akpingel
Well-Known Member
Today I did a batch and ran out of ice, and decided the hell with it and airated at about 85 degrees. Ill let everyone know if I experience any off flavors from airating above 80 degrees. 
Do you Aerate your Wort ?
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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.
Without using a thermometer I can tell that the wort in the fermenter at this point of the process is at the right temperature for pitching yeast. The wort feels just a little warm to the touch and this process has produced 21 batches of the best tasting beers I've ever had.
Screwy Brewer
Brew-boy
Well-Known Member
I use O2 and a wand from Williams, I love that product.
SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
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.
Regarding the 8 ppm O2: that's at a specific (room-ish) temperature. Just as with CO2, the solubility of gas in water/wort/beer goes up as the temp goes down. So if you aerate and pitch at a cooler temp (like a lager) you can easily have more than 8 ppm DO. Aerating warmer will likely leave you short on O2 (which will still make beer but generally not as good as it could have been).
SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
![Craft A Brew - Safale BE-256 Yeast - Fermentis - Belgian Ale Dry Yeast - For Belgian & Strong Ales - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bcKEwQmWL._SL500_.jpg)
I too have just learned about hot side aeration. I was busy aerating my wort by sloshing around with my stirring spoon while it was cooling, so I reckon if there is going to be evil from this, I'll be getting it. LOL At least IF there is indeed a problem, I'll have an idea what has caused it 
Tell me please, if I do have an off flavor from this HSA, how should I approach the beer...would it be best to drink it sooner or later? What I mean is, will the off flavors be more pronounced over time or will they mellow out as the beer ages some?
Tell me please, if I do have an off flavor from this HSA, how should I approach the beer...would it be best to drink it sooner or later? What I mean is, will the off flavors be more pronounced over time or will they mellow out as the beer ages some?
bumstigedy
Member
I aerate with an airstone and an aquarium pump for about 20 minutes. I do this after cooling but before pitching. I have observed good results. Lag time is typically 6 to 7 hours and I typically get good attenuation.
Sometimes I do get a lot of foaming when aerating; my batch this weekenend foamed up and outside the fermenter while aerating.
Sometimes I do get a lot of foaming when aerating; my batch this weekenend foamed up and outside the fermenter while aerating.
cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
I don't believe in hot side aeration.
I dump my semi cooled wort about 4 feet into the bucket. This aerates pretty damn well.
I dump my semi cooled wort about 4 feet into the bucket. This aerates pretty damn well.
HSA may well happen, but it's never happened to me.
And anyway, I thought people usually point out that aerating wort when it is too hot prevents adequate oxygenation?? How can hot wort be both prone to and insufficiently receptive to oxygenation?
I suspect HSA is something that you need to really, really try to get with 5 gallons dropping a few foot from a worktop.
And anyway, I thought people usually point out that aerating wort when it is too hot prevents adequate oxygenation?? How can hot wort be both prone to and insufficiently receptive to oxygenation?
I suspect HSA is something that you need to really, really try to get with 5 gallons dropping a few foot from a worktop.
Oh god...how come noone put to bed this HSA nonsense??????
HSA is another one of those myths for the homebrewers. And heck, even many commercial breweries debate it's merits.
You'll find that many of us who use immersion chillers begin stirring the wort immediately as well as moving it up and down and creating quite a bit of o2 in there.
HSA, another bogeyman for homebrewers....another thing that made the leap from commercial breweries of tastless lager that has to have a long shelf life and absolutely no flavor (good or bad) otherwise.
Hot-side aeration may be demonstrated in medium and large commercial breweries because the brewing equipment is so big that splashing is a really dramatic event. Think of liquid flowing through a six-inch pipe at 400 gallons per minute and cascading 12 feet through the air before hitting the bottom of a tank. (Maybe, see video below.)
But to the home brewer it's only a bogeyman....
I love the quote about the Basic Brewing experiments on Maltybrew.com
FYI, here are the basic brewing podcasts on it...
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.
If you read the stories in here, of "mistakes" that people have made here, you will come to realize that a lot of stuff happens in the normal course of brewing, and the beer still manages to survive, so if you make a mistake, you don't need to immedietly panic and assume your beer is ruined.....
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/
And a lot of stuff can be corrected with time anyway.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/
In years of brewing and in helping panic new brewers I've yet to find cases where it wasn't a false alarm in just about anything any new brewer has claimed, and that is the case for the dreaded HSA, Autolysis, and 99.95% of the new brewer infection threads as well.
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...
So don't sweat your new brewer head about HSA....or anything, you beer is much hardier than you think...
And if you still are worried, then watch this video of a commercial brewhouse...
You think they are concerned about HSA?
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3uyKjLTWJA]YouTube - Transferring from Mash Tun to Boil Kettle[/ame]
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.
Aerate away gang.....
HSA is another one of those myths for the homebrewers. And heck, even many commercial breweries debate it's merits.
You'll find that many of us who use immersion chillers begin stirring the wort immediately as well as moving it up and down and creating quite a bit of o2 in there.
HSA, another bogeyman for homebrewers....another thing that made the leap from commercial breweries of tastless lager that has to have a long shelf life and absolutely no flavor (good or bad) otherwise.
Hot-side aeration may be demonstrated in medium and large commercial breweries because the brewing equipment is so big that splashing is a really dramatic event. Think of liquid flowing through a six-inch pipe at 400 gallons per minute and cascading 12 feet through the air before hitting the bottom of a tank. (Maybe, see video below.)
But to the home brewer it's only a bogeyman....
I love the quote about the Basic Brewing experiments on Maltybrew.com
FYI, here are the basic brewing podcasts on it...
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.
If you read the stories in here, of "mistakes" that people have made here, you will come to realize that a lot of stuff happens in the normal course of brewing, and the beer still manages to survive, so if you make a mistake, you don't need to immedietly panic and assume your beer is ruined.....
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/
And a lot of stuff can be corrected with time anyway.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/
In years of brewing and in helping panic new brewers I've yet to find cases where it wasn't a false alarm in just about anything any new brewer has claimed, and that is the case for the dreaded HSA, Autolysis, and 99.95% of the new brewer infection threads as well.
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...
So don't sweat your new brewer head about HSA....or anything, you beer is much hardier than you think...
And if you still are worried, then watch this video of a commercial brewhouse...
You think they are concerned about HSA?
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3uyKjLTWJA]YouTube - Transferring from Mash Tun to Boil Kettle[/ame]
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.
Aerate away gang.....
cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
And with that....the thread ceased to have any purpose.
The next myth? Naked Clown Exposure to beers causes invisible floaties..........DISCUSS..
The next myth? Naked Clown Exposure to beers causes invisible floaties..........DISCUSS..
Wingfan13
Well-Known Member
So aeration speeds up fermentation ? Am I understanding this correctly ? I ask because I have only brewed 2 batches and didn't aerate either one. By the way, I stirred the heck out of my hot wort to cool it down quicker. Both my beers taste great.....to me anyway.
Yep. Revvy pretty much covered it all, but aerating gets the ball rolling faster and may help your attenuation. I've been pleasantly surprised at how well it has worked since I started using a stone and pump. You can still get good beer without it, though.
no
The yeast need oxygen to reproduce and to do their jobs effectively, just like we humans do. If we have enough oxygen we have more energy, our brain fires faster, yadda yadda yadda (I've come to realize that with my heart problems I don't get enough blood flow, and therefore I don't get enough oxygen so I'm sluggish and have low energy and am tired alot of the time.) I don't perform at my most effective.
The same with the yeast.
One of the side efftects of boiling our wort, we are boiling out all the oxygen in the solution. So if we dump our yeast into out cooled wort without aerating we're dumping them into an environment where they aren't going to get the o2 they need to preform. SO they are not going to work as fast. They are not going to reproduce that fast and not get to the numbers they need to do their job, so fermentation is going to start slow.
Like for me on a humid day or where there is an "Ozone Action Day." Where the environment isn't conducive to getting a good breath.
And since the yeast is going to be working stressed, they are not going to cleanly eat their sugar, so they are going to create waste, and we're goign to get off flavors. And they are going to die off sooner and we may get stuck fermentations.
But there is really a short window of time where oxygen is beneficial, and that is before fermentation really gets going, like within the first 12 hours after yeast pitch. Once there is more alcohol/beer than wort, then oxygen causes the beer to go bad, to get cardnoardy taste, that is why AFTER fermentation it is a bad idea to splash around your beer too much.
The other thing that happens is that as the yeast starts fermenting besides making alcohol they produce co2 and eventually there is no O2 in the fermenter....co2 comes out of the airlock, if there is excess, but eventually it will reach equilibrium where the airlock may not bubble but the fermenter is full of co2....
92greenyj
Well-Known Member
I started aerating recently and have been very pleased with the results. My yeast kicks into gear faster and I get a fuller fermentation. I use an inline aerator I made. Basically I took some tube, some hose barbs, and a union. drilled 3 small holes in the union and it goes between the drain on my BK and the fermenter so as I drain the bk air gets sucked into it thru the holes. It also goes thru a fine mesh seive. I usually get a good inch and a half of foam on the surface of the wort in the fermenter before I pitch from this
Quick question around timing of aerating. I use a mix stir (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/the-stainless-steel-mix-stir.html) to aerate. My process is 1) chill with immersion chiller, 2) whirlpool with spoon, 3) rest for ~30min, 4) rack from side of kettle into carboy while running through funnel with screen, 5) use mix stir, 6) add yeast. Can I flip steps 5 & 6? I would aerate immediately after adding the yeast.
I'm thinking of racking onto a yeast cake, so I won't be able to aerate before adding the yeast. Thoughts?
gmcapone
Well-Known Member
I tend to use my IC rather vigorously and consider that my aeration. I tend to get a decent amount of bubbles going after stirring and sloshing it around for 15 minutes. I dont know if this is really sufficient but it seems to give me good fermentations so far.
I want to add to debunk this myth.
Once I had to pour my mash, from one mash tun into another since the tubing got clogged when I was trying to vorlauf.
I litterally POURED 7 gallons of 154 degree water from one cooler into another. Tons of froth and bubbles.... went through with the brewing process (extremely worried the beer was ruined) and there were NO signs of HSA.
It may have been fine since whatever got trapped may have been boiled off, but supposedly the oxygen binds with the sugars in HSA so boiling would not fix it, yet, no problems at all.
Once I had to pour my mash, from one mash tun into another since the tubing got clogged when I was trying to vorlauf.
I litterally POURED 7 gallons of 154 degree water from one cooler into another. Tons of froth and bubbles.... went through with the brewing process (extremely worried the beer was ruined) and there were NO signs of HSA.
It may have been fine since whatever got trapped may have been boiled off, but supposedly the oxygen binds with the sugars in HSA so boiling would not fix it, yet, no problems at all.
Diver165
Well-Known Member
DamageCT said:
Uh. Seriously? You didn't read Revvys sermon...I mean post did you?
Let's paraphrase what Revvy explained. "No!"
This is part of some research I am doing on an older style beer I am trying to find everything out about that I can.
But, apparently aeration cooling on hot wort has been around since the 1800s.
citation: http://archive.org/stream/bostonitscommerc1892conn/bostonitscommerc1892conn_djvu.txt
But, apparently aeration cooling on hot wort has been around since the 1800s.
citation: http://archive.org/stream/bostonitscommerc1892conn/bostonitscommerc1892conn_djvu.txt
cholder777
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I am going to use an o2 bottle and a fish tank stone. Is it possible to over oxygenate my wort? If so. How long do i run the aerator for a Shiner Bock clone?
You can't harm your beer by giving it too much oxygen.
I run mine for 1-2 minutes...I basically just count "1 mississippi, 2 mississippi," until I get to 60, and start again.
normonster
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Heres a good discussion on probrewer and they indicate over oxygenation is possible and describe the effects: http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?28004-Too...oxygen
Remember though, a lot of the discussions/issues found on the large scale in commercial breweries don't really relate to our teeny tiny batches. And the biggest mistake many people including people like John Palmer initially did was thinking that, and that just breeds fear in many a noob. A lot of things in How To Brew for instance, he admitted taking from professional discussions, and then later backed off on when he realized in many ways it's two completely different animals.
Just because it is possible and detectable in a 10,000 barrel system, with a huge compressed air system pumping in a lot of oxygen doesn't mean it's applicable in 5 gallons, with for example an airstone and small oxygen bottle. Someone earlier in this thread from years ago brought this point up.
Those discussions, as fascinating though they may be, can actually breed fear and mis-information when brought down to the hobby level.
hobbybob
Well-Known Member
No I don't (any more) In my first years off brewing I always aerated my wort when above the 1070's, more then 1 tests ( up to 1103 ) gave me no better result in fermentation.
So I believe it's a myth
So I believe it's a myth
normonster
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Your likely a more advanced brewer than I am, so I respect what you're saying even though your kind or warning me here. Why don't you count a lot more Mississippi's next time while injecting oxygen and see if it ruins your batch.
At the least, your claim that one cannot inject to much oxygen into a batch is slightly muted by the fact your limiting your own oxy injections to such short time periods.
I'm just using filtered air so it doesn't concern me at this point but I suspect there's more to the story than "it can't be done".
