Accidental aeration

[NickP]

Hi folks, first time poster and novice brewer here.

I brew with a mate in his garage and he phoned today to say that our Fuller's London Porter clone had stopped bubbling and was giving a reading of 1.028. Stuck ferment I thought, until I read that our new refractometer has to be adjusted for the alcohol. I believe now that the reading is actually 1.014, so it's nearly done.

Unfortunately my mate jumped the gun and gave the fermenter a good rouse. I've told him to pop it back into the fridge and whack the temp up a bit, but have we FUBARed it?

Is there anything else we can do to minimise the damage? Add some more fermentables? Leave it in the fermenter for longer?

All advice gratefully received.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

It’s almost certainly fine unless you gave it a sound thrashing to fill it with oxygen.

 

[NickP]

I think he probably did

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I think he probably did

That’s not rousing, that’s whipping to a frenzy. Tell him never to do that again!

As this is a Porter and it’s still fermenting there’s still a good chance you will get away with it but you really don’t want to aerate beer after the start of fermentation.

 

[NickP]

What can you do, he's got a garage.

 

[moto748]

What can you do, he's got a garage.

Don't worry, that's what you can do. It will be probably be fine.

 

[Hoppyland]

My (hypothetical) view is that it will probably be fine. When it was "thrashed" it was still probably fermenting, and therefore, if anything, supersaturated with CO2. My guess, and it is that, is that the rousing will have released a lot of CO2 from the beer rather than introduced much O2. Plus, the gas space above the beer would have been pure CO2 anyway. I'd just go with it. If anything, you'll have an excuse to drink it whilst it's still a bit young!!