I was hoping to get best practice concerning yeast pitching on 2 day brews and wort oxygenation. I've heard and seen a couple of methods. Some places pitch the full amount of yeast and oxygenate both legs. Some places do a half pitch and oxygenate both legs, some do a variant of one of the two methods and only oxygenate the first leg. I've taken to pitching half the yeast required on the first day, but oxygenating both legs. Don't seem to have any problems with DO. Just looking to see what other brewers are doing, and if I can be improving on my current practice. Thanks!
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I've always pitched the full amount of yeast in the first batch and only oxygenated the first batch as well. In my experience adding O2 the second day, when primary fermentation is already going, slows down my overall fermentation time and ends up yielding much more yeast biomass than I need.
By only adding O2 on the first batch the second batch is more of a sugar addition than something that will push yeast back into the growth(lag) phase. I've never tried pitching less yeast on the first batch so I don't know how that method would compare.Manuel
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Originally posted by mmussen View PostI've always pitched the full amount of yeast in the first batch and only oxygenated the first batch as well. In my experience adding O2 the second day, when primary fermentation is already going, slows down my overall fermentation time and ends up yielding much more yeast biomass than I need.
By only adding O2 on the first batch the second batch is more of a sugar addition than something that will push yeast back into the growth(lag) phase. I've never tried pitching less yeast on the first batch so I don't know how that method would compare.
Some more points to consider:
-If you have airlock activity, yeast is out of lag phase and should not need any more O2.
-O2 only stays in solution for 3-9 hours. If you aerate Batch 1/Day 1 and pitch on Day 2, all of that O2 from aeration is gone. DO measurements can confirm this.
Finally, we also had issues with our fermentors mystery cooling when we double batched over 2 days. What we finally figured out was that we were experiencing thermoclines in our tanks which are 2 zones, but have only 1 temp probe. Long story short, knockout Day 2/Batch 2 a little warmer than your Fermentor is. For example, if tank is at 70f, we will knockout at 75f. This seemed to alleviate our issues with mystery cooling.
Good luck on your adventures!
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