As you research and learn about beer brewing, one of the most important lessons you will see repeated is to keep oxygen away from your beer. You do not want to expose your beer to possible contamination from airborne germs, bacteria and wild yeasts. However, at one point in the beer brewing process, not only do you want to introduce oxygen to your beer, but it is an important part of the process to do so.
After the boil, once your wort has cooled, you will need to oxygenate your beer just before pitching the yeast. Once you have completed the boil, it is critical to quickly cool your wort down to 80F degrees. Between 80F and 165F degrees is the "danger zone" that bacteria live and thrive in, so it is best that you do not stay in this temperature range for too long. Once you have the wort cooled to the proper temperature, then you need to re-introduce oxygen to it. Oxygen was boiled off, however, the yeast you will pitch needs oxygen in order to feed and start the process of fermentation. This is the only time in the beer brewing process that you will want to expose your beer to oxygen.
There are several ways you can do this, and it does not require you to purchase any additional or specialized equipment. There are some specialized pieces of equipment you can buy, but there are plenty of manual methods that work just as well, ones that many experienced home brewers use themselves. If you are extract brewing and are doing partial boils, then the top off water you add will take care of oxygenating your wort. The water will have oxygen in it, but you could also take a few of the steps described below and use them as well.
For one, you could simply spray water from the hose on your kitchen sink for additional aerating (assuming your tap water doesn't have too much chlorine). You can use a large whisk or spoon. Just make sure that they are sanitized first. You can also use a paddle. Be sure to stir for several minutes, stir like crazy until your arm hurts.
When you pour your wort into the fermenter, pour from a high angle so that the wort splashes on the sides and gets agitated and aerated--do not pour like this at any other time by the way. You can also seal the fermenter and shake it vigorously, which has the added bonus of giving you a good workout.
Another method is pouring the wort through a sanitized strainer to aerate. If you have two plastic buckets for fermenters (or one plastic bucket fermenter and a bottling bucket) then you can pour the wort back and forth between the two. Some home brewers even attach long stirring rods to their power drill and use that to stir to save time and effort.
If you want to make this task easier, some home brewers will attach vinyl tubing to an aquarium pump and pump air in this way to save trouble. You can also purchase aerating stones. However, chances are one of the manual methods will work just fine for aerating purposes. No matter how you aerate in your beer brewing, it is important to get oxygen in your beer so the yeast can do their job--make your wort into delicious home brew!
After the boil, once your wort has cooled, you will need to oxygenate your beer just before pitching the yeast. Once you have completed the boil, it is critical to quickly cool your wort down to 80F degrees. Between 80F and 165F degrees is the "danger zone" that bacteria live and thrive in, so it is best that you do not stay in this temperature range for too long. Once you have the wort cooled to the proper temperature, then you need to re-introduce oxygen to it. Oxygen was boiled off, however, the yeast you will pitch needs oxygen in order to feed and start the process of fermentation. This is the only time in the beer brewing process that you will want to expose your beer to oxygen.
There are several ways you can do this, and it does not require you to purchase any additional or specialized equipment. There are some specialized pieces of equipment you can buy, but there are plenty of manual methods that work just as well, ones that many experienced home brewers use themselves. If you are extract brewing and are doing partial boils, then the top off water you add will take care of oxygenating your wort. The water will have oxygen in it, but you could also take a few of the steps described below and use them as well.
For one, you could simply spray water from the hose on your kitchen sink for additional aerating (assuming your tap water doesn't have too much chlorine). You can use a large whisk or spoon. Just make sure that they are sanitized first. You can also use a paddle. Be sure to stir for several minutes, stir like crazy until your arm hurts.
When you pour your wort into the fermenter, pour from a high angle so that the wort splashes on the sides and gets agitated and aerated--do not pour like this at any other time by the way. You can also seal the fermenter and shake it vigorously, which has the added bonus of giving you a good workout.
Another method is pouring the wort through a sanitized strainer to aerate. If you have two plastic buckets for fermenters (or one plastic bucket fermenter and a bottling bucket) then you can pour the wort back and forth between the two. Some home brewers even attach long stirring rods to their power drill and use that to stir to save time and effort.
If you want to make this task easier, some home brewers will attach vinyl tubing to an aquarium pump and pump air in this way to save trouble. You can also purchase aerating stones. However, chances are one of the manual methods will work just fine for aerating purposes. No matter how you aerate in your beer brewing, it is important to get oxygen in your beer so the yeast can do their job--make your wort into delicious home brew!