Hot Side Aeration

[Chris Banks]

After a little disscusion  recently I decided to do a little google research on HSA Im quite happy that I now understand what it is and the effects it theoreticaly has.

 

However there seemed to be EXTREMES of opinions regarding how much you need to worry about it!

 

How far do people on here go to avoid HSA or do you think its a bit of a storm in a teacup?

 

Im now in the middle -

Avoid HSA wherever its easily possible without overly complicating brewday.

But not loosing any sleep over a  bit of splish splash here and there!

 

Mainly because all my beers are unfiltered bottle conditioned and consumed within two to six months of making and ive never noticed any oxidised type flavours in any of my beers.

[MrC]

I avoid it where I can but don't worry too much about HSA.

With my current brewing process there are no real areas of concern. The main areas where I am concious of HSA for me are during recirc and lautering. I always recirculate as gently as I can and when lautering I try to minimise "splish slash" which for me involves a slow runoff through a tube.

With my brewing processes I apply the "If it aint broke, don't fix it" technique. It sounds like you don't have a HSA problem so I'd say don't worry too much about.

[JR]

There is a podcast on the BN on hotside aeration. After the hour of listening my summation was pretty much dont worry about it.

[Greig McGill]

It was "don't worry about it UNLESS you want to age your beer". :)

[warra48]

I avoid it where I can easily do so.
My recirculated wort is poured back into the mashtun with as little splashing as possible.
The tube from my mashtun reaches to the bottom of my kettle, so I don't have splashing.
I drain my kettle (although that is post chilling) with a tube into the bottom of my fermenter, thus again, no splashing. I only aerate my batch when I'm ready to pitch my yeast, usually after some hours additional chilling the fermenter in the brew fridge.
Beyond that, I don't worry about it.

[denimglen]

Im now in the middle -
Avoid HSA wherever its easily possible without overly complicating brewday.
But not loosing any sleep over a bit of splish splash here and there!

That's the train of thought I follow. As long as you're not whisking your mash you'll be sweet.

I think the HSA thing came from big breweries that sometimes literally dump the mash into the lauter tun, or pump the wort from the lauter to the kettle at a million gallons per hour.