Quick-turn Red Ale

[bwarbiany]

I brought a 22 of this to show off a little early last night and it's definitely still green. Only 8 days bottle conditioning. Couple guys said I under aerated. We gotta meet up in a couple weeks and have them side by side. Maybe at out of the park.

Seriously? They said you under aerated? And they said that based on how it tasted? Find some new critics.

Aeration is one small part of the whole process, but I can guarantee that your drive from Laguna to home sloshed it around enough to be sufficiently aerated. That and the fact that you pitched two packets of yeast in 5G (way more than enough) and you hit your FG just fine. There was no lack of aeration.

Yeah, under-aeration is a BS excuse.

1) When we filled your fermenter, I had the wort spraying into the carboy from the top. That aerates the beer. Also, as pointed out, you drove home with the carboy, which performs some aeration as well.

2) When you use dry yeast, the cells are prepared in such a way that they're carrying their "food" with them. Supposedly dry yeast makes aeration of the wort unnecessary.

3) Either way, aeration mainly exists to help yeast in their reproduction phase. As JonW points out, pitching *2* packets of US-05 into a 5-gallon batch of 1.052 beer is enough that the beer doesn't spend excessive time or energy on that reproduction phase [which is, of course, why I pitch this much yeast, I want to avoid off flavors developed through the reproduction phase].

I would definitely be interested in a side-by-side test in a few weeks... It's increasingly looking like I'll be in Minnesota next Tuesday, so the monthly meeting won't quite work.

[backyard brewer]

I'd have to agree. It's hard to taste under aeration which usually manifests itself in fermentation issues. Not only that but aeration is far less important with dry yeast.

I brought a 22 of this to show off a little early last night and it's definitely still green. Only 8 days bottle conditioning. Couple guys said I under aerated. We gotta meet up in a couple weeks and have them side by side. Maybe at out of the park.

Seriously? They said you under aerated? And they said that based on how it tasted? Find some new critics.

Aeration is one small part of the whole process, but I can guarantee that your drive from Laguna to home sloshed it around enough to be sufficiently aerated. That and the fact that you pitched two packets of yeast in 5G (way more than enough) and you hit your FG just fine. There was no lack of aeration.

+1

[nico soze]

Don't yell at me I'm sensitive.
they said it was fine, just trying to help me pin down the off flavor I didn't like

[backyard brewer]

Don't yell at me I'm sensitive.
they said it was fine, just trying to help me pin down the off flavor I didn't like

You're probably tasting undercarbed green beer. A red needs a little time ime . Taste it again in 2 weeks

[BrewMasterBrad]

One of the hardest lessons that new brewers have to learn is patience. An additional week or two will do wonders for most beers (unless they are infected of course). Give the yeast plenty of time to do their work in the primary, allow the yeast to clean up after themselves, and give the beer time to condition properly.

Getting back to the yeast/aeration debate. There is a fine line between pitching too much yeast and worrying about off flavors from under pitching. That's why I like to use a yeast pitching rate calculator so I can at least get in the ballpark of pitching the right amount of yeast. Depending on the yeast strain, there are significant desireable flavor contributions made during the growth phase of the yeast life cycle. Pitch too little yeast, and you can get too many of these flavors (too much yeast growth). Pitch too much yeast, and you don't get enough of these flavors (not enough yeast growth). I am not counting yeast cells or anything (at least not yet), but I like to try to get in the ballpark. With all that being said, I don't think aeration is an issue here since so much yeast was used and add to that the fact that it was dried yeast which does not require as much oxygen in the wort since it essentially is carrying its own oxygen reserves. Mr. Warbiany knows how to make a fine beer, so I am sure it just needs a little more time to mature.

One of these days when we are all old and retired, we need to take the time to do some experiments with using different yeast amounts in the same wort.