OK to drain mash tun into kettle without tubing?

My mash tun sits about a foot and a half above my brew kettle while draining into the kettle and I have not used tubing - it just falls from the spout. Am I at any risk of oxidizing my beer at this stage?

 

the boil will drive out just about all of the oxygen in your wort. that's why you have to aerate after the boil. The only time you should really be worrying about oxidation is after fermentation is complete.

 

Hot Side Areation is a debated topic and if you can avoid it I would.

There is no reason to add oxygen to your beer at any time (except just prior to yeast pitch) if you can avoid it.

Bull

 

I have always done it and the beer turns out great

 

Hot side aeration is quite a bit more complicated than that. I personally do everything I can to avoid it, and recommend the same.

Before pitching the yeast, it's important to minimize aeration at any point where the temperature is higher than 80°F. After pitching the yeast it should be avoided at pretty much any temperature, with a few small exceptions, such as with a REALLY high gravity brew like a barleywine, where the yeast often needs some extra help, and they can be expected to use up all of the 2nd dose of oxygen rather quickly, but even then, it needs to be done intelligently and with good timing, unless wet cardboard is a taste you're actually shooting for.

Tubing is so cheap that it seems really difficult to justify not using some, especially when you consider how much we spend on this hobby for other stuff. A few feet of it is not nearly expensive enough to be worth compromising over.

 

You might leave some wort behind since you won't have much of a siphon.

 

If you're making great beer now, i wouldn't sweat it. I don't think oxidation prior to the boil is a concern as much as oxidation after, which more of us around here have experience with. I do remember a few podcasts which discussed experimentation (Brewing Network and Basic Brewing) with HSA. The main conclusions that i took away and retain to this day are:

1) BBR experimentation with practical, realistic abuse of hot wort did not turn up any off flavors, and

2) more elaborate experimentation (Palmer? Brewing Network?) showed that HSA could be caused by the aeration of hot liquor (strike, sparge & mashout water) before any wort is involved in the first place.

I haven't heard of many people who put forth a concerted effort to minimize aeration of their hot liquor, so coupled with the first point, i don't think, on our homebrew level, there's really any practical concern for HSA.

 

This is the only issue I'd realistically worry about. Once the level gets below the bard on the outside of the valve, it will will stop, regardless of any dip tube or anything. The hose hanging lower than the cooler bottom creates you siphon that lets you pull wort until it hits the level of your lowest filtering location.

Even then it's not a worry if you're willing to accept that as your dead space and figure that voume into your setup to allow you to still collect as much as you need.

Fill completed mash tun up with water, then drain how you're planning too. Then measure the water that's left after it stops trickling out. That's how much wort you need to plan on leaving behind when figuring you volumes.

 

I think the lack of siphon would be a bigger factor with not using the tubing...frankly I don't think oxidation is that much of an issue. I collect the first runnings out of my MT into my bottling bucket as I'm using my keggle to heat the sparge water. After adding the sparge water to the MT, I dump the first runnings into the keggle....a nice splashy pour to boot! Never had an oxidation problem. Even the second runnings get dropped into the bottling bucket for another splashy transfer to the keggle.

 

whether or not you choose to worry about hot side aeration, I recommend the use of a tube because it is much less messy, and less sticky wort on the floor to clean up later is always a good thing.

 

The HSA issue is not anything I'd worry about. The siphon thing though depending on your setup may be something to think about. A little tubing from Lowes or Home Depot is pretty cheap.