sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
I'm about to start a batch and wondering if vigorously stirring is enough aeration? it's much easier than shaking the entire fermenting bucket
Is stirring enough aeration?
- Thread starter sportscrazed2
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Shake the entire bucket. You get better aeration that way.
With dry yeast and a non-high gravity beer <6% ABV, you don't need to aerate it.
With a liquid yeast, and you don't have time to make a starter, or a high gravity beer, stirring isn't the best method. Instead, just pour the cooled wort into the fermenter creating as much splashing as possible, pour it back and forth from bucket to kettle a few times to churn it up really well. Do this after it's cooled off. Hot liquid can't hold much oxygen (see footnote)* and you will just be wasting your time, and probably burn yourself.
*Hot side aeration at best.. which is a bad thing.
With a liquid yeast, and you don't have time to make a starter, or a high gravity beer, stirring isn't the best method. Instead, just pour the cooled wort into the fermenter creating as much splashing as possible, pour it back and forth from bucket to kettle a few times to churn it up really well. Do this after it's cooled off. Hot liquid can't hold much oxygen (see footnote)* and you will just be wasting your time, and probably burn yourself.
*Hot side aeration at best.. which is a bad thing.
As previously stated, dry yeast doesn't need aeration. Liquid yest - if you can make a starter, do so. Last batch I had completely forgotten to aerate (and I just vigorously stir, since I make a starter each time). Because I had used the Mr. Malty calculator to determine my starter size - it took off within 24 hours.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
allright cool think i will go with the pouring back and forth method
hatfieldenator
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2010
- Messages
- 493
- Reaction score
- 18
I've been using liquid yeast for my last few batches and I've found stirring to be good enough for starting fermentation in a timely manner. Its actually more of a whipping motion then just simple stirring. I usually stir it quite violently creating lots of foamy bubbles on top of the wort. Then, I pitch the yeast and drain it into the fermenter allowing it to splash and slosh around as much as possible. By time I'm done it looks like theres already a krausen on top of the wort in the fermenter. Works for me!
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
and how long do you whip it for? i got 5 minutes left in my steep so it could be awhile before i get to the aeration
oceanselv
Well-Known Member
Don't aerate until the wort is cooled. The boil will certainly aerate the wort. However aerating after the boil runs the risk of hot side aeration. Too much aeration when the wort is hot can produce off flavors. Once your wort is cooled enough you can simply pour the chilled wort into your fermenter to aerate the wort or you can pith a stirred starter as well.
Oh god...how come noone put to bed this HSA nonsense?????? Can we PLEASE put this one to bed.
HSA is another one of those boogeymen 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. And our beers turn out fine, not instantocardboard or whatever you hide under your bunks laying awake night worrying about.
HSA for homebrewers is waaaayyyyy paranoia...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?
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.....
Last edited by a moderator:
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
so just pouring it into the bucket from height should cause enough aeration? i've washed the fermenter about 5 times and while the wort cools i plan on wipping up a 5 gallon batch of star san and not pouring it out until i'm ready to pour wort into fermenter. i would hate for some bacteria to end up on the spoon or get into wort while shaking the fermenting bucket. don't they sell some kind of aeration system for around $30? do you need an oxygen tank for an ea you need an o2 tank for something like this? http://www.northernbrewer.com/default/review/product/list/id/931/
For aeration I use the Stainless aquarium stone, regulator and 02 bottle. This is the William's brewing version;
Mine didn't have the tubing, so I took a broken piece of racking cane, cut a tiny piece of the hose as a bridge connect and rigged up my own. And I just use the regular red 02 bottle from my hardware store.
Mine didn't have the tubing, so I took a broken piece of racking cane, cut a tiny piece of the hose as a bridge connect and rigged up my own. And I just use the regular red 02 bottle from my hardware store.
Boiling does not aerate the wort (or any other liquid). In fact it does the exact opposite. All those little bubbles you see before a full boil are the gasses coming out of solution. We need to aerate the wort precisely because we boil it - by the end of a 60+ minute boil there is little oxygen left.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
yeah the whole purpose of aerating wort is too add back the oxygen lost during boiling
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
update beer is in fermenter right now i shook it a little and a little wort flew out the side. i twisted it side to side for awhile as well. i hope it got enough aeration during the pour to properly ferment
You also don't need 5 gallons of star san solution. Get a spray bottle and mix up a solution using distilled water. It will last for several weeks in a sealed container. With star san you only need to get the surface wet. Spray down the inside of the fermenter making sure you get every surface on the inside and the cover wet a few minutes before you are going to pour your wort in. Not so soon that it dries but soon enough that it will get a couple minutes of contact time. Pour out the excess just before pouring your wort in. Your way will work fine but in the long run you will use a lot less sanitizer with a spray bottle. Then again, do whatever makes you comfortable that things are sanitized.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
yeah i know but i'm not too good with math and didn't want to scale back amount of star san.
One ounce for 5 gallons. 1/5 of an ounce for one gallon. 1/5 is close to 1/4 which should be marked on your Star San bottle. Fill it up to just under the 1/4 mark. It may not be exactly right but it should be close.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
allright cool next time i will just do a 1 gallon batch with distilled water and fill a spray bottle and spray it 2 minutes before transfer to fermenting bucket. edit but do you think i got enough aeration doing what i did?
damnyankee
Well-Known Member
I don't know if aerating is voodoo or not as I'm brewing my first batch. I didn't see the harm in doing it so I used my old Braun MR400 hand blender (Emeril Lagasse calls it "the boat motor") and it only took a minute or two to work up a heckuva froth.
I then pitched my dry yeast into the foamy wort with a gentle fold in, and by the time I turned my back to put the lid on, the yeast was starting to work. If this yeast is like dry instant yeast that I'm used to using for baking - Saccharomyces cerevisiae - everything should turn out fine.
Good luck!!!
DY
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
don't know why i'm so worried. i used a smack pack which basically activates the yeast before pouring it into wort. if im correct then the yeast just needs enough oxygen to get going which since i used a smack pack it was already activated
Well, no. The smack pack is only to check viability of the yeast, not to proprogate the yeast. You want to aerate well, that's for sure.
Stirring well, agitating, pouring through a strainer, etc, all work to aerate the wort. It's not hard to do, and it's worth it.
I use liquid yeast and make a small starter. I've never had problems with
fermentation, but I don't used a relatively closed system that some all grain
brewers use, where the cooled wort is dropped into the fermenter without
agitation. I pour the wort through a funnel (the type with the fine nylon
sieve built in) and that breaks up the liquid as is passes through, aerating
it by exposing a lot of surface area to the air, and creating a lot of splashing
as it hits the liquid below which also helps aerate.
Ray
fermentation, but I don't used a relatively closed system that some all grain
brewers use, where the cooled wort is dropped into the fermenter without
agitation. I pour the wort through a funnel (the type with the fine nylon
sieve built in) and that breaks up the liquid as is passes through, aerating
it by exposing a lot of surface area to the air, and creating a lot of splashing
as it hits the liquid below which also helps aerate.
Ray
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
so when should i start to worry about in adequate aeration? it's only been 2 hours sinced i pitched it. if i shake it up a little with airlock still on will it get me any extra aeration? think before i do another brew i will invest in some of those paint stirrers you can attach to your drill
I wouldn't worry about it for this batch. Next batch, you can use a paint stirrer if you want. Or you can shake/stir/agitate. Or use an aquarium pump. Or use an O2 tank and oxygen stone. The method really doesn't matter, but aeration is good for the yeast.
Keep in mind that you might have a double whammy here, though- if you used liquid yeast without a starter, and not aerating besides, you may not have the healthiest yeast going into the fermentation. In my opinion, pitching the proper amount of yeast and controlling fermentation temperature are THE most important things in making good beer. It all relates to yeast health. I think the main problem with many beers I've judged have been yeast issues, with oxidation as a close second.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
alright heres hoping for the best.
If it has only been a few hours there is no harm in agitating - in fact it may help if you are under aerated. You want to avoid aeration once significant alcohol is produced but this early this is not a problem.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
so is around 4 hours too late to agitate it a little? or should i just leave well enough alone?
Laughing_Gnome_Invisible
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2008
- Messages
- 12,262
- Reaction score
- 733
This goes for just about anything brewing related......If you don't know, stand back and do nothing. The beer knows best.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
i shook it for about 5-10 seconds should be alright i'm not bothering doing anymore
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
update well my airlock looks like an iv dripping now hopefully due to released co2
