How [often] do you aerate your beer?? Ever aerated after racking to secondary??

I've seen it mentioned that after pitching yeast, one should aerate the carboy for a full minute. And you can potentially do this within the first 24 hours.

My question pertains more to the later stages of the fermenting process.

Does anyone aerate after racking to secondary?

Personally, I "aerate" the priming solution while in the bottling bucket... and that's the only way I can get consistent carbonation. I have even attempted turning 4 bottles from my last batch upside down a couple times to see how far an "even solution" goes toward the final result.

Soo.... I'm still wondering.... Does anybody aerate after racking to secondary??

By aerate, I really just mean -- "swirl, mix, etc". Not necessarily "splash".

 

You definitely do not want to introduce unneeded oxygen to your beer once fermentation has begun.
So to answer your question, no. I try to keep my beer as still as possible.
When I am adding a priming solution I very gently stir the beer for a bit but try not to splash at all.

I don't think I would consider aeration to be the same thing as swirl or mix.
To me, to aerate is to bring oxygen into something which in this case I would avoid.

 

Aerate before you pitch and that's it!!!! Do not aerate once fermentation has started, do not aerate secondary and no not aerating at bottling. That is the worst thing you can do. You WILL oxidize your beer. Don't know what you mean by consistent carbing. You put the sugar in, get it at a fairly warm temp and wait...

 

In most cases I would agree with not aerating except at pitching, but if you're making a high gravity beer ( 8% or more) I will aerate again about 12 hours after I pitch.
This will help the daughter cells and the oxygen will be quickly consumed.
Bull

 

I think people are misunderstanding your use of the term aerate. Swirling in priming solution is not aeration.

Try siphoning at a sideways angle to get a whirlpool going in the bottling bucket, this will help even out carbonation.

 

True.

I've also read that some breweries actually roll barrels (?? carboys?) of lager around in order to rouse the yeast.

Perhaps aerate may not be the proper term.

But even still.. I've seen that people "swirl" priming solution, as I do, with great success.

I'm wondering if anyone "swirls" after racking from primary to secondary.

Doesn't work for us for some reason. I've always told my buddy that if we get serious, I'm calling our brewery something like "Even Solutions", because that's the only bit of spice I've added to my buddy's prior attempts, and they're far more consistent, IMHO.

 

AKA:::

Does anybody WHIRLPOOL in primary and/or secondary???

Maybe that's what I should really be asking?

 

The term aerate specifically means adding oxygen to the solution. Like others have said, you want to avoid that after fermentation has started. With high gravity fermentation it's been recommended to add more oxygen within 12 hours of yeast pitch.

Doing everything else, like integrate priming sugar, or racking, you want to do it so carefully as to AVOID getting more air in there.