Expert: Ed Westemeier - 9/30/2007

Question
New homebrewer here. I'd been wanting to do it for a while, and yesterday, with the assistance of my Cousin, we started a simple Brown. I've watched brewing done by others, but it was years ago, or on a much larger scale than this.

All the instructions that we read said to 'froth it up good' once it went into the fermenter, before we pitched the yeast. I think we did it OK, but... is there a point where you can say "Okay, we've aerated it enough, pitch the yeast..." or a time limit or anything? There's no head on top at this point, it's been fermenting for about 14 hours. It does have a lower ring of lighter brown coloring on the bottom. Is this bad? Good? Indifferent? What would you say is the best way to aerate a 5 gallon bucket of wort?

We were checking around and looking at possibly using a second bottling bucket, and putting some sort of nut extract into a few bottles, and seeing what it came out like. Should we put the extract in, and bottle it immidiately, or let it sit for a few days before bottling?

I know... lots of questions here, but I've researched all over the place, and haven't been able to get a definitive answer anywhere. Thank you!

Answer
That's a common question, so don't worry about it. The key thing is to pitch a big, healthy yeast starter, but most beginners don't know what that means in practical terms, so they can't do it.

You didn't say what kind of yeast you used, and that makes a difference, too. My guess is that you probably have good fermentation activity by now, but you shouldn't be looking for a big frothy head in the bucket until it has had enough time for the yeast to multiply and go to work. That could mean 2 or 3 days, depending on conditions. When you get to where you're an old pro at it, you'll have heavy activity within 12 hours or so, but for now you probably on't have to sweat it.

There are no rules of thumb, because it depends on so many factors. If you don't have good airlock activity by the third day, then you definitely need to pitch new yeast -- that would mean that your original yeast wasn't viable.