Aeration of beer

[AfricanBrewer777]

Hi everybody. attempted my first brewing the other night. It s an octoberfest extract kit. To cut a long story short, while attaching the air lock to the top of my fermenting bucket, the rubber seal came off and fell in my brew all the way to the bottom. I had to transfer my brew back to the pot, recover the seal and then transfer it back. lm afraid moving the brew around like that aerated it. Do you think that was significant enough to ruin it? Sorry, I'm a rookie at this. Trying to learn. Thanks

 

[mkyl428]

It's likely fine... Relax

 

[mcbaumannerb]

Oxygen at the start of fermentation is actually a good thing so no worries. In the future, if you have a spare seal, just use it to attach the airlock and let the other one sit in the beer. That is most likely completely inert and won't affect anything, but the transfer back and forth does introduce risk of infecting the beer if something isn't properly sanitized.

 

[RmikeVT]

Hi everybody. attempted my first brewing the other night. It s an octoberfest extract kit. To cut a long story short, while attaching the air lock to the top of my fermenting bucket, the rubber seal came off and fell in my brew all the way to the bottom. I had to transfer my brew back to the pot, recover the seal and then transfer it back. lm afraid moving the brew around like that aerated it. Do you think that was significant enough to ruin it? Sorry, I'm a rookie at this. Trying to learn. Thanks

Aeration before fermentation starts is a good thing. The yeast need oxygen to multiply. Some people pour wort back and forth a few times to get it good and aerated before fermentation. As long as the two containers you were pouring back and forth between were sanitary you did a good thing for your beer. Aeration/Oxygenation only become a problem after fermentation.

Sounds like you are all good unless a bird pooped in your brew kettle and you dumped your wort on top of it.

Also, I wouldn't recommend it, but I've gone elbow deep in wort several times to fish out a grommet rubber seal or a stir bar and my beer turned out fine every time. I did sanitize my arm before hand.

 

[BryceL]

You NEED to aerate the wort in order for the yeast to have a healthy fermentation. At a minimum the carboy/bucket can be shaken to provide oxygen, or a diffusion stone and oxygen tank can be used.

After fermentation has started is when you want to avoid excess aeration, this will cause the beer to become oxidized. You should be fine since your were transferring pre-fermentation....as long as all your transferring equipment was sanitized

 

[thekraken]

^ what he said.

You want to aerate your beer! You did aerate right? From what I understand, your free to aerate all you want before the fermentation starts. Though, I guess, the longer it's exposed to outside air the greater the chance of infection becomes.

 

[AfricanBrewer777]

Thanks for the info everybody. I did shake up my water as I added it to the wort before fermentation. I wasn't aware that I could shake up the actual wort for aeration. Day 4 of fermentation now. Seems to be going fine. Will take gravity reading. Thanks!

 

[Peyope]

After you have your final volume of wort in the bucket, vigorously shake it -covered of course.

Similar to Rmikevt, I have also gone elbow deep and gotten away without an infection. I scrubbed and sanitized my arms but immediately after I kept thinking "that was dumb, I'm never doing that again ".

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for the info everybody. I did shake up my water as I added it to the wort before fermentation. I wasn't aware that I could shake up the actual wort for aeration. Day 4 of fermentation now. Seems to be going fine. Will take gravity reading. Thanks!

As you continue brewing and reading about brewing, you'll find that some brews need even more air than you can add by shaking or stirring. If you decide to brew a high gravity brew, you'll probably want an air stone and pure oxygen to improve the yeast health so they can continue to ferment when that alcohol level gets high.

Don't rush to take the gravity reading. About the minimum time for your beer to be done and ready to bottle or key would be 10 days. I prefer about twice that long as it gives time for the yeast to complete the ferment including the cleanup and settle out.

 

[AfricanBrewer777]

Thanks for the great advice!