Wort aeration

[kevinb]

How do you aerate wort before pitching yeast?

 

[DoubleAught]

I shake da hell out of my carboy for 10-15 minutes. It works for me but there are better methods.

 

[Dan]

Kevin, different strokes for different folks. Check out this thread.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/aerating-your-wort-101613/

 

[carluchi]

Depends. Do you have an oxygen tank or an airation stone? If not you can just shake the crap out of your bucket. Not the best, but works good enough.

 

[kevinb]

I don't have and aeration stone or pump and was wondering if I needed to purchase.

 

[djfriesen]

I bought a $20 aeration wand that fits in my drill. It's like a paint stirrer, but with pivoting mixing paddles. Stick it down the neck of your carboy (after sanitizing, of course), and whip the hell out of your beer. Pretty quick and very painless.

 

[thedude00]

I shake the hell out it for 5 or so minutes and never have any problems.

 

[kh54s10]

Shaking the bejeebers out of it has worked fine for me. I don't feel the need for anything more.

 

[kevinb]

Has anyone tried using a hand mixer (typically used for baking) to aerate before pouring into the carboy? Can anyone see an issue with that idea?

 

[step]

Shaking or drill/mixer attachments are only going to get you a max of ~8 ppm O2 in your wort. Purging the headspace with pure oxygen and then shaking will get you into the 15ish ppm zone and pure O2 through a diffusion stone can get you into the low 20's ppm. For my money I use pure O2 to purge the headspace in my fermentor and then shake the ish out of it for 45 sec. 5 min of shaking will yield no more O2 saturation than 1 min.

 

[eastoak]

Has anyone tried using a hand mixer (typically used for baking) to aerate before pouring into the carboy? Can anyone see an issue with that idea?

unless you are aerating a bowl full of wort a hand mixer is too wimpy. for a 5 gallon batch closing the fermentor and shaking it is a much better option.

 

[OkashiiBrew]

Oxygen worked much better than "shake an ferment" as the time to start of fermentation and FG showed. The jury is still out on taste.

 

[gmcastil]

I found this video from White Labs rather helpful:

 

[DonutMuncher]

Thanks for the video gmcastil.

I stir vigorously with a large spoon. But I'm starting to think I should start shaking my bucket as well.

 

[gmcastil]

I cover the top of my carboy with sanitized plastic wrap, place it on the carpet, and then shake it back and forth for a couple of minutes. I also don't pitch yeast without making a starter first. Oxygenation and cell counts are both important to getting the yeast off to a good start.

And obviously, temperature control during fermentation is crucial.

 

[dbhokie]

We stir the wort after it reaches an appropriate cooldown temperature (depends on the type of brew as to how far I cool it down, counting for exothermic fermentation to take place and heat it back up some, some Belgians I won't cool down as much), then pour the wort into a bucket. We then take another sanitized bucket and pour it back and forth between the two buckets a few times, always seem to have good results.

 

[helibrewer]

I use pure O2 at a 1L rate for 1 minute in 5 gallons. I also use it in the starter along with some FermAid-K

 

[cadarnell]

I just saw a youtube vid with a dude from a wyeast saying shaking the carboy for 45 seconds will do the trick ... no need to shake it beyond that because you are not getting anymore air into the wort after that ..

 

[kevinb]

Thanks for all the feedback. As suggested, I shook the bajeepers out of the carboy for about two minutes. I got a nice layer of foam on top. The airlock is in place, come on bubbles..........