideal world (and how it's done professionally) oxygenation AND yeast pitching would both happen simultaneously and during transfer into the fermenter. This is tougher to do at home.

But as said, oxygenating while hot and letting it sit is going to both be detrimental to the beer and less effective for the yeast.

Either chill faster and do it all on brew day (pumping ice water through your immersion chiller as indicated above works VERY well), or if you have to/insist on chilling overnight quit making excuses and oxygenate right before/as you pitch.

 

[couchsending]

Either you need to aerate right when you pitch, ideally after pitching active yeast or just use dry yeast then there’s no reason to aerate/oxygenate.

 

[Soulshine2]

Had a question for you all regarding timing of oxygenating wort. I’ve read that oxygenating hot wort can be a problem. But how hot is “hot”?

I only have the capability of cooling my wort to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit. All grain batch cooled with an immersion wort chiller. So typically I oxygenate with a aquarium air pump at that temp, then throw the wort sealed in my temp controlled ferment chamber (chest freezer) to cool to fermentation temp. Usually late that night or next morning wort temp is where I want it and I pitch.

I don’t aerate right before pitching because I don’t want the fermenter open more than I have to risking infection and don’t want to keep the sterilized aerating equipment around all night after I’ve cleaned up. Don’t want to bust out PBW again etc to clean separately afterwards. And finally if I’m on way to work in morning it’s easy to pitch yeast but I don’t have the time to aerate as well.

Am I harming the wort by aerating/oxygenating at that temp? And is the oxygen diffusing out of the wort in the hours that wait to pitch? Any other oxygenation issues I should think of?

TIA

-PCL

IMO, if you use an aquarium aerator to aerate your sterile wort youre just compromising the sterilization process of boiling. unless youre filtering the air somehow ,all youre doing is forcing potential infection into your wort. Maybe Im wrong but I know theres brewers who do it without issues . I won't , just seems counter productive and an infection waiting to happen.

FWIW- Immediately post boil I also use an immersion chiller to about 80 down to 70*F depending on time of year(ground water temp) since I use the garden hose for the IC. The only aeration my wort gets is (1)a slow trickle via tubing from the boil kettle to the starsan treated carboy. By the time I've transferred it ,theres an inch or more of foam on top from the trickle transfer. I shove a bung in it ,strap it to a 2 wheel dolly and move it 40 ft to my basement , again by that it gets sloshed a little more for (2)more aeration, when the temp is right for the particular yeast, I pitch , dry .

 

[Vale71]

IMO, if you use an aquarium aerator to aerate your sterile wort youre just compromising the sterilization process of boiling.

That's why a 0.2 micron air filter is part of any standard wort aeration kit.

 

[PCL]

I get what you’re all saying about the infection risk of the aquarium-style aeration. After doing it a year (20+ batches) have never had an issue. And I use pbw and sanitizer on the stone and tubing. Pure oxygen would be better but can only pick up so many toys.

I know, excuses excuses lol

Appreciate the input all. And will be getting the pump to start ice water through chiller. That’s job one

 

[Qhrumphf]

Boil or bake your stone rather than sanitizer. Sanitizer may not fully penetrate all the pores, especially if any oils are clogging them (say if it's ever even once come in contact with your skin). Heat will penetrate all the way through.

And I never trust "I've never had an issue" when it comes to contaminations. Partly becuase I doubt the palates of others and ugly baby syndrome is rampant. And partly, even if if it's not perceptible doesn't mean it's not there. Unless you've done a full microbiological lab workup on every beer you've ever done (and who has, especially at home?), my acceptable phrase is "I've never *noticed* an infection".

 

[mongoose33]

Boil or bake your stone rather than sanitizer. Sanitizer may not fully penetrate all the pores, especially if any oils are clogging them (say if it's ever even once come in contact with your skin). Heat will penetrate all the way through.

And I never trust "I've never had an issue" when it comes to contaminations. Partly becuase I doubt the palates of others and ugly baby syndrome is rampant. And partly, even if if it's not perceptible doesn't mean it's not there. Unless you've done a full microbiological lab workup on every beer you've ever done (and who has, especially at home?), my acceptable phrase is "I've never *noticed* an infection".

I always boil about 500 ml of RO water and immerse the stone in that before I use it in the wort.

And I've never noticed an infection.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I always boil about 500 ml of RO water and immerse the stone in that before I use it in the wort.

And I've never noticed an infection.

Yep. Real easy and simple to do while you're chilling, whirlpooling, boiling, whatever.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I use the Williams 0.5u SS wand, soak it in my Star San bucket for a few minutes before use, then when done I bubble the last bit of O2 through it while rinsing under my hottest tap water, then towel dry and stick back in its storage spot. I cannot remember the last time I actually "cleaned" the thing.

I've never had an evident infection...

Cheers!

 

[PCL]

Boil or bake your stone rather than sanitizer. Sanitizer may not fully penetrate all the pores, especially if any oils are clogging them (say if it's ever even once come in contact with your skin). Heat will penetrate all the way through.

And I never trust "I've never had an issue" when it comes to contaminations. Partly becuase I doubt the palates of others and ugly baby syndrome is rampant. And partly, even if if it's not perceptible doesn't mean it's not there. Unless you've done a full microbiological lab workup on every beer you've ever done (and who has, especially at home?), my acceptable phrase is "I've never *noticed* an infection".

Good point. Boiling it is basically just as easy as sanitizing, why not take any risk out of the equation? I will add that step