As a homebrew beer crafter, one of the biggest challenges that we have to overcome in proper aeration. Here is one tale sent in from a forum member that addresses his own journey down this wort road.-Ed
Hello everyone,
Please let me allow you to introduce myself and create a little background for this article. I have been brewing for nearly 1 year at the time of this article and have brewed a total of 12 five gallon batches of different types of beer. I have also made mead and wine. I am a strong believer in"If you can buy it you can build it" and randomly came across the following article by aarong:
Wort Aeration & How To Build A Free Pump
In his article he describes the use of the venturi effect to aerate wort without the use of aeration stones or other techniques commonly employed in home brewing.
In this article I would like to present my findings and experiences of this technique.
Background:
aarong's principle uses two worm clamps and a single circular hole in between these two clamps. Using a common auto-siphon found in most every homebrew kitchens, he succeeds in adding oxygen/different colored fluid to plain water.
For my own experiment I created a batch of Bavarian "Dampfbier", which I had brewed previously to test the effect of oxygenation and compare the findings to my previous method of stirring/shaking the carboy. The recipe is as follows:
Steped up to 154F using boiling water for 30 mins
Batch sparged and boiled for 60 mins. The wort was cooled in the snow from boiling to 90F in 15 mins outside (I do not have a wort chiller yet)
Wyeast 3068 Wheinstephan was activated at the beginning of the mash and pitched without stirring into the wort that was aerated with the technique described by aarong. In my previous batch the yeast was pitched, and the wort aerated using a mashpadded inside the carboy.
Methodology:
In order to recreate the technique described by aarong, I attached the two worm clamps towards the bottom end of a 1/4" ID, 6ft long plastic hose (food grade plastic hose obtained from my local homebrew store and identical to the one used in aarong's article). I tightened the clamps as far as it was possible without having an accurate measurement of how wide the gap had to be. I proceeded to cut a small 2 mm big hole into the middle of the two clamps with a pocket knife. I was unsure as to how big the hole needed to be and was afraid that a too big hole would spill wort instead of suck oxygen in.
I sanitized the hose inside and out with starsan and made sure to spray the clamps just in case the wort would run out of the hose. I sanitized my autosiphon and attached the hose to it.
Results:
The following pictures show the process of using the technique.
The wort was racked out of the aluminum 9 gal pot using the autosiphon. The wort was clear without trub.
The technique worked as described by aarong. The little hole sucked up air (it had a bubbling noise to it) and mixed it with the wort to create a cloudy looking wort going into the fermentor (6 gallon plastic bucket).
Close up of the clamp assembly. The wort definitely was getting oxygenated.
Halfway through racking the wort. A healthy layer of foam similar to "splashing" around the beer formed.
Yeast:
The yeast was pitched into the wort without stirring up. A single smackpack (activated) was pitched into 90F (yeah, a little warm but it was getting late) wort. The same beer was brewed with the same conditions (pitched yeast at 90F also) but stirred that one.
The lag phase was a lot shorter. first fermentation activity started after 3 hours. The beer had a healthy 1 1/2 in krausen layer after 8 hours. In the previous batch that was stirred, the lag phase took about 4-5 hours with a smaller krausen after 8 hours.
Discussion and conclusion:
This technique is very useful for aerating wort at a budget and reduces the need for sanitization and contact of wort with additional equipment like an aeration pump. Similarly the process reduces the physical effort and increases the quality of oxygenation for people on a budget. The only shortcomings come from time spent. It took twice as long to rack 5 gallons into the fermenter.
Conclusions:
This is a great technique and further testing should be done. 2 clamps from the hardware store are only about 50 cent and the wort is being exposed to less contamination sources. Further testing would be needed to determine the actual amount of O2 added to the wort by brewing more badges.
Hope this will is informative for people.
Cheers
Hello everyone,
Please let me allow you to introduce myself and create a little background for this article. I have been brewing for nearly 1 year at the time of this article and have brewed a total of 12 five gallon batches of different types of beer. I have also made mead and wine. I am a strong believer in"If you can buy it you can build it" and randomly came across the following article by aarong:
Wort Aeration & How To Build A Free Pump
In his article he describes the use of the venturi effect to aerate wort without the use of aeration stones or other techniques commonly employed in home brewing.
In this article I would like to present my findings and experiences of this technique.
Background:
aarong's principle uses two worm clamps and a single circular hole in between these two clamps. Using a common auto-siphon found in most every homebrew kitchens, he succeeds in adding oxygen/different colored fluid to plain water.
For my own experiment I created a batch of Bavarian "Dampfbier", which I had brewed previously to test the effect of oxygenation and compare the findings to my previous method of stirring/shaking the carboy. The recipe is as follows:
- 8 lbs German pilsen
- 4 lbs munich malt
- 1 oz 4.0% AA Tettnang (60 min)
- 0.25 oz 4.0% AA Tettnang (15 min)
- 0.25 oz 4.0% AA Tettnang (5 min)
- 0.25 oz 10.0% AA Zythos (5 min)
Steped up to 154F using boiling water for 30 mins
Batch sparged and boiled for 60 mins. The wort was cooled in the snow from boiling to 90F in 15 mins outside (I do not have a wort chiller yet)
Wyeast 3068 Wheinstephan was activated at the beginning of the mash and pitched without stirring into the wort that was aerated with the technique described by aarong. In my previous batch the yeast was pitched, and the wort aerated using a mashpadded inside the carboy.
Methodology:
In order to recreate the technique described by aarong, I attached the two worm clamps towards the bottom end of a 1/4" ID, 6ft long plastic hose (food grade plastic hose obtained from my local homebrew store and identical to the one used in aarong's article). I tightened the clamps as far as it was possible without having an accurate measurement of how wide the gap had to be. I proceeded to cut a small 2 mm big hole into the middle of the two clamps with a pocket knife. I was unsure as to how big the hole needed to be and was afraid that a too big hole would spill wort instead of suck oxygen in.
I sanitized the hose inside and out with starsan and made sure to spray the clamps just in case the wort would run out of the hose. I sanitized my autosiphon and attached the hose to it.
Results:
The following pictures show the process of using the technique.
The wort was racked out of the aluminum 9 gal pot using the autosiphon. The wort was clear without trub.
The technique worked as described by aarong. The little hole sucked up air (it had a bubbling noise to it) and mixed it with the wort to create a cloudy looking wort going into the fermentor (6 gallon plastic bucket).
Close up of the clamp assembly. The wort definitely was getting oxygenated.
Halfway through racking the wort. A healthy layer of foam similar to "splashing" around the beer formed.
Yeast:
The yeast was pitched into the wort without stirring up. A single smackpack (activated) was pitched into 90F (yeah, a little warm but it was getting late) wort. The same beer was brewed with the same conditions (pitched yeast at 90F also) but stirred that one.
The lag phase was a lot shorter. first fermentation activity started after 3 hours. The beer had a healthy 1 1/2 in krausen layer after 8 hours. In the previous batch that was stirred, the lag phase took about 4-5 hours with a smaller krausen after 8 hours.
Discussion and conclusion:
This technique is very useful for aerating wort at a budget and reduces the need for sanitization and contact of wort with additional equipment like an aeration pump. Similarly the process reduces the physical effort and increases the quality of oxygenation for people on a budget. The only shortcomings come from time spent. It took twice as long to rack 5 gallons into the fermenter.
Conclusions:
This is a great technique and further testing should be done. 2 clamps from the hardware store are only about 50 cent and the wort is being exposed to less contamination sources. Further testing would be needed to determine the actual amount of O2 added to the wort by brewing more badges.
Hope this will is informative for people.
Cheers
my article was posted. I hope everyone can enjoy and benefit from it ... and I hope no one is offended by all the numerous typos in the document haha.
