When pitching yeast, I have always shaken my carboy to get some oxygen into the wort. I have read about people putting pure oxygen into the wort with aeration stones and O2 canisters since shaking the wort isn’t all that great at dissolving anything into the wort.
I read in Denny’s book that he uses a gas whip and a power drill to aearate the wort.
Anyone have good experience with this? How long should I whip it to incorporate a decent amount of O2?
FWIW, I’ve never had bad results with just rocking the carboy back and forth vigorously for two minutes. It it a pain though, and doesn’t work with all fermentors.
For my planned open fermentation experiments I’m thinking of using a mix-stir like you mention. I’ll probably just do a minute or two at the start of fermentation, then another minute after the first barm has been skimmed.
I use a mix stir - I mix until the foam is at the top of the bucket. Same principle for carboys.
OK yea that looks like it would work the same way as what I have would.
Thanks guys, I appreciate it! Should be much easier than rocking a carboy! And a bit safer too!
what is a barm?
That system worked excellently for me. now that I pump from kettle to fermenter I find that does all the aeration I need and do nothing else.
We ran tests on simply shaking and splashing wort. We found with staking the everlivin out of the keg, we saw 2-3ppm DO. Which may be fine when using dry yeast, or making moderate gravity ales, but certainly isn’t enough for lagers, and high gravity ales.
I “no chill” into a HDPE jerrycan leaving about 1/4 of the volume as headspace. Once chilled I add yeast and fill the headspace with O2 and then shake the hell out of it. When active fermentation starts I repeat this process after I have vented the CO2 by a brief shake.
Its a similar idea to the shaken not stirred starter. Create a lot of foam, large surface area in contact with pure O2 to absorb high levels of oxygen. Have used this approach on a range of beers with good healthy fermentations.
cheers
steve
Was hoping to hear directly from you! 
How long did you aerate for? Just till foam gets to the top of bucket/ fermentor? Did you do it before or after you pitched your yeast?
I think I heard about that from Beersmith brewing podcast with John palmer as the guest.
He said gets to around 2-3 as well, but ideally you want at least 8ppm for all beers right?
This paper says shaking is an effective aeration method. Obviously there is a problem in the experiment but not sure it would matter.
http://www.brewangels.com/Beerformation/AerationMethods.pdf
I say whip it.
Whip it good.
For a minute or until you get it foamy.
I used to use a wine degasser and a drill to whip it. Whip it good.
Now, I use an aeration stone.
+1 I can chill to fermentation temps in the kettle so I add the yeast to the kettle and pump into the top of a 6.5 gal. BMB fermenter. By the time it’s up to the 5.5 gal. mark, there is foam coming out the top.
I use a mix stir with a stainless shaft in my plastic fermenter. If I were using the ss mix stir in a carboy I would put the rod in the hole of a stopper and keep the little plastic tube at the end on to prevent a bad accident.
Where I live, a barm is a round bread roll.
“Barm” is also the English word for Krausen. Why we use the German term in an English speaking country I don’t know. Maybe it has to do with many of the prominent brewers in our country’s history being German.
Personally, I specifically use the term barm when I talk about the foam from top cropping yeast. It’s full of yeast, and is quite different from the typical bottom fermented krausen. (Unless I’m brewing a German wheat beer.)
I always just shook the fermenter and felt like it was enough until I ran into an obvious problem. I never did starters either and would have told you it wasn’t necessary “I’ve never had a problem” until I dumped a lager because it either ran out of O2 or active yeast. The O2 wand and canister from more beer is the way to go. It’s cheap and it works. I also bought a stir plate and always do a starter now. Both are too easily done to skip that step. You are eliminating possible off flavors or complete disasters in my opinion.
I always do starters now too! as for the o2 wand, I would love one of those but trying to save some cash here so if its something I can do reasonably well with what I have already, im gonna go with that till I have a bit more cash to put into the hobby!
I wouldn’t worry about investing in more equipment. Assuming your starters are healthy and of adequate size wort aeration may unnecessary.
I don’t know about that. The yeast need oxygen to multiply and if your starters are large enough to not have to do that, then you are going to have all sorts of other issues.