Confused.... HSA Hot Side Aeration

[stompbox]

hot side aeration - The introduction of oxygen into the wort while it is still hot. In general, hot side aeration is considered to be a bad thing, as it can result in quick oxidation (staling) of the finished beer, which will cause "cardboardy" flavors

What exactly should I be worried about here?? Doing an extract batch, you steep until after you put in DME or LME and then you bring the wort to a boil.

I always use a nice roling boil which AERATES so why are we concerned about HSA? It seems like a aeration is a natural part of the process.

 

[phenry]

Boiling actually drives off dissolved oxygen.

Why do you think people are worried about aerating cooled wort so much?

 

[h22lude]

Its not the boiling you are worried about as that drives off O2. Its the cooling down part. After you are done boiling and start cooling the wort down, there is a temp range where you can introduce O2 while the wort is still hot and that is where HSA comes into play. When you are cooling you can create a whirlpool but don't splash or stir too hard.

 

[shecky]

You shouldn't be worried about anything. HSA is widely considered a bogeyman on the home brewing scale.

 

[broadbill]

Do some forum searches and you will have no lack of discussion on this topic. The long story short is that HSA does not seem to have any impact whatsoever, at least as far as homebrewing is concerned.

In other words, don't worry about it.

 

[remilard]

Boiling actually drives off dissolved oxygen.

Why do you think people are worried about aerating cooled wort so much?

Sure, but what about oxygen that exists in forms other than dissolved molecular oxygen?

 

[nilo]

Its not the boiling you are worried about as that drives off O2. Its the cooling down part. After you are done boiling and start cooling the wort down, there is a temp range where you can introduce O2 while the wort is still hot and that is where HSA comes into play. When you are cooling you can create a whirlpool but don't splash or stir too hard.

Do we know what this temp range is?

 

[phenry]

Sure, but what about oxygen that exists in forms other than dissolved molecular oxygen?

Well it also drives off some of the oxygen molecules that are bound to two hydrogen, but I guess you call that evaporation.

 

[solbes]

One of my brews from last year showed some oxidation once it was in bottles for around 6 months. I'm wondering if it was HSA (it was my second brew and not real careful), or perhaps I introduced oxygen during cold crashing or during bottling.

My gut tells me this was a problem with post fermentation and not HSA. Does anyone have a direct test or insight into whether HSA actually causes problems.

 

[Revvy]

I love the quote about the Basic Brewing experiments on Maltybrew.com

Hot-side aeration…myth?

I listened to a great podcast from Basic Brewing Radio yesterday on hot-side aeration. Everyone seems to debate whether or not this is a concern for homebrewing. The podcast covers an experiment done by some homebrewers in Austin where they try hard to cause HSA in a small batch.

I was never too concerned about HSA in my brewing and now I think I’m even less concerned.

FYI, here are the basic brewing podcasts on it...

March 16, 2006 - Hot Side Aeration
Charles, Chris, James and BrianWe travel to Austin Homebrew Supply in Austin, Texas to taste the results of Brian Warren's experiment in Hot Side Aeration. The experiment produced some very surprising and interesting results.

Click to listen

June 22, 2006 - Two Homebrew Experiments
froth_sm.jpgWe hear from two homebrew experiments: William Tope, a high school student from Houston, Texas, delves into whether alpha acid levels of hops affect fermentation rates, and the Hot Side Aeration experiment continues with Brian Warren and John Holder.

Click to listen

November 2, 2006 - HSA Experiment: Final Chapter
Andy Sparks and James Spencer join Brian Warren and John Holder in Denver to taste the last round of samples in the Hot Side Aeration experiment. We also get feedback about the experiment from John Palmer.

Click to listen

Most of those who "claim" it are brand new brewers who "think" they know somethings wrong with their beer when it usually it's just green beer, and later when they taste their beer again, weeks late they usually come back and say the beer is fine. An equal number have blamed an off flavor on diactly or even autolysis, until we point out certain facts about those different things, and again a few weeks later they usually post their embarrassment at being so freaked out back then.

We're not saying you don't practice good brewing techniques, of any types, just that most of those things that new brewers panic about, that they read about in books is worst case scenario stuff, misunderstood conjecture that has been handed down over the years as "canon" with little or no validity, something that is of more worry to commercial operations or lager breweries, or myths that have been disproven in light of modern brewing science, that was based on OLD brewing info.

And in reality our beer is a lot more resililiant than most new brewers believe, because at their stage of brewing they understand just enough to be dangerous.

It takes a lot of abuse to ruin our beer...and even the "day to day" mistakes that we make is often NOT enough to ruin our beer. Its pretty hardy stuff.


I'll save you the bother of searching, but here's a few of those new brewer HSA panic threads...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/hot-side-aeration-so-im-idiot-71873/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/who-afraid-hsa-76779/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/hot-side-aeration-71806/

HSA is something that get's discussed by commercial brewers in journals, and some overzealous homebrewer then starts worrying about it, and it get spread into the HOBBY community, with little understanding...and then people brewing thier first beer start threads worrying about it...

And if you still are worried, then watch this video of a commercial brewhouse...

You think they are concerned about HSA?




And you might also note that if HSA WERE really a big issue for homebrewers there would more than likely be hundreds of threads on it like there are on just about everything else on here. But there's not...it tends to be a non-issue, usually just a few panic threads, where the nervous new brewer just assumes because he made a simple mistake, that he is sure that what he read about is happening to him. There are almost no true and in depth discussions about it, with actual experienced brewers and beer judges, of which there are a few hundred on here who can cite instances where they have tasted HSA in beers. It's kind of like bigfoot sightings, you never find any ethnobiologist or zooologists stumbling upon them on their walks and capturing them.

 

[solbes]

Wow, thanks for all of the links and info. I'm leaning towards my bottling technique. Early on I wasn't very good at filling bottles, controlling the wand tip and bucket spigot. Got a fair amount of air in some of those early batches.

 

[h22lude]

Do we know what this temp range is?

To be honest I don't remember and I don't even remember where on here I read it.

But like others have said it is most likely a myth or at least not as common as people believe. Like a lot of other home brewing "problems", it tends to be blown out of proportion. Yeah if you don't keep things clean and sanitized you could get an infection but people (myself included) have used un-sanitized pieces of equipment and have made great beer. HSA is the same. Yeah if you splash the crap out of your cooling wort, you may get some unwanted O2 in there. But just stirring it up to get a nice whirlpool going will not get enough O2 to hurt anything.