Do all good craft breweries use oxygen to oxygenate their worts for fermentation?

[Finlandbrews]

I have been discussing with few sales managers of the leading supplier of tanks and gazes for private and business customers in Finland and they seemed very unaware of oxygen being used for beer fermentation.

Does anyone know if all great breweries use oxygen to oxygenate their worts for fermentation? Do you know any breweries that do so?

I believe in Finland very few breweries do, maybe only the "macro" ones.

 

[RM-MN]

Oxygen is necessary for the propagation of the yeast so you can pitch a smaller amount of yeast and let them propagate in the beer. If you pitch a sufficient amount of yeast that propagation isn't necessary.

 

[WarblyTremolo]

Oxygen is necessary for the propagation of the yeast so you can pitch a smaller amount of yeast and let them propagate in the beer. If you pitch a sufficient amount of yeast that propagation isn't necessary.

Yeast require oxygen to strengthen their cell walls and for propagation. If you were to pitch yeast (even a lot of it) to un-oxygenated wort, you either wouldn't get fermentation, or fermentation would stop way way way way way before terminal gravity is reached. If, by some stroke of luck, the beer did get to terminal gravity, there would be all manner off yeast-derived off-flavors (diacetyl and acetaldehyde most likely) and probably some pretty harsh alcohols that are produced by strained yeast.

Oxygenation is absolutely vital to creating clean, well-attenuated, properly fermented beer. I don't know of any major or even minor breweries that skip this step.

 

[Mer-man]

There is a story that when Sierra Nevada built a new brewhouse some years ago, they weren't getting the right ferment flavour. It turned out that the wort transfer to fermentors was too smooth, so they changed the angle of the output so it would splash and get aerated.

So for at least a while, Sierra Nevada.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

I would be surprised to learn that a commercial brewery was not oxygenating/aerating their wort in some way nowadays.

It's generally regarded that 10 PPM of dissolved oxygen is the target you're trying to hit ....you can get close (8) with an aquarium pump and stone, and I tend to think this is acceptable. In contrast, they say shaking the wort will only result in about 3PPM. Using pure oxygen with a stone can hit the 10 PPM target in just 60 seconds.
Hope that's useful.

 

[Homercidal]

Don't a lot of them inject oxygen inline during transfer? I have never done a study, but I thought that was pretty much SOP for anyone with decent sized equipment.

 

[dyqik]

I don't think many traditional breweries would oxygenate. Aeration, yes, but the cheap availability of pure oxygen is a relatively new thing.

My hometown brewery in England doesn't oxygenate with pure oxygen. It's brewing in much the same way it has for 100 years. I don't think many English breweries use pure oxygen.

 

[Hanglow]

It depends on what yeast they use, something like US05/Chico etc has relatively low oxygen requirements, so pure o2 is typically not needed and just transfering the wort or inline aeration using filtered air etc is enough. Other yeasts need more, so take a typical northern english yeast, they need roused during fermentation which will introduce a bit more oxygen. As dyqik mentioned, it's unlikely many of the older traditional ones would use pure o2, but plenty have very modern brewkits and have changed their practices too.

 

[Finlandbrews]

Yeast require oxygen to strengthen their cell walls and for propagation. If you were to pitch yeast (even a lot of it) to un-oxygenated wort, you either wouldn't get fermentation, or fermentation would stop way way way way way before terminal gravity is reached. If, by some stroke of luck, the beer did get to terminal gravity, there would be all manner off yeast-derived off-flavors (diacetyl and acetaldehyde most likely) and probably some pretty harsh alcohols that are produced by strained yeast.

Oxygenation is absolutely vital to creating clean, well-attenuated, properly fermented beer. I don't know of any major or even minor breweries that skip this step.

Thank you for the good feedback.

I know personally 2 head brewers and owners of breweries in Finland who do not oxygenate their brews for fermentation. They are relatively small businesses with 170 bbl fermentation tanks and 120 bbl of fermentation tanks but it seems they are doing a big mistake then...

 

[specharka]

Yeast require oxygen to strengthen their cell walls and for propagation. If you were to pitch yeast (even a lot of it) to un-oxygenated wort, you either wouldn't get fermentation, or fermentation would stop way way way way way before terminal gravity is reached. If, by some stroke of luck, the beer did get to terminal gravity, there would be all manner off yeast-derived off-flavors (diacetyl and acetaldehyde most likely) and probably some pretty harsh alcohols that are produced by strained yeast.



Oxygenation is absolutely vital to creating clean, well-attenuated, properly fermented beer. I don't know of any major or even minor breweries that skip this step.

Saccharomyces is completely capable of fermentation in an anaerobic environment. Oxygenation is vital for propagating yeast (which influences attenuation), but it doesn't do anything for the conversion of sugars to alcohols. Off flavors don't develop from a lack of oxygen. That's just nonsense.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/19/wort-aeration-pt-3-nothing-vs-pure-oxygen-exbeeriment-results/

 

[day_trippr]

[...]I know personally 2 head brewers and owners of breweries in Finland who do not oxygenate their brews for fermentation. They are relatively small businesses with 170 bbl fermentation tanks and 120 bbl of fermentation tanks but it seems they are doing a big mistake then...

I doubt any commercial brewery uses actual O2 in their processes (aside from yeast-lab stuff, perhaps).
It really doesn't make a lot of sense when most of them are repitching from batch to batch - where's the need for O2 in that scenario?
Aeration, perhaps, but oxygenation? Seems like an irrational stretch...

Cheers!

 

[philosofool]

I would be surprised to learn that a commercial brewery was not oxygenating/aerating their wort in some way nowadays.

It's generally regarded that 10 PPM of dissolved oxygen is the target you're trying to hit ....you can get close (8) with an aquarium pump and stone, and I tend to think this is acceptable. In contrast, they say shaking the wort will only result in about 3PPM. Using pure oxygen with a stone can hit the 10 PPM target in just 60 seconds.
Hope that's useful.

In Yeast, Chris White and Jamil Zanisheff offer different numbers. 8ppm is the upper limit for vigorous shaking and aquarium pumps with a stone. Splashing during transfer gets up to 4ppm. Pure O2 can go higher. In that book, they state 12ppm as the optimum.

 

[fun4stuff]

Yeast require oxygen to strengthen their cell walls and for propagation. If you were to pitch yeast (even a lot of it) to un-oxygenated wort, you either wouldn't get fermentation, or fermentation would stop way way way way way before terminal gravity is reached. If, by some stroke of luck, the beer did get to terminal gravity, there would be all manner off yeast-derived off-flavors (diacetyl and acetaldehyde most likely) and probably some pretty harsh alcohols that are produced by strained yeast.

Oxygenation is absolutely vital to creating clean, well-attenuated, properly fermented beer. I don't know of any major or even minor breweries that skip this step.

Nope. Oxygenation is more limited to homebrew because of people like the above poster who keep promoting this myth. It is probably the biggest overhyped practice. Anyone who has brewing for any significant amount of time should know that you can make great beer without ever using oxygen.

 

[Natdavis777]

Don't a lot of them inject oxygen inline during transfer? I have never done a study, but I thought that was pretty much SOP for anyone with decent sized equipment.

The two breweries by buddy has head brewer at (including his current one he owns) injects with a stone inline to the fermentor. That is on a 30BBL system. Another friend of mine on a 3BBL does the same though. So Id assume its common practice.

To what levels they acheive are beyond me though. They win awards, so I assume they are doing something right.

 

[Natdavis777]

Anyone who has brewing for any significant amount of time should know that you can make great beer without ever using oxygen.

I would concur. O2 was one of the last things I incorperated into brewing, and before that, I was producing good beer (to my palate) and getting high 30s in BJCP comps.

 

[arnobg]

In Yeast, Chris White and Jamil Zanisheff offer different numbers. 8ppm is the upper limit for vigorous shaking and aquarium pumps with a stone. Splashing during transfer gets up to 4ppm. Pure O2 can go higher. In that book, they state 12ppm as the optimum.

I'm actually reading this book for the first time tonight and just got that chapter. It says 8-10 in that book.

 

[aprichman]

The two breweries by buddy has head brewer at (including his current one he owns) injects with a stone inline to the fermentor. That is on a 30BBL system. Another friend of mine on a 3BBL does the same though. So Id assume its common practice.

To what levels they acheive are beyond me though. They win awards, so I assume they are doing something right.

In Oregon State University's Pilot Brewery we inject the wort inline with oxygen as soon as it comes out of the heat exchanger as well.

 

[Natdavis777]

In Oregon State University's Pilot Brewery we inject the wort inline with oxygen as soon as it comes out of the heat exchanger as well.

I believe Blichmann has a homebrew model for use now as well. I dont find it applicable for our use, but none the less, it is out there

 

[CA_Mouse]

Yeast require oxygen to strengthen their cell walls and for propagation. If you were to pitch yeast (even a lot of it) to un-oxygenated wort, you either wouldn't get fermentation, or fermentation would stop way way way way way before terminal gravity is reached. If, by some stroke of luck, the beer did get to terminal gravity, there would be all manner off yeast-derived off-flavors (diacetyl and acetaldehyde most likely) and probably some pretty harsh alcohols that are produced by strained yeast.

Oxygenation is absolutely vital to creating clean, well-attenuated, properly fermented beer. I don't know of any major or even minor breweries that skip this step.

Where did you get this information? This is absolutely false. Dry yeast does not require oxygenation and liquid yeast only uses oxygen to propagate. Only the cell count is high and the oxygen is used up, then the yeast feed on the sugars in the wort. If you pitch a large enough starter that is full of healthy and viable cells, you really don't need to oxygenate the wort. I plate and slant my own yeast cells and have tested this myth out several times (adding pure O2, aerating with an aquarium pump, splashing and just pitching yeast). I have yet to find anyone that can tell the difference between any of them.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Nope. Oxygenation is more limited to homebrew because of people like the above poster who keep promoting this myth. It is probably the biggest overhyped practice. Anyone who has brewing for any significant amount of time should know that you can make great beer without ever using oxygen.

There seems to be a problem with Homebrewers who use "oxygenation" to mean "aerating in some fashion," and those who "oxygenation" (correctly, I would argue) to mean literally hooking up a bottle of commercially pure oxygen gas and passing it into the wort in a more-or-less controlled manner, talking past each other.

 

[Finlandbrews]

I went to a Whitelabs workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark in the end of April this year where Chris White was talking about the importance of aerating with a filter and even better he said to try to oxygenate the wort to 8-10 ppm.

At least we know that he knows about the subject and that this recommendation applies to liquid yeast. I have not asked anybody if for some reason dry yeast has less requirements for oxygen than liquid yeast. Anyone can comment on that?

It would be interesting to make a study of 50 quality breweries to know if they add air or oxygen, how they do it and if they measure it? I have understood very few are measuring how many parts per million they actually "inject".

 

[kombat]

Off flavors don't develop from a lack of oxygen. That's just nonsense.

Your Brulosophy link is one data point, my own brewing is another.

At one time, I'd read that oxygenation/aeration is completely unnecessary when using dry yeast. I even read it on Lallemand's own FAQ:

I always aerate my wort when using liquid yeast. Do I need to aerate the wort before pitching dry yeast?

No, there is no need to aerate the wort but it does not harm the yeast either. During its aerobic production, dry yeast accumulates sufficient amounts of unsaturated fatty acids and sterols to produce enough biomass in the first stage of fermentation. The only reason to aerate the wort when using wet yeast is to provide the yeast with oxygen so that it can produce sterols and unsaturated fatty acids which are important parts of the cell membrane and therefore essential for biomass production.

So I began preaching the "no aeration/oxygenation with dry yeast" gospel around here.

Then one day, I brewed a batch following this advice. At the time, I was chilling my wort by recirculating it through a plate chiller and back into the kettle, until I reached the desired temperature. I then racked it from the kettle to a carboy with an autosiphon. This resulted in a very smooth transfer, with virtually no agitation whatsoever. Normally, I'd whip up a bunch of foam with my Fizz-X rod, but this time, I just left it as-is. The wort was completely flat/still.

I rehydrated a packet of US-05 and pitched it.

That beer was one of the worst beers I've ever made. I ended up dumping it. Just a banana-flavoured-nail-polish hot mess. The yeast were stressed beyond belief. Never again.

I now aerate all my low-gravity ales with my Fizz-X rod on a drill. High-gravity ales, and all lagers, get 90 seconds of pure oxygen. I now get great fermentations.

 

[angrybits]

That beer was one of the worst beers I've ever made. I ended up dumping it.

So you're saying I should believe your anecdotal story about making crappy beer over the people that make the product?

 

[fun4stuff]

Your Brulosophy link is one data point, my own brewing is another.

At one time, I'd read that oxygenation/aeration is completely unnecessary when using dry yeast. I even read it on Lallemand's own FAQ:



So I began preaching the "no aeration/oxygenation with dry yeast" gospel around here.

Then one day, I brewed a batch following this advice. At the time, I was chilling my wort by recirculating it through a plate chiller and back into the kettle, until I reached the desired temperature. I then racked it from the kettle to a carboy with an autosiphon. This resulted in a very smooth transfer, with virtually no agitation whatsoever. Normally, I'd whip up a bunch of foam with my Fizz-X rod, but this time, I just left it as-is. The wort was completely flat/still.

I rehydrated a packet of US-05 and pitched it.

That beer was one of the worst beers I've ever made. I ended up dumping it. Just a banana-flavoured-nail-polish hot mess. The yeast were stressed beyond belief. Never again.

I now aerate all my low-gravity ales with my Fizz-X rod on a drill. High-gravity ales, and all lagers, get 90 seconds of pure oxygen. I now get great fermentations.

Another data point:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Experiment_Pitching_Rate_and_Oxygenation

I think more studies are needed. It's definitely not needed with dry yeast and I suspect it's not as important as claimed for liquid yeast if you build a proper starter with a stir plate. This is one of those things many people jump to without ever questioning or experimenting with themselves.... Or there beer turns out bad for some reason and they incorrectly assume it was due to lack of oxygenation.

There are so many people and many breweries who do not oxygenate and still manage to make great beer. I don't deny the reasoning behind why oxygen is important, but there has to be a reason why for the majority of the history of beer making, why people have not had to oxygenate to make great beer.

 

[PeteNMA]

All of the craft breweries which I have visited near me either oxygenate or aerate their wort going into the fermenters, some even taking pains to explain what the point is.

None of these guys have their own yeast labs, with the exception of one.

As much as we know that large scale brewing practices don't map onto homebrewing, it follows that homebrewing experiments don't map onto commercial scale brewing.

 

[kombat]

So you're saying I should believe your anecdotal story about making crappy beer over the people that make the product?

I'm saying, decide for yourself. I tried it, and had terrible results. I went back to oxygenating/aerating, and haven't had a similar issue since. I'll be sticking with giving the yeast the best running start possible.

 

[Finlandbrews]

All of the craft breweries which I have visited near me either oxygenate or aerate their wort going into the fermenters, some even taking pains to explain what the point is.

None of these guys have their own yeast labs, with the exception of one.

As much as we know that large scale brewing practices don't map onto homebrewing, it follows that homebrewing experiments don't map onto commercial scale brewing.

Could you mention a few examples of breweries? Thanks

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

In Yeast, Chris White and Jamil Zanisheff offer different numbers. 8ppm is the upper limit for vigorous shaking and aquarium pumps with a stone. Splashing during transfer gets up to 4ppm. Pure O2 can go higher. In that book, they state 12ppm as the optimum.

I've read the book, and was referring to the data in the table on page 79



I personally discount the 8ppm for shaking since most home brewers don't have Lots of headspace , a strong back , and would (pick up? and) vigorously shake 5-6 gallons of wort for more than 5 minutes. Sounds risky.

Sorry OP , back to our originally scheduled program.

 

[philosofool]

I've read the book, and was referring to the data in the table on page 79



I personally discount the 8ppm for shaking since most home brewers don't have Lots of headspace , a strong back , and would (pick up? and) vigorously shake 5-6 gallons of wort for more than 5 minutes. Sounds risky.

I have seen other studies that show much better oxygenation from shaking. In fact, from Wyeast: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm

40 seconds to 8ppm...

You don't have to pickup the fermenter to shake it. Just tip it on its base and rock back and forth vigorously. (I use steel or plastic. I wouldn't shake glass.)

 

[Homercidal]

I have seen other studies that show much better oxygenation from shaking. In fact, from Wyeast: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm

40 seconds to 8ppm...

You don't have to pickup the fermenter to shake it. Just tip it on its base and rock back and forth vigorously. (I use steel or plastic. I wouldn't shake glass.)

I'm not sure what you mean here. The data you reference shows 8ppm maximum for air. The Oxygen data on that same chart shows much higher. Up to 26ppm.

 

[MaryB]

I drain into the fermenter from 4 inches above the top rim. I let it splash and foam and that is plenty of aeration for me.

 

[Finlandbrews]

I just called the company in Finland (woikoski) who sells tanks and gazes and the guy told me he has been working for four years and he has been requested to provide oxygen tanks to three micro breweries in the last year only, nothing the three previous years he worked there! Interesting...