Wort Aeration

[WoodlandBrew]

2.71 ppm when shaking for 5 minutes? Wyeast's website shows 8 ppm when shaking for one minute.

That is a huge deviation in results. I wonder why that is.

 

[helibrewer]

That is a huge deviation in results. I wonder why that is.

I'm guessing too many variables; method of shaking, container used, headspace, temperature, etc.

 

[photolimo]

That is a huge deviation in results. I wonder why that is.

This is why I am looking for actual methods with measured results in PPM. The study done in the "Yeast" book was conducted by White Labs. I suppose the answer is in how they conducted the "Shaken" wort.

Here is a snippet from their website:

Most homebrewers add oxygen into wort by shaking the carboy. This can only achieve 10-30% of desired dissolved oxygen levels. Commercial brewers force oxygen into wort using an inline aeration stone. Homebrewers can find oxygen stones at most homebrew shops.

 

[osagedr]

This, as with so many other homebrew questions, always comes down to people wanting to defend the way they do things. So few people approach this with an open mind.

"I do _________________ and my beer always turns out GREAT!!!!"

Unless you are saying that from behind a big box of NHC medals, your beer can get better.

Kudos to those who are looking for a scientific explanation of what the optimal way to do things is.

 

[bobbrews]

And in the same manner, many novice/intermediate brewers tend to nitpick and overanalyze because for some reason their methods haven't produced the beer of their dreams. They want to know why that is, and stress themselves out for a solution that doesn't exist. They are simply overlooking or overanalyzing things, which are actually preventing them from success.

It's more about keeping things simple and understanding your processes/ingredients rather than spending $2,000 on fancy equipment and believing 100% in a scientific source which offers ideal numbers based on a study that does not necessarily work for all homebrewer systems.

Knowledge is great. And by all means, continue to immerse yourself as much as possible about different brewing techniques. But there comes a point when a guy with a kettle, a spoon, a bucket, and the K.I.S.S. method (Keep-It-Simple-Stupid) can outbrew you with all your fancy methods/equipment and that extra book you read, which you put all your faith in, without relying on actual experience.

 

[photolimo]

2.71 ppm when shaking for 5 minutes? Wyeast's website shows 8 ppm when shaking for one minute.

For the standard full carboy or bucket, it's probably somewhere in the middle. You're just not shaking enough air into the liquid this way. But if you vigorously shake a half-filled carboy, swirl it for a minute in open air, and then let that air blanket sit atop the wort, then you should have closer to, if not, 8 ppm 02 concentration after whipping in all of that air.

As I said before, I have done this method for hundreds of brews and never had an issue with yeast health or the quality of my final beer.

What is the attenuation you achieve on these hundreds of brews using this method?

 

[bobbrews]

84-85% apparent attenuation

Just helped a friend out with two beers. We aerated using the shake method for two ales that used Wyeast 1028 and WLP090.

Though, there is a lot more to do with attaining great attenuation than just proper aeration.

 

[MaxOut]

This, as with so many other homebrew questions, always comes down to people wanting to defend the way they do things. So few people approach this with an open mind.

"I do _________________ and my beer always turns out GREAT!!!!"

Unless you are saying that from behind a big box of NHC medals, your beer can get better.

Kudos to those who are looking for a scientific explanation of what the optimal way to do things is.

I agree 100% many say they brew great beer but can they brew the same beer repeatable? Could their great beer become outstanding beer?

I may be considered nitpicky or guilty of overanalyzing but I feel I’ve learned allot in a little amount of time by being this way. Different strokes for different folks. I always try to brew in a controlled environment and take notes because I like the challenge. If I do brew a beer I like I can repeat it, if I brew a beer that needs tweaking I can make controlled changes to get the desired effect. Cause and effect. Without observation, procedures and notes how can you be certain any of your methods have the desired effect, how do you determine changes in recipes, procedures etc. We all brew for different reasons and it’s all good.

 

[bobbrews]

If identical repeatability is what you want, then you have a lot more to worry about than scientific explanations about wort aeration. Many breweries have slight issues with identical repeatability, other than Budweiser.

But focusing on that one area as the sole reason for bettering your beer is silly... especially when the method you're reading about in a book does not apply to your particular system. My point is that can still have great to outstanding beer everytime by not overanalyzing some of these topics as much as you do. I'm not saying that you should just wing it everytime. But there comes a point when you understand enough through experience to not be so hung up on every single detail.

 

[osagedr]

And in the same manner, many novice/intermediate brewers tend to nitpick and overanalyze because for some reason their methods haven't produced the beer of their dreams. They want to know why that is, and stress themselves out for a solution that doesn't exist. They are simply overlooking or overanalyzing things, which are actually preventing them from success.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. People aren't making good beer because they are overlooking and overanalyzing? Which is it? People who are trying to figure out the optimal way to do things are miles ahead of lazy brewers who convince themselves their beers are "great" no matter how poor their process is. "Oh, I underpitch, I don't aerate, I don't control my temperature...but my buddies always LOVE my beer! They can't get enough free beer! It must be GREAT!!!"

It's more about keeping things simple and understanding your processes/ingredients rather than spending $2,000 on fancy equipment and believing 100% in a scientific source which offers ideal numbers based on a study that does not necessarily work for all homebrewer systems.

I agree. What has science ever contributed to brewing?

Knowledge is great. And by all means, continue to immerse yourself as much as possible about different brewing techniques. But there comes a point when a guy with a kettle, a spoon, a bucket, and the K.I.S.S. method (Keep-It-Simple-Stupid) can outbrew you with all your fancy methods/equipment and that extra book you read, which you put all your faith in, without relying on actual experience.

Exactly. Guys like Jamil with all their fancy book learnin' and sciency equipment can't measure up to Bob's spoon and bucket.

 

[bobbrews]

I'm not going to acknowledge some of this because you're just ranting, but...

People who are trying to figure out the optimal way to do things are miles ahead of lazy brewers who convince themselves their beers are "great" no matter how poor their process is.

Two extremes, and there are detriments to each extreme. Being too hung up on the details, which may not even matter, may be just as bad as neglecting them altogether. There's nothing wrong with teaching yourself something with that perfectionist type of mentality. I get that. But there comes a point when you realize that you were worrying about things all along that did not actually better your beer.

Think of it like racing. There are perfectionists out there who spend thousands upgrading their little ricer engine, buying the best of the best, most popular, state of the art equipment. And then they race a classic muscle car, with little work done to it, and the ricer loses the 1/4 mile by a whole 3 seconds.

 

[osagedr]

But there comes a point when you realize that you were worrying about things all along that did not actually better your beer.

I can agree that brewers will end up worrying about things that they later will come to realize did not affect the quality of their beer. Experience is incredibly important. It's also true that budget constraints will keep brewers from having all the toys that may help them brew better beer.

I'm glad you used a racing analogy. Pure O2 in your wort is like nitrous oxide in your engine. You don't need it but it sure improves performance.

 

[photolimo]

That is a huge deviation in results. I wonder why that is.

Here is the response to the deviation from Chris White, the author of the "Yeast" book. Turns out he is fairly easy to get a hold of.

Yeah I've seen that Wyeast number but in my experience that is very high. I think it came from Gregg Doss and he is a big guy haha. Our shaking experiments are in a carboy on the ground, shaking/stiring the carboy by hand for 5 min.

It would be great if we could get a full explanation of this method to clear up some of the confusion around these numbers.

Does anybody have a Dissolved Oxygen meter that they can check these other methods? It would be great if we could document a reliable repeatable method for shaking/stirring or using a drill.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

Does anybody have a Dissolved Oxygen meter that they can check these other methods? It would be great if we could document a reliable repeatable method for shaking/stirring or using a drill.[/QUOTE]

That would be wonderful data to see! You can also measure dissolved oxygen with titration. Using something like this:

Hanna Instruments HI3810 Dissolved Oxygen Test Kit, For Approximate 110 Tests

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Because i typically use whole hops i pour my wort through a big fine mesh metal strainer as its going into my bucket. At the end of that my beer has like a 2-3 inch layer of foam on top, i always just assumed that was close to enough oxygen...but i typically rock the fermenter back and forth with the lid on to agitate it a bit more...

 

[3sheetsEMJ]

This, as with so many other homebrew questions, always comes down to people wanting to defend the way they do things. So few people approach this with an open mind.

"I do _________________ and my beer always turns out GREAT!!!!"

Unless you are saying that from behind a big box of NHC medals, your beer can get better.

Kudos to those who are looking for a scientific explanation of what the optimal way to do things is.

While I agree that "good enough" may not be good enough for some folks, I believe that with most novice/intermediate brewers the idea is to isolate the variables that greatly affect the beer quality first, such a ferm temps, boiling process and even recipe- the low lying fruit- then move toward the finer details, such as aerated wort. I would say that very few of us even get to the level where exact wort aeration is a Primary concern to the quality of the brew. I mean if youre looking to start a brewing company, then yes you Have to worry about these details.

I admit I have made the comment above, but I am only speaking to the beginner brewer who is afraid that his/her beer will be ruined if these types of variable are not exact. If you are looking to improve every slight aspect of your brew, then thats awesome please continue, but my comment is not for you. I know what you might say, that we should give advice to beginners that is good advice and not just "good enough", but really, if i splash my wort and have gotten consistent results after 20+ brews, then I would say its at least satisfactory for a beginner. And in the same sense, giving a beginner too much info can be just as harmful. Learning how to brew beer is just like any other hobby, sometimes you just have to do it over and over again and find what works for you. Give a beginner too much Scientific data and they may not even know where to start.

Id also like to point out that even large scale brewerys get O2 issues. I know the plant manager of a large brewey in town and he gave me a case of "high O2" beer that they couldnt sell bc the oxygen levels were too high. The beer tasted great but the shelf life was deminished. The point is, even with world class equipment, O2 issues can still happen, and you can still make awesome beer haha.

 

[osagedr]

I believe that with most novice/intermediate brewers the idea is to isolate the variables that greatly affect the beer quality first, such a ferm temps, boiling process and even recipe- the low lying fruit...

Fermentation affects beer quality more than any other variable. As you note, temperature control is a big part of this, but so are proper pitching rates and creating the best possible conditions for your yeast. These are much more important than "boiling process" (drain into kettle, sparge, add heat?) or recipe formulation, both of which are incredibly straightforward. It won't matter how good your recipe is if you don't ferment it properly. By contrast, there are thousands of tried-and-true recipes out there covering every imaginable style.

Given that any brewer can start aerating with pure oxygen for probably less than $50, I'd certainly consider it "low-hanging fruit." There's a reason commercial breweries do it. The "large brewery in town" must have really screwed up to have an issue like that.

 

[3sheetsEMJ]

Given that any brewer can start aerating with pure oxygen for probably less than $50, I'd certainly consider it "low-hanging fruit." There's a reason commercial breweries do it. The "large brewery in town" must have really screwed up to have an issue like that.

Yes fermentation is probably the most important step, but I wouldnt say buying pure oxygen is low hanging fruit for a beginner. We can agree to disagree with this, thats fine with me.

As far as large brewerys doing it, yes they have to keep all variables as close to identical as possible in order to have repeatable quality product. This can still go awry from time to time. As with any production process, you have upper and lower quality thresholds, and outside of these limits the product is scrapped. No production process is perfect. Trust me on this one- I used to be an engineer in an aerospace manufacturing plant where we made the inside of jet engines. We made scrap, sure, but theidea is that you find the product with defects and scrap them so they dont get to the customer. Its the same with beer. The beer was delicious by the way, and lasted very long in my fridge!

 

[bobbrews]

There's a reason commercial breweries do it.

Also, brewing thousands of dollars worth of hectolitres of beer with commercial equipment, large-scale brewing processes, wide-scale distribution, and all of the other factors in between is totally different than how the average 5 gallon homebrewer brews beer. In short, just because they jump off the bridge doesn't mean all of us should... or even need to as it pertains to producing high quality beer.

 

[osagedr]

Also, brewing thousands of dollars worth of hectolitres of beer with commercial equipment, large-scale brewing processes, wide-scale distribution, and all of the other factors in between is totally different than how the average 5 gallon homebrewer brews beer. In short, just because they jump off the bridge doesn't mean all of us should... or even need to as it pertains to producing high quality beer.

Either it improves their beer, or it doesn't. Breweries do it because they believe it improves their beer.

Either it improves home brewed beer, or it doesn't. Many homebrewers do it because they believe it improves their beer.

The scientific literature explains why and how it improves beer. That's all I need to make my decision--but not everyone wants to make their beer better. They just want it to be "good enough." More power to them. Maybe some have tried it and decided it doesn't make their beer better, so they abandoned the practise. So be it.

 

[bobbrews]

Trust me, I'm in the camp to make better beer. But when you don't see the benefits with one proposed method vs. another, you can kinda call bull$hit. 02 infusion does have benefits for larger than normal, very high OG batches, and full carboys where you can't shake enough air into the wort. But in some cases, as previously described, the shake method performs perfectly well.

 

[osagedr]

You can call bull$hit on whether you personally were doing it right, but you can't call bull$hit on science, the brewing literature, commercial breweries, or award-winning homebrewers.

Well, you can...but that would make you an idiot.

 

[bobbrews]

Think of it like wort chilling. Do you need a wort chiller to cool 2 gallons of beer in a reasonable amount of time? No, ice can do this quite well. But I would definitely recommend a wort chiller to cool 10 gallons of beer.

Who's the idiot? Because I thought that was using your head vs. just repeating what you read.

 

[osagedr]

Who's the idiot? Because I thought that was using your head vs. just repeating what you read.

The idiot would be the one thinking they are right but science, the brewing literature, professional brewers, and award-winning homebrewers are wrong. I've not met this hypothetical idiot yet. I hope eons of evolution and natural selection have combined to ensure this hypothetical idiot will never exist.

 

[MaxOut]

I'll go with the "Science" if you want you can shake and guess. Whatever works for you. I apply what I read and don't spend allot of time re inventing the wheel or trying to disprove science. Experience doesn't necessarily make you a better brewer. I'd rather let someone else make mistakes instead of learning through my own trial and error. I'm intelligent enough to realize what I'm reading and the source.

 

[bobbrews]

The idiot would be the one thinking they are right but science, the brewing literature, professional brewers, and award-winning homebrewers are wrong. I've not met this hypothetical idiot yet. I hope eons of evolution and natural selection have combined to ensure this hypothetical idiot will never exist.

The funny thing is I was never refuting science, so I'm not sure where you got that from my argument. Re read the wort chilling example... same principle. This necessary 02 system that you're gunning for does not make a better beer in all cases for every brewers' system and style of beer that they typially brew. Sometimes there are just more simple ways of doing things... and the end results are still on point. Other times, certain processes are necessary for attaining a high quality product. In another example, I hate topping off with a passion, but topping off 6 gallons of beer with 1 gallon of water is far better than topping off with 3 gallons of water.

 

[scinerd3000]

Does anyone have data on the disadvantages of over-aerating with pure O2 and a stone? I know the problems it causes with shelf life and post-fermentation DO, I would be interested to see what it does for freshly fermented beer, though.

http://www.byo.com/stories/wizard/a.../177-batch-sparging-a-oxygen-limits-mr-wizard

On a side note, really the only time (in my opinion) that someone would need to oxygenate with a stone is with a large beer. For example, making a Utopia clone or any huge beer over 1.080 SG, you will want to oxygenate initially and say every 6 hours or so for the first day or two depending on the gravity. As the yeast grows and reproduces it needs oxygen but shaking a fermenting carboy with an airlock on after it has started to ferment does not add any oxygen...therefor a tertiary device is needed. More importantly for me, it makes me less likely to break the carboy during "shaking"...

 

[JJFlash]

I use a high grade dissolved oxygen meter for all my brews and have done this the past several years. My personal opinion is that there is way too much bad advice given on this subject.

From "Handbook of Brewing", Priest & Stewart, the recommendation for oxygen in a commercial brewing is 1ppm/ degree Plato.

Without a high quality dissoloved oxygen meter you have absolutely no idea how much oxygen is going into the wort. This advice for 1 or 2 minutes is a wild guess. Its like turning on the shower and guessing how many gallons of water flow in 1 or 2 minutes. That said, the seat of the pants brewers can, by multiple repetitions of any aspect of brewing, make great beer. I know a homebrewer than doesn't own a hydrometer and makes good beer!

Low gravity beer <1.060, is very forgiving of mistakes especially using 1056 yeast. However, high gravity beer and certain delicate yeasts are more unforgiving of mistakes. Full instruments help guide me in these extreme beers to a quality finish.

All that said the one very interesting fact I have discovered over the years of monitoring dissolved oxygen in wort, is how quickly dissolved oxgen comes out of solution and the O2 ppm rapidly drops after initial application. That is the reason it is often recommended on big beers a second application of oxygen at 12 hours.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

JJ, A dissolved oxygen meter is a tool I wish I had. Are the numbers that were posted earlier in this thread about the same as what you measure, or maybe different? It would be great to just have another data point instead of just going off of one set of information.

Post 26 on page 3.

 

[scottland]

I'll chime in.

I don't get noticeably better fermentation on standard gravity beers on the first pitch since moving to a oxygen bottle and stone.
I do get slightly quicker and better attenuation of high gravity beers on the first pitch since moving to a pure O2 setup.
I definitely get more consistent and better fermentation on 2nd, 3rd, and 4thh re-pitches of yeast. It's not a night and day difference, but it's definitely noticeable.

If you repitch yeast, and brew high gravity beers, you'll see value in a $40 O2 setup. I'm sorry, but you can shake to your hearts content, but you're not going to adequately aerate a 1.090 wort by shaking alone. Higher gravity wort is more difficult to infuse O2 in, and your yeasts O2 requirement is higher in a high gravity wort. You'll still make great beer, but that great beer could be excellent beer if it had proper DO levels.