Does not boiling strike water negate any later efforts to prevent hotside aeration?

[Ales]

I can't imagine any reason that unboiled strike water wouldn't be completely saturated with oxygen. Wouldn't the trouble that an all grain brewer using unboiled strike water goes through to prevent splashing, bubbling etc. be all in vain? Interested to see thoughts

 

[Rcbandl]

Depends on where you stand in the HSA debate.

 

[slym2none]

Hotside aeration is real???

 

[beerloaf]

Interesting, I have never boiled strike water or sparge water or any of those. The only thing I have done was to make sure that my HLT gets above 145*F for over 15 minutes to let the chloramines evaporate. That's about it. I always thought it was a waste of propane and BTUs, so I don't.

beerloaf

 

[Talgrath]

Hot side aeration is a myth, so...no need to boil the strike water, no.

 

[thekraken]

I for one don't go to any effort to prevent splashing and bubbling. My sparge arm sprays and splashes and bubbles and aerates like there's no tomorrow.

I see it's your first post, OP, I think you'll find that most people on this forum feel that hot side aeration doesn't even come close to effecting us on the homebrew level. While I can't cite any source directly, experiments have been performed and they always come up with the same result: no noticeable affect from aerating hot side.

 

[andrewf1985]

Its something that keeps popping up. We dont get affected by it on our small scale set ups

Dont fear the HSA

http://brulosophy.com/2014/11/18/is-hot-side-aeration-fact-or-fiction-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Ales]

Its something that keeps popping up. We dont get affected by it on our small scale set ups

Dont fear the HSA

http://brulosophy.com/2014/11/18/is-hot-side-aeration-fact-or-fiction-exbeeriment-results/

Interesting experiment. I would have been really interested to see how both beers compared 3-6 months down the line

 

[BobBailey]

I never boil strike water, nor do I stir the mash gently. HSA may, or may not be a valid concern, but it is something I never worried about and have never had anything negative in my brews that could be attributed to it.

 

[MannyEdwards]

You don't have to boil water to drive off dissolved oxygen. The hotter it gets, the more is driven off. Also I'm not sure the mash contains much stuff that is ruined by oxidation anyway, maybe *some* malt aroma.

 

[kombat]

The only thing I have done was to make sure that my HLT gets above 145*F for over 15 minutes to let the chloramines evaporate.

I don't think chloramines evaporate. They're much less volatile than chlorine. Larger municipalities use it for this exact reason - they'll stay in solution more stubbornly than chlorine, making them better suited to long runs of piping to remote communities.

Use Campden tablets to remove chloramines.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Interesting experiment. I would have been really interested to see how both beers compared 3-6 months down the line

Being a 1.040ish beer, it probably wouldn't be a beer you would want to store that long anyway. Aging a small beer like that for over 6 months you would be hard pressed to link any off flavors to aeration during the mash (pre boil), on the other hand any off-qualities could easily be linked to much more obvious macro-issues (hop flavor/aroma degrading due to age as an example).

The general consensus at homebrew levels is that any pre-boil aeration has a very minor effect on your beer quality. Charlie Bamforth has said that it would be overkill to boil the water before the mash. Think of all the IPAs that we now whirlpool hops into at temperatures over 180F, do you whirlpool in a perfectly sealed vessel thats been purged with CO2? If not you are definitely pulling at least a small amount of oxygen in while its swirling (our yeast starters swirl the same way on the stir plate specifically so they exchange gas and pull in O2).

I don't think chloramines evaporate. They're much less volatile than chlorine. Larger municipalities use it for this exact reason - they'll stay in solution more stubbornly than chlorine, making them better suited to long runs of piping to remote communities.

Use Campden tablets to remove chloramines.

This ^

I used to rely on heating to strike/boiling and all that to clear out chlorine/chloromines. I never got the really bad off-qualities chlorine/chloromine can cause, but as soon as I did a batch where I measured my water a week before brewing the quality definitely improved (it could've been other things but that was the only thing I changed on that batch). Achieved similar results by just tossing a campden tablet into my brewing water that I measured out 15 minutes before brewing.