How To Aerate Your Wort

Suppose you want to make sure your fermentation doesn’t stall halfway through and you want to get a good head start on yeast growth during the initial phase of fermentation…

… well, that’s were good aeration comes into play…

After you boil your wort and cool it down to yeast pitching temperature you want to find a way to get oxygen into your wort… There are three main ways to get oxygen into your wort, splashing, agitating and direct injection.

Splashing
This is possibly the best ‘free’ method of aerating your wort. In essence what you are doing here is splashing your wort into your fermentor by pouring it hard from the kettle into your bucket. If you are using a carboy to ferment, you can pour your wort into your bottling bucket and then siphon into the carboy.

This is the method I use most frequently and has given me consistent results for low and mid-range gravity beers.

The only drawbacks to this method is that it requires a strong back to lift the kettle and splash the wort into the fermentor and it becomes exposed to airborne bacteria. In other words, this is something that should be done indoors where you can be certain the environment is mostly dust-free.

Agitating
If you can’t quite lift a bucket or a kettle to splash it, you may opt for agitating the wort instead. There are many different variations, but basically the best one is to place the lid on your bucket and shake it back and forth to ‘agitate’ the wort.

If you are using a carboy you’ll want to place a loose fitting cap or some sort of plug in the mouth of the carboy to shake it without getting the wort all over the place… most importantly, you want to place the carboy in a padded or cushioned surface area so it doesn’t break.

Rocking the fermentor is not as hard on your back, but it does require some arm strength and can be exhausting.

I like to combine the splashing and agitating techniques to get more oxygen into the wort without having to invest money in an aquarium pump or some sort of air compressor.

Another variation to agitating the wort is to use a steel whisk to whip the wort a few seconds until foam starts to foam on top… Some say this can keep your beers from getting good head formation and retention, but I haven’t noticed any negative effects on my beers.

Injection
The most efficient way to add oxygen to your wort is to inject pure oxygen directly into it. This means you must invest money into your brewing hobby and constantly replenish your source of oxygen, which is often times not needed unless you are brewing high gravity beers.

You can instead opt for injecting your wort with air using some sort of air compressor and having a sanitized tube deliver it to the bottom of the wort. The important part here is to make sure that the air or oxygen is evenly distributed throughout the wort.

If you just blow air into the wort, chances are the air bubbles will be too large and won’t dissolve into the wort. To avoid this, you’ll need some sort of diffuser like an aquarium air diffusion stone. Another thing to keep in mind is that bacteria may not survive in a pure oxygen environment but they sure can live in pure air, which means you’ll want to have an air filter in your aerating system. A HEPA filter is recommended.

So if you don’t want to spend any money, the first two techniques are great and work pretty darn well… but if your back or arms can’t handle the task, then injecting may be the way to go and it can be fairly inexpensive if you use aquarium tools to get your air source.

...blogs about the age old art of deep national importance known as home brewing & loves to visit local micro-breweries to a) Drink beer b) Drink more beer c) Wink at the Sexy Gals and d) Discover how great tasting beer is made and shares it with the world... To peek inside Jorge's head and get the same Einstein-like brewing knowledge check out: How To Brew Beer

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How To Determine Amount Of Water Needed To Brew

When I first started with all grain, I ended up knocking my head against the wall trying to determine the amount of water needed to mash…

…of course this wasn’t much of a problem for steeping grains, but then again I wasn’t doing it right either…

With extract brewing, there is a simple rule of thumb to follow… ‘boil big, steep small’… but with all grain brewing, boiling big is not always what you want and mashing has to be a little more precise than just ‘small’…

So we’ll get steeping out of the way and just go with proven ratio of using less than one gallon of water per pound of grains… and this is just a rule of thumb, because really what you are trying to accomplish by keeping the ratio this way is you pH levels below 6 among other things…

Now, the amount needed for all-grain is a whole different animal altogether…

Grain Absorption
First we have to account for the amount of water the grains will soak up during the mash, which can not be drained in the lauter tun… this usually is about .1 to .18 of the initial weight of the grain… so if you mash 10 lbs of grain, you will lose about 1 to 1.8 gallons of water to the grains…

In my system this is about 1.36 gallons, but you don’t need to be that precise…

Lauter Tun Water Loss
Depending on the configuration of your false bottom, there may be water left in the lauter tun that you were not able to drain, but was not absorbed by the grains…

My system drains the wort to within 1/8? from the botton of the lauter tun so I only loose just under two cups of wort… to find out yours, you’ll have to remove the grains from your lauter tun and measure the amount of water left at the bottom…

This can be a PITA, but the good thing is that you only have to do it once and you’ll know from here on out…

Loss of Water During Boiling
Evaporation rates vary depending on how much you are boiling and your burner settings. 5-15% is about the range you’ll see, but you shouldn’t not be boiling too vigorous so the lower the evaporation rate you can get while maintaining a rolling boil the better… (there are a few exceptions though)

Shrinkage
When you cool down your wort to room temperature, you’ll see the volume decrease. This loss is usually about 4%…

You can leave this as a constant or you can exclude it and account for it by increasing your evaporation rate… so if you have 5% evaporation rate and 4% shrinkage, you could just say you lost 8-10% to evaporation…

Equipment Losses
Last, you want to account for any other equipment losses such as siphoning from your kettle to your fermentor and then to your bottling bucket or keg…

I usually include any loss of wort due to trub since I try not to siphon that into my bottling bucket…

The main thing to keep in mind here is that even with a big long formula that accounts for all of this, the amount of water needed is a mere approximation since you will have many variables…

Being precise is not the goal here… the goal is consistency and making sure you have enough water to brew with… if you are to err, you should do so by over-estimating…

So putting all of this together…

Say I want to mash 10 lbs of grain… Grain absorption will be between .1 to .18, so let’s choose .13…

That means I lose 1.3 gallons of water in the mash…

Next, I lose just under two cups of wort when lautering so we’ll say .45 gallons… so far, I’ve lost 1.75 gallons… this is what you lose during the mash which means that if you want a 5 gallon batch you need to make sure you have 6.75 gallons so far…

But now we have to account for the boil losses… so you would calculate the loss due to evaporation rate… (evaporation rate * Boil time)… in this case I’ll boil for 1 hour and expect my evaporation rate to be 5% so I will lose about 5% of my wort due to evaporation…

That means you need to add the 5% you would lose to evaporation and that is done by dividing 6.75 by 95%… so you would get about 7.11 gallons of water you need…

Next you account for shrinkage of 4%, so you divide 7.11 by 96%… and that gives us 7.4 gallons…

Again, you can combine the evaporation and shrinkage and divide 6.75 by 91% (9% loss) and you would get about 7.41 gallons, which is close enough…

Last you account for any equipment losses (siphoning, trub, etc.)… if say you lose .5 gallons… then you would add that to 7.4 and you get 7.9 gallons of water needed…

This is a lot of math, but the good thing is that if you are consistent, then you just need to worry about the losses from the mash…

If you constantly brew 5 gallon batches then you could just make sure you collect 6 to 6.5 gallons of wort and make that a constant knowing that this will yield about 5 gallons everytime…

So the only math there is to do now is the mash math which we said it was 1.75 that we lost… and add that to your constant, which should be around 6 to 6.5 gallons needed pre-boil…

So depending on our constant, our easy math would yield 7.75 to 8.25 gallons of water needed…

You can also let some brewing software do this math for you…

How do you calculate the amount of water needed?

...blogs about the age old art of deep national importance known as home brewing & loves to visit local micro-breweries to a) Drink beer b) Drink more beer c) Wink at the Sexy Gals and d) Discover how great tasting beer is made and shares it with the world... To peek inside Jorge's head and get the same Einstein-like brewing knowledge check out: How To Brew Beer

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5 Ways To Brew A Clear Beer

Imagine cracking open one of your home brews and serving a nice clear beer you can see through with no floaties to ruin the ‘look’ of the beer…

… Even if you don’t use any fining agents or Irish moss…

Well, that’s what this blog post is about… getting crystal clear beers…

I remember the first time I forgot to add Irish moss to my beer at the end of the boil… I freaked out and thought I’d just ruined my beer…

I did a little bit of research and found out it was only used to help clarify the beer…

So when I went to open up my first bottle, I was expecting… well, I actually didn’t know what to expect… a cloudy beer? floaties?

Anyways… turns out the beer was just as clear as I had hoped it would be and that was one of the notes I added to my home brewing binder…

Turns out that Irish moss and finings are not the only way to clear up your beer… Here are 5 ways you can brew a clear beer…

1. Irish Moss and Finings
Irish moss is added at the end of the boil… usually within 5 minutes before the end of the boil. Finings on the other hand are usually added after fermentation is complete, a couple of days before bottling your beer.

Irish moss helps haze producing proteins coagulate during the cool down process which yields a clearer beer. Finings on the other hand help yeast as well as proteins drop out of suspension to the bottom of the fermentor, which gives you a clearer beer.

2. Cool Your Wort Quickly
The quicker you cool down your wort after the boil the more haze producing proteins you’ll coagulate during this process. A wort chiller is usually helpful to cool your wort faster, but an ice bath done correctly can also give you a nice clear beer.

This protein coagulation is what brewers like to call the “cold break”.

3. Choose A High Flocculent Yeast
Flocculation is the term used to describe yeast clumping up together. When yeast clump up together they either rise to the top of the fermentor or drop to the bottom. Most will drop to the bottom, but either way, you can siphon the beer without sucking any of the yeast into your bottling bucket or keg…

A low flocculent yeast means the yeast will remain suspended and you will get cloudy beer if you don’t use any of the other techniques.

4. Use Grains With Low Protein Levels
This is mostly a tip for all-grain brewers, although some extract brewers may come across recipes that have you steep grains high in protein. More than likely it will be a partial mash. The point is, these grains have more haze producing proteins that will show up in your beer if you don’t use one of the other techniques…

5. Cold Store Your Beer
One thing you can do to help your yeast precipitate during conditioning is to store your beer at colder temperatures. This is one way you can get clear beer even if you forget to add Irish moss during the boil…

The first beer that I brewed without Irish moss was one of the first beers I brewed before I’d gotten a temperature controller for my fridge. The thermostat in the fridge sucks as far as precision goes and I accidentally lowered the temperature more than I had intended to…

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was one of the reasons why my beer was still crystal clear even though I forgot to add Irish moss during the boil. When you are just learning how to brew beer this isn’t as straightforward so hopefully this helps you improve your brewing…

How do you clear up your beers?

...blogs about the age old art of deep national importance known as home brewing & loves to visit local micro-breweries to a) Drink beer b) Drink more beer c) Wink at the Sexy Gals and d) Discover how great tasting beer is made and shares it with the world... To peek inside Jorge's head and get the same Einstein-like brewing knowledge check out: How To Brew Beer

View the original article here