Aeration Tip For Newbees

[Teufelhund]

As a newbee myself, a helpful little tip I have learned is when aerating your must, start very slow at first! The must can and will foam up like a mini Mt. Vesuvius and can cause a mess and loss of liquid. Trust me, it ain't purty.
Hope this helps you from making the same mistake.

:cheers:

DD

 

[Medsen Fey]

A few drops of anti-foam can save a lot of grief (and clean-up). Believe me when I say I know your pain.

Medsen

 

[Yo momma]

Ah yes the gyser. I recently started a grape wine for a freind of mine. After the first initial rush fermentation I told him to add water to his must to bring up the level. :laughing7: He did not stir out the gasses first and just added the water and all over the floor went the grape sticky. I laughed so hard when he told me I dropped the phone. So make sure you degas first before adding water also.
:cheers:

 

[Pewter_of_Deodar]

Ah yes the gyser. I recently started a grape wine for a freind of mine. After the first initial rush fermentation I told him to add water to his must to bring up the level. :laughing7: He did not stir out the gasses first and just added the water and all over the floor went the grape sticky. I laughed so hard when he told me I dropped the phone. So make sure you degas first before adding water also.
:cheers:

Interesting... I wouldn't have thought the gentle addition of water would have caused any problems. It has been my experience that aggitating the batch causes the geysers. I've had a few... blackberry was the worst... I think that about 2 gallons of the 6 made it out onto the surrounding floor and walls AND CEILING. Power stirred that one... :BangHead:

 

[Teufelhund]

Brother, I concur with Medsen. I feel your pain. I laughed at the ceiling part but I was only doing a gallon. I'm sure if it was a 5 gal batch I could have matched your color scheme. I'm using the DeWalt 1/2 " 18 amp hammer drill. :notworthy: How about you all?

:cheers:

DD

blackberry was the worst... I think that about 2 gallons of the 6 made it out onto the surrounding floor and walls AND CEILING. Power stirred that one... :BangHead:

 

[Pewter_of_Deodar]

Craftsman 18 VDC with one of the lees stirrers attached...

It worked beautifully until after I stopped stirring... then... whoosh.... :tongue3:

 

[beachfrontmeadman]

is it alright if i revive this thread, its not too old
anyway, i'm using a cordless hand drill with a whip degaser, but i also just got a mityvac system that i am trying to rig up for degassing perposes

is there really any difference when it comes to performance which tool you are using for aeration and degassing
is the best way to keep from having to degas later to keep a steady aeration regiment during fermentation or is it just something that you kind of always have to deal with

 

[dennymcc]

i made an impomtu stirer out of an extra long plastic spoon, with a round handle. i will just fit in the chuck on my cordless drill. it came in a set of 3 for like $5. im thinking of taking one of the others and fixing a piece of siphon tubing, so i can have a longer flexible one.

 

[wayneb]

I have gone from exclusively using a lees stirrer for degassing to using a mityvac. I find that it takes a bit longer with the mityvac, but I know I am not introducing any outside air when I degas. I do take care to pump the carboys down only slightly and to keep up the slight vacuum for a relatively long time (20 minutes or so), so as not to pull too much CO2 out of solution at once, which could potentially scrub out desirable aromatic compounds as well.

 

[beachfrontmeadman]

good to know bout the mittyvac,
about how many pumps are you putting on the vac and what is your set up for creating the air tight seal with the vac, the nozzle on my vac isn't large enough to fit in regular bit of plastic tubing, and is too large to fit into the end of my racking cane style stiff tubing i have around the house,

 

[wayneb]

I went to my local Lowe's hardware and matched the Mityvac's nozzle diameter with a clear plastic tube that fit it perfectly. I can't remember the ID of that tube, but it was slightly larger than my racking cane tubing. I then got a tapered nylon pipe nipple also from Lowe's that fit snugly into the tubing, and jammed the other end of that into a stopper that is one half-size larger than that which I normally use to airlock a carboy. I went with the oversize stopper so there is no danger of the stopper being drawn too far down the carboy neck from the vacuum.

When I pump down a carboy to outgas the contents, I just squeese a few times on the trigger lever, to draw about 5 to 8 inches of mercury vacuum. This will start a slow bubbling up of CO2 from the bulk liquid, and you'll have to squeeze the lever regularly (about every 30 seconds or so) in order to keep the level of vacuum around that point. As I said earlier, if you pull much more vacuum than that, you'll get a LOT more CO2 coming out of solution much faster, but that may not be good for aromatics in the final mead.

 

[UDV]

The only cheap tip I've discovered right now to aereate a class carboy is.

1.) Put carboy in teh cardboard box that it came in,
2.) remove airlock
3.) grab carboy by handle of neck and turn to right until fluid is swirling, then stop and turn the other direction.
4.) repeat for five minutes.
5.) Replace airlock.

It's what I'm doing in the meantime until I get my lees stirrer.

 

[UDV]

What is this anti-foam thing you mention early up on top?

I didn't follow this advice, I thought my lees stirrer was going really slow, but this was on a mead that was stalled for a while and it geyserd bad! There was a good puddle when it was all said and done.

 

[beachfrontmeadman]

medsen is a big proponent of anti foam drops
what these are exactly i'm not sure, mostly because i've never really gone to look for them, and i haven't seen them around my brew shop
but yeah medsen swears by them, and they should be in your LHBS

 

[Oskaar]

See the link below:

http://store.homebrewheaven.com/shared/StoreFront/product_detail.asp?RowID=928&CS=hombre&All=

I use anti-foam as well and like it's effectiveness.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[Medsen Fey]

Yes, I like anti-foam drops. They typically contain dimethyl polysiloxane or other food grade silicon compound which forms a thin layer on the mead surface and alters the surface tension to prevent foam from forming. Please keep in mind that even with anti-foam, if you WTC out of your mead, you may be cleaning up afterwards.