Hot wort aeration tastes like s***

[remilard]

Exactly the point of my post. The "little jostling" and the relatively little heat associated with mashing and sparging are almost certainly not enough to incite a chemical bonding between molecules. Maybe if you are aerosolizing the wort under pressure at +boiling temps you can experience the non-joy of HSA but otherwise no worries.

Lautering/sparging works precisely because the heat involved is enough to dissolve sugar into water, which is a chemical reaction.

Oxidative reactions clearly occur at much lower temperatures than used in sparging, the question is whether or not they happen very rapidly at those temperatures.

It seems that HSA is believed to be a practical problem generally by the people funding and carrying out research into the question.

There are a lot of references to Narziss on HSA but I can not get the articles and don't read German anyway. I did find this:

HOMEBREW Digest #3045 Tue 01 June 1999

Which indicates that Dave Radzanowski at Siebel believes that HSA is an issue in beers stored for an extended time under adverse circumstances. This doesn't apply to most homebrew since the people who brew enough to have beer on hand for 6 months or more tend to also have cold storage and all homebrewers at least keep the beer in a reasonably dark and cool place. However, when Gordon Strong was interviewed on brewing network he said he drove his beers to the second round of NHC because he believes in his extensive judging experience there that a lot of the beers are off due to having been shipped in the summer. Either he or someone else on the show mentioned tracking down a bottle of one of their own beers that was shipped and it was clearly worse than it had been before it left home.

So I am more or less convinced HSA is not a myth but I am willing to agree that it is not a practical problem for beer that will be stored well at all times.

 

[Quikfeet509]

In order to speed up cooling of my wort after boiling, I have been stirring it with a sanitized thermometer. My thought process was that since I was relying primarily on conduction to cool the wort (ice --> stainless steel pot --> hot wort), stirring the wort would help it cool faster.


It worked. 3 Gallons of boiling wort down to 95* F (where I dump in 2 gallons of cold water which brings the 5 gallons to 70*F) all in 35 minutes.



But then I started reading about HSA in Palmer and now this thread...I guess I'll see in a few weeks when my first batch utilizing the stir-technique is RTD.

 

[Homercidal]

Did you smell the hops before using? Couple of brews ago I was going to use a half-bag of hops that were taped back up and stored in fridge. I ALWAYS smell my hops (several times) before putting in, and the first whiff was like?? Cheese??

I gave to a friend and after a sniff or two he agreed. I looked it up and is was old hops. Not that old, but going bad anyway.

Now I can tell you that they were nowhere near 1 year old. Just got left out and poorly stored after opening.

Also, it could be an infection.

 

[david_42]

The aroma is sweet and almost moldy.

That does sound like HSA.

Autolysis smells like a badly contaminated cesspool. No idea what it tastes like.

 

[thantos]

Hey All,
My two cents worth, after talking with some of our fermentation experts in the lab is that here is you answer!

if you are aerosolizing the wort under pressure at +boiling temps you can experience the non-joy of HSA but otherwise no worries.

They main thing they stressed was that it is a temp vs pressure issue and that the atomization of the oxygen present wanting to bond with the wort would be caused by the temp, pressure and aerolization (sp?). The best example I can think of would be imagine taking your hot wort and putting it into a hudson sprayer (One of those 5 gallon bug sprayers) pumping it up with pressure and then spraying/misting that mixture into your fermenter or brew kettle. I really think it is a non issue as most of us use gravity to transfer and the pumped systems are not aerosolizing the wort enough to do any damage!

 

[beerkrump]

Great HSA article. A little too in depth for some, but science geeks should enjoy it.

 

[isleofman]

Brew Strong Podcast on HSA. The Brewing Network.com - :
very enlightening, albeit a little too technical in some parts.

 

[Pith]

Hi.

Just dribbled a porter mash into the kettle. Forgot to use a hose. I should be okay though, right. It was falling about 2/3 of a foot into the kettle.

 

[Pith]

Lautering/sparging works precisely because the heat involved is enough to dissolve sugar into water, which is a chemical reaction.

It's not a chemical reaction. Sugar is not chemically "bonding" with the water to create a new molecule in the same way as oxygen might bond with wort compounds during supposed HSA, it's just dissolving.