Hot Side Aeration/Oxidization

[MrPorter]

Hi guys,

So, I think I screwed up. I was brewing my second extract batch ever (a Porter) and was worried that the 3.5 gallons of wort I was chilling was going to get too cool when I topped up to 5 gallons in the carboy.

Without thinking I poured my 100F wort into the carboy with a funnel and of course being a carboy lots of splashing and glugging occurred. I then topped off with cold tap water to make 5 gallons and shook it up to mix.

Everything is happy, the little yeasties were impressive etc, etc, and all is well with the world. Then two days later I happened to be reading Palmer and he mentioned oxidation above 80F. I knew all this, but I forgot during the excitement of brewing, and now I am reading how my beer will taste like cardboard and am a bit apprehensive.

Should I be worried? What are the chances that my batch will taste off? Also, is this something that might not be noticeable for 2/3 weeks after bottling? Finally, would oxygen barrier caps help or has the damage been done?

I know there a lot of "is my batch ruined" threads and many advocate that even if it tastes off to wait a few weeks or months. If my beer does turn out to be oxidized though, it would probably get worse over time would it not?

Any advice, experiences would be appreciated.

 

[kharmajavah]

Your beer will be fine. No worries.

But for future reference, be careful pouring hot wort into a glass carboy...water always goes first. The thermal shock of hot liquid on glass could cause it to crack/shatter. It actually happens...lots of threads on the board about broken carboys.

Cheers!

 

[Revvy]

99% of those is my beer ruined threads are nervous noobs, and 99.95% of those the beer turns out fine anyway.

HSA is another one of the homebrewing boogeymen, like autolysis, that really isn't anything to lose sleep over.

It is something that is more of a concern for professional breweries brewing light (and tasteless) lagers, but is really not something that can happen to us...

I'll save you the bother of searching...

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]

The same with oxydation, we're not talking racking fermented beer here....and even if it was oxydized (which I don't believe it is) it would be a long term storage concern not an immediate issue. Most of us will have drank our beer long before oxydation would occur.

You have to realize that it is very very very hard to ruin your beer.

Read these collected stories to understand just what stupid things we can do and yet our beer manages to survive.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

 

[remilard]

If I keep pointing out that the lowest oxygen brew houses do not belong to light lager brewers, will you ever drop that baseless and observably false claim that only light lager brewers worry about HSA?

 

[Revvy]

If I keep pointing out that the lowest oxygen brew houses do not belong to light lager brewers, will you ever drop that baseless and observably false claim that only light lager brewers worry about HSA?

You know, the point is, that the op is worried about HIS beer. AND that no matter what you say, HSA is only an issue in commercial breweries.....Light lagers, heavy lagers, fizzy yeloow piaa water, YADDA YADDA YADDA......Whatever you wanna call it.

Beers where even the slightest flaws can be noticed, not the average homebrewer's ale.

It's NOT anything we need to worry about.

Do you want to actually HELP this guy not worry or pick another pathetic fight remmy? Just like always, your post contributes almost NOTHING to ever actually helping anyone, just picking fights, do you actually care ever about helping anyone out on this site?

 

[MrPorter]

Thanks for the advice and info guys. I'm browsing through the links you posted Revvy, thanks for those!

There are a lot of noobs paranoid about the beer, but I think a lot of that is paranoia from reading Palmer online the day after they put their beer in the fermenter. And to other new brewers: don't read his section on off flavors until you have actually aged and drunk a few because the power of suggestion is strong on a paranoid mind

 

[Revvy]

Thanks for the advice and info guys. I'm browsing through the links you posted Revvy, thanks for those!

There are a lot of noobs paranoid about the beer, but I think a lot of that is paranoia from reading Palmer online the day after they put their beer in the fermenter. And to other new brewers: don't read his section on off flavors until you have actually aged and drunk a few because the power of suggestion is strong on a paranoid mind

Yeah, I think Palmer is a great source up to a point. But he points out every worst case scenario in glaring detail, which fuels more fear in new brewers. It's the same with autolysis, it's mention in the section on lagers, not ales. And even ends with a caveat saying that with healthy yeast folks have left their beer in primary for several months with no issues.

Yet both those points tend to be lost in the worries of a new brewer.

Just remember, relax, it is really hard to ruin this.

 

[MrPorter]

I need to remember what I read recently in a book "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" where the author describes Vikings who didn't know much about the science of beer. All they knew was that each family had a stirring stick they passed down from generation to generation and using this stick magically ensured their beer would ferment. I doubt they worried about HSA too much

 

[remilard]

You know, the point is, that the op is worried about HIS beer. AND that no matter what you say, HSA is only an issue in commercial breweries.....Light lagers, heavy lagers, YADDA YADDA YADDA......Beers where even the slightest flaws can be noticed, not the average homebrewer's ale.

It's NOT anything we need to worry about.

Do you want to actually HELP this guy not worry or pick another pathetic fight remmy? Just like always, your post contributes almost NOTHING to ever actually helping anyone, just picking fights, do you actually care ever about helping anyone out on this site?

What kind of lagers does Sierra Nevada make?

If whether or not commercial breweries avoid HSA is irrelevant, maybe you should neglect to make a claim about the practices of commercial breweries rather than making what is either an ignorant claim or an intentionally misleading one.

 

[MrPorter]

I hope I didn't start an argument. Hmmm, maybe next time I'll ask the CraigTube guy

 

[Revvy]

I need to remember what I read recently in a book "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" where the author describes Vikings who didn't know much about the science of beer. All they knew was that each family had a stirring stick they passed down from generation to generation and using this stick magically ensured their beer would ferment. I doubt they worried about HSA too much

Oh yeah, the yeast stick. They had dried yeast on there, so everytime they dipped it in the wort, it would ferment. Then they would iirc rub the stick in what we call the trub, and pick up more yeast.

Just like from looking at the thread titles in this beginners section, it may appear that there's a ton of infection threads, BUT if you actually read the content of the threads, and not just the title, you will realize that there's not a lot of actual infections, just a bunch of scared new brewers who don't realize how ugly fermentation can actually be.

Just like you, they think that their beer is a lot weaker than it truly is. Just the opposite, it is really really hard to get an infection.

And infections RARELY happen to the new brewers who are so paranoid that they think the mere looking at their fermenters will induce an infection.

Most of the time on here the beer in question is not infected. It's just a nervous new brewer, who THINKS something is wrong when in reality they are just unused to the ugliness that beer making often is.

It creates sort of like the hypochodria that med students often get when they start learning about illness, they start to "feel" it in themselves.

There is a lot of info here on "infections" https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/has-anyone-ever-messed-up-batch-96644/

This is one of the best posts on the subject....

If you pitch enough viable, healthy yeast to do their job, it's hard to contaminate your brew to the point it isn't drinkable. Trust me, I've had an infection in my brewery, and I had to work really hard to get it! In my case, it was on the fourth generation of re-using yeast which I had not washed properly (I was still a n00b back then). Every time you reuse yeast you are growing the level of contamination by 100-1000x, so I learned the hard way you have to be very careful going beyond 1 or 2 re-uses of yeast.

BUT A new brewer following sanitary procedures using new equipment is very unlikely to have ruined beer. The worst thing that may happen is your beer will go sour after 4-6 months of room temperature storage. I doubt your beer will last that long.

You'll find that since beer has been made for millenia even before anyone understood germ theory, that even just the basic fact that we have indoor water, clean our living spaces and ourselves regularly and have closed waste systems, and a roof over our heads, that we are lightyears ahead of our ancestor brewers.

And despite the doomsayers who say that ancient beer was consumed young because it would go bad, they forget the fact that most of those beers were usually HOPLESS, and that the biggest reason hops were placed in beers was for it's antisceptic/preservative function.

So even if the beer had to be consumed young, it still must have tasted good enough to those folks most of the time to survive culturally for 4,000 years, and not go the way of pepsi clear or new coke. I'm sure even a few hundred or thousands of years ago, people were discerning enough to know if something tasted good or nasty...

Go take a look at my photo walkthrough of Labatt's first "pioneer" brewery from the 1840's https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/labatt-pioneer-brewery-128740/

Wood fermenters, open cooling pans, open doors, cracks in the logs and beams letting air in, and not one bottle of starsan in sight.

The way I figure even just having some soap and water, basic 21st century hygiene, and a basic understanding of germ theory trumps how it was done from Gilgamesh's time through Louis Pasteure's....

In most places we don't have to even worry about boiling our water before drinking it.

Best advice I have for new brewers, If you brew from fear, you won't make great beer!

You might make drinkable beer, or you might make crap...but until your realize that your beer is much hardier than you think it is, you will find that this is much more enjoyable of a hobby.

But it's kinda like when you have a brand new car, you park at the far end of the lot away from everyone else, you are paranoid about getting every little scratch on it...Then you are backing out of the garage and take off a mirror, or get a ding on the bumper, then you no-longer stress out about it, because you've popped the cars cherry...If you do pick up a bug, you just treat it and move on.

And the reason I have collected the stories in the thread I linked above is to counter the fear and fear mongering that often happens.

So rather than looking for infections under every bed or in every brew closet, focussing from fear on the negative, I think it's better to look at examples of just how hard it is to screw up our beer, how no matter what we can do to screw up, it still manages to turn out fine.

 

[Vinic]

but I think a lot of that is paranoia from reading Palmer online

You want to really get paranoid (and I know you do) try reading Noonan!

Holey Cow, from what he writes, seems like there is no possible way to make a beer without flaws! Not that there isn't benefit from reading it I've gone over most of it twice now.
​

 

[Revvy]

You want to really get paranoid (and I know you do) try reading Noonan!

Holey Cow, from what he writes, seems like there is no possible way to make a beer without flaws! Not that there isn't benefit from reading it I've gone over most of it twice now.
​

Yeah.

But even though Charlie Papazian repeatedly tells folks to RDWHAHB, even he has a few "paranoia paragraphs."

But I think it's easier to go back into that stuff once you've got a few brews under your belt, and you realize that your baby is not going to fold up and die if you look at it wrong.

 

[Revvy]

...maybe next time I'll ask the CraigTube guy

 

[BendBrewer]

I am confused about this:

Without thinking I poured my 100F wort into the carboy with a funnel and of course being a carboy lots of splashing and glugging occurred. I then topped off with cold tap water to make 5 gallons and shook it up to mix.

I can top off with cold tap water AFTER cooling the wort?

 

[MrPorter]

I am confused about this:



I can top off with cold tap water AFTER cooling the wort?

I need to get to around 75F before I can pour/aerate and pitch. I don't have a big enough pot yet to do a 5 gallon boil, so I can only boil at most 4 gallons at once.

After evaporation I need to add 1+ gallons to get to 5.

I don't know exactly how much to add until my wort is in the carboy and I can top up to the 5G level I marked with some tape.

If I allow my wort to cool to 75 before doing this, it will be below 75 after I add the cold water and will be a little on the cold side when I come to pitch.

For this reason I thought "ahah! If I pour it in around 100F then top up with cold water up to 5G it will be close to the ideal temperature AND I won't have to wait as long for my wort too cool. I must be a fecking genius..."

What I should have done is maybe let my wort get to 75F, pour into the carboy and topped off with some 75F water I heated on the stove.

 

[BendBrewer]

Yes, I have the same problem with hitting that 5 Gallon mark, but I was under the impression that once my wort got below 160 degrees I couldn't add anything that wasn't sanitized.

So I struggle with guessing total volume while in the kettle with all the hops and trub before dropping in my IC.

I would love to hear that I am doing it the hard way.

 

[MrPorter]

Yes, I have the same problem with hitting that 5 Gallon mark, but I was under the impression that once my wort got below 160 degrees I couldn't add anything that wasn't sanitized.

So I struggle with guessing total volume while in the kettle with all the hops and trub before dropping in my IC.

I would love to hear that I am doing it the hard way.

I think if you were paranoid you would boil and cool a couple of gallons of water and use that to top up your wort. I can't be bothered with that personally and have had no problems...then again, my second batch isn't even done yet

 

[Revvy]

I've never boiled my top off water either, and never had an issue.

 

[BendBrewer]

Ok, well part of feeling stupid is the realization that I did learn something.

I have no idea why I though adding clean tap water would infect my beer.

Thanks for setting me straight. As mentioned, I LOVE to hear that I was doing it the hard way.

 

[Revvy]

I have no idea why I though adding clean tap water would infect my beer.

Because a lot of folks believe so, when in reality if your water is good enough to drink, it is could enough to brew with....if there's no boil water advisory then you should be fine. Though some folks do pre-boil to drive off chlorine.

But like everything in brewing, there is more than one way to do things. And they all work. Some folks boil, some don't. Obviously if you didn't boil and you did get a bad batch, you'd more than likely start boiling.

 

[kidsmakeyoucrazy]

I listened to a podcast on the brewing network a few days ago. It was John Palmer, Jamil Zainechef (or how ever you spell it) and Dr. Charles Bamforth who apparently knows his stuff when it comes to beer and beer chemistry. One of the topics was hot side aeration and basically he said don't worry about it if you're doing ales and that in some cases it can actually help the beer. The podcast is here http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/475

But someone actually took the time to transcribe it and also posted the entire oxidation portion of the podcast here http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/5639.html

 

[MrPorter]

I listened to a podcast on the brewing network a few days ago. It was John Palmer, Jamil Zainechef (or how ever you spell it) and Dr. Charles Bamforth who apparently knows his stuff when it comes to beer and beer chemistry. One of the topics was hot side aeration and basically he said don't worry about it if you're doing ales and that in some cases it can actually help the beer. The podcast is here http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/475

But someone actually took the time to transcribe it and also posted the entire oxidation portion of the podcast here http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/5639.html

Thanks for that! I'm going to read it now. Speaking of podcasts I just spent over an hour here looking at their videos thanks to someone else on this site. I'm really glad I found this forum!
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=video

 

[Madvillain]

I'm just getting back into homebrewing after a 5 year hiatus . I did a PM Stout to get back into the swing of things last weekend, and forgot to attach any tubing to my mash tun for lautering. I knew I wanted to minimize splashing, but just brain farted on the tubing!

I knew the answer would be "It'll be fine", but leave it to HBT to ease the mind. Planning on an all-grain ESB this weekend. Cheers !