Aeration Pumps Overated?

Just got my pump/filter/aeration stone setup and was searching online for aeration times and came across this study:

http://www.brewangels.com/Beerformation/AerationMethods.pdf

According to the study, I seem to have wasted money with the simple Carboy shake method being much more effective. Any thoughts?

Jsbeckton said:

Just got my pump/filter/aeration stone setup and was searching online for aeration times and came across this study:

http://www.brewangels.com/Beerformation/AerationMethods.pdf

According to the study, I seem to have wasted money with the simple Carboy shake method being much more effective. Any thoughts?

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All I know is after a long hot brew day and having consumed many brews in the process, it is so much easier to insert my William's Aeration Wand into a carboy for 60 sec. than shake the **** out of two 6.5 gallon glass carboys full of wort. And I'm using O2 if that helps. One of the best purchases I have ever made.

It doesn't matter if you shake it, Venturi it, use a pump, whisk it or what ever you choose you will NEVER be able to get past 8ppm of O2 without injecting pure O2 through an aeration stone.

You do not have to take my word on it, Take the word of the people that make the yeast... http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm

isurf said:

All I know is after a long hot brew day and having consumed many brews in the process, it is so much easier to insert my William's Aeration Wand into a carboy for 60 sec. than shake the **** out of two 6.5 gallon glass carboys full of wort. And I'm using O2 if that helps. One of the best purchases I have ever made.

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QFT love the wand!

So very true. Even ten years ago, I had trouble shaking five gallons of wort. At sixty, it's out of the question.

Saw one of the folks from Yeast hold a full carboy above his head to shake it, I was impressed.

Zamial said:

It doesn't matter if you shake it, Venturi it, use a pump, whisk it or what ever you choose you will NEVER be able to get past 8ppm of O2 without injecting pure O2 through an aeration stone.

You do not have to take my word on it, Take the word of the people that make the yeast... http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm



QFT love the wand!

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This is why I use the William's Brewing oxygenation wand and push pure O2 through it. I've upgraded to a 20 cubic foot O2 tank and regulator with a flow meter so that I KNOW how many LpM I'm sending through the stone. Once I get the O2 meter, I'll start building a chart of OG, LpM levels and infusion time so that I don't need to test later.

If you put the Carboy on a towel and rock it back and forth you can get vigorous shaking with minimal effort. Guess this was better than the air pump was what I was saying. Pure O2 is a different story.

david_42 said:

So very true. Even ten years ago, I had trouble shaking five gallons of wort. At sixty, it's out of the question.

Saw one of the folks from Yeast hold a full carboy above his head to shake it, I was impressed.

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David has got a few years on me, but I can't see me shaking or rocking a full carboy either! Heck, I can barely LIFT a 6 gallon carboy full of wort!

First, it's hard work for my 135 pound body. Secondly, rocking or shaking a carboy can be very dangerous. I had a friend who was doing that and the carboy must have had a slight defect and it just broke in her hand, slicing off her thumb and a few of the nerves. She drove herself to the hospital immediately (I wasn't home to call and she lived close to the hospital). They reattached and she has only minor numbness now.

I gave her some **** about that! An aquarium pump, with a HEPA filter and a sanitized airstone can run while you clean up and do the same thing some shaking or rocking can do. Some brewers will do a "venturi" tube- a copper tube with lots of holes drilled in it- from the boil kettle to the fermenter. It works as well. I've seen some guys use a "wine whip" on their drill to aerate their wort, too.

I now have a March pump that the wort goes into before my chiller. When I run it wide open and hold the tubing high, the wort foams and gets aerated well into my fermenters. So I don't use the aquarium pump anymore.

Whatever works for you is the "right" thing to do. 02 might be more efficient, but room air will work as well. Shaking/aerating/splashing will all work- some require more effort than others, though.

Yooper said:

I've seen some guys use a "wine whip" on their drill to aerate their wort, too.

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I use a wine whip with pretty good results. Attached to a drill and whipped until a good frothy head forms seems to work pretty well for me. Takes about 5 minutes.

Yeah I guess from a few threads that I read it seemed like people thought you would get a higher concentration of oxygen with the aerator (even without pure o2) vs shaking, when in fact it looks like you have to aerate for over an hour vs shaking for 5 min. So it may be safer but it will not save you time or give you a better o2 level unless you actually get pure O2 as well.

Jsbeckton said:

Yeah I guess from a few threads that I read it seemed like people thought you would get a higher concentration of oxygen with the aerator (even without pure o2) vs shaking, when in fact it looks like you have to aerate for over an hour vs shaking for 5 min. So it may be safer but it will not save you time or give you a better o2 level unless you actually get pure O2 as well.

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I've been using the pure O2 setup for some time now and can't see ever going back to the shake method. Sure, you can get some infusion with the splashing from the wort running in high, via a pump, but it's still limited to 8ppm. With the pure O2 system, you get the O2 the wort needs (especially important for higher OG batches) without all the effort. Plus it uses zero energy/effort compared with the other methods. I can even do it once I've placed the fermenter where it will be during the process.

Using pure O2 hits at least a few positive marks in my book (for making process changes). 1) It results in better beer. 2) It's easier on me (physically). 3) Once hardware costs are taken care of, it costs very little to do. A 20 cubic foot O2 tank will last for many batches. The regulators that connect to the standard welding tank can be had for little money. These have flow meters built into them, so you're not using psi to determine how much O2 is going into the wort (psi is useless in this case). I normally run the infusion for about 60 seconds for my lower OG batches (around 1.060). Getting solid attenuation with this, plus great brew. :rockin:

Use whichever method you like. If/when you decide to brew something decent sized, you'll want a better O2 infusion method (if you're using atmospheric O2) that only a pure O2 infusion can provide.

I have never aerated using a stone and pump. If you do use the carboy shake, be careful. I used plastic carboys and wore a hole in the bottom. I have a piece of styrofoam board that I put the carboy on on top of a tennis ball. Then I move it in a circular motion. Works well for me.