Oxygenate before wort is at pitch temp?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

JonK331

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
2,097
Reaction score
39
Location
Fremont, CA
So as I was chilling my wort today I was thinking, "why not start oxygenating (I use O2 tank, sanitary air filter, and carb stone) at around 90-100F while the wort is still chilling (immersion chiller)." Is there some reason not to do this? I usually wait till pitch temp to oxygenate but I can't see a reason why to not do it earlier. It does save a few minutes in the end. All responses will be much appreciated! Cheers:mug:
 
I would think the reason to wait until the beer is at pitch temp is due to the saturation of O2 at the pitch temp. As you continue to cool the wort the O2 you charged into the wort at 90 will probably gas off by the time the temp gets down to 68 for pitchin' ... That's just a guess :) But another thing, after I'm chilled and in the fermenter it only takes 1 min to oxygenate with an airstone and an O2 canister. Why worry about 1 min? Then I pitch the yeast into a very oxygen rich wort and I have bubbling within 6 hours, sometimes sooner.
 
Personally I don't think you'll see your O2 levels at an optimal level if the wort is 100+ degrees as the amount of O2 that can be absorbed is quite a bit less, however I'm unsure if you can achieve minimum requirements ( ~8-15ppm according to most references), without supersaturating the wort, I believe 100% saturation in pure water at ~ 90deg F is about 8ppm, given that wort will absorb less O2 than water I think it's safe to say you probably wont see benefit and would probably lower the total amount of O2 in your wort.
 
Back
Top