simmons
Active Member
I have read in many books that it is good to Aerate your wort while it chills before you pitch your yeast. Does anyone have any experience with this. I'm wondering if there are any negative affects from this as well.
Be careful when aerating your wort when it is hot. Hot side aeration will increase melanoidins in your wort.
Hot side aeration is nearly impossible to introduce at the home-brewing scale. I'd say it's a complete myth, but in a large commercial setup where there's compressed air/oxygen involved it might be possible to actually see some effects from it.
It requires vast amounts of aeration, though; Sierra Nevada and plenty of other breweries have their mash runoff cascading several feet into their kettle like a waterfall, with no ill effects. Heck, here's Allagash doing a hot wort transfer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD_49kfVJeE#t=5m19s
Just sloshing things around at home isn't going to accomplish it.
What about straining? I've been pouring my cooled wort into the fermenter through a strainer and that seems to aerate it pretty well... any thoughts on that?
I've also heard that post-fermentation aeration isn't really a cause for concern, either. I could be misinformed though.
What about straining? I've been pouring my cooled wort into the fermenter through a strainer and that seems to aerate it pretty well... any thoughts on that?
What about straining? I've been pouring my cooled wort into the fermenter through a strainer and that seems to aerate it pretty well... any thoughts on that?
Riddle me this? How does this happen, with references?Hot side aeration will increase melanoidins in your wort
Post-fermentation aeration risks oxidation. It's not going to kill things immediately, but it'll decrease the storage life of your beer (possibly dramatically, depending on other factors like whether you're bottle conditioning and the like). A minor splash here and there isn't a huge deal, but it's definitely worth keeping things as still as possible during post-fermentation transfers.
Hot side aeration is nearly impossible to introduce at the home-brewing scale.
Just sloshing things around at home isn't going to accomplish it.
Riddle me this? How does this happen, with references?
SO I NEED TO RUN INTO YOU OVER HERE, JAKE!!!! lol we miss you over at MrBeerFans... guess you've moved on to bigger an better things
yeah, the strainer will aerate plenty... any other method you use, as long it's not pure O2 supersaturation, won't hurt either.
Ive been following this guys technique for my first 2 batches. I tend to go a bit gentler than this guy did but I was wonderin if anyone has any thoughts about this one. anything seem wrong with this method??
My buddy does something similar and it's fine. Keep in mind that regardless of how you insert air - whether via mixing/splashing, shaking, or with a stone - you're getting a max of 8ppm O2.
Aerating while the wort is still hot will give you hot side aeration (what an apt term). This will give your beer an off flavor.
So far I've brewed 21 Mr. Beer recipes and I can say none of them has come out tasting like sherry or cardboard. I follow their standard brewing guidelines by first pouring 1 gallon of cool water into the 2 gallon fermenter keg. I then boil 3 cups of water, remove the water from the heat source before adding in my extracts, hops and adjuncts as called for by the recipes. I pour this mixture (about 2 to 3 quarts) into the fermenter containing the 1 gallon of cool water before topping the keg off to the full 8.5 quart capacity.Here is a synopsis of an article by George Fix. http://www.brew-dudes.com/hot-side-aeration/124. And from Chapter 6 of How to Brew by John Palmer: "Chapter 6 - Yeast
6.9.3 Aeration is Good, Oxidation is Bad
The yeast is the most significant factor in determining the quality of a fermentation. Oxygen can be the most significant factor in determining the quality of the yeast. Oxygen is both your friend and your enemy. It is important to understand when which is which.
You should not aerate when the wort is hot, or even warm. Aeration of hot wort will cause the oxygen to chemically bind to various wort compounds. Over time, these compounds will break down, freeing atomic oxygen back into the beer where it can oxidize the alcohols and hop compounds producing off-flavors and aromas like wet cardboard or sherry-like flavors. The generally accepted temperature cutoff for preventing hot wort oxidation is 80°F.
Oxidation of your wort can happen in several ways. The first is by splashing or aerating the wort while it is hot. Other beginning-brewing books advocate pouring the hot wort after the boil into cold water in the fermenter to cool it and add oxygen for the yeast. Unfortunately the wort may still be hot enough to oxidize when it picks up oxygen from the splashing. Pouring it down the side of the bucket to minimize splashing doesn't really help either since this increases the surface area of the wort exposed to the air. Thus it is important to cool the wort rapidly to below 80°F to prevent oxidation, and then aerate it to provide the dissolved oxygen that the yeast need. Cooling rapidly between 90 and 140°F is important because this temperature region is ideal for bacterial growth to establish itself in the wort."
Melanoidans will act as antioxidants after the boil, but melanoidans are mostly formed during the boil."
Just got that rig myself, brewed first batch with it this past weekend so no evaluation except that it did seem to wake the lethargic yeast I was using.I use O2 and a wand from Williams, I love that product.
From the Danstar FAQ:I read that you dont have to aerate if you use dry yeast, although on the numerous threads on this topic I cant recall anyone talking about this. True or not true? What is the concensus on that?
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.
If the slurry from dry yeast fermentation is re-pitched from one batch of beer to another, the wort has to be aerated as with any liquid yeast.
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