Did I under oxygenate my wort?

Did I under oxygenate my wort? I am always Mr. Over Prepared, as I buy two of everything that could potentially run out of or break when I do something. I bought a new O2 tank from Ace before I brewed a Java Stout yesterday just to be on the safe side. When I went to oxygenate the wort my existing tank only put out about 30 seconds of a medium amount of oxygen before it went caput. I put the new tank on, and it was completely dead! Not even a trickle of air! I am using a 6.5 gallon carboy, so in my tired state I just swirled it as much as possible. In highsite I should have just not pitched my yeast starter, but I was exhausted so I said screw it it willl be fine. I woke up to it bubbling away 10 hours later at a bubble about every 10 seconds into the blow off bucket. Should I just let it go, or get the tank replaced and oxygenate it again. I am used to a vigorous airation of 90 to 120 seconds. I had an OG of 1.056 and used a decanted 1200 ml Wyeast Thames Valley #1275 starter.

Many people never use bottled O2 and simply swirl their wort or use other physical methods. I did the "carboy dance" for years and recently switched to an aquarium pump and stone to use atmospheric air. Your beer should be fine. Watch it and see if the fermentation gets stuck or stops sooner than it should. Unless it does one of these, I would leave it be.

You are absolutely fine. The rule of thumb I have heard is 1ppm per degree Plato. That would be 14ppm. Shaking alone will get you about 8ppm. Maybe it would have done a little better with more oxygen, but I think getting it started was the better choice.

Thanks for the reassurance guys!!!

I don't even go that fancy- I use a sanitized wine degasser attached to my dewalt. Two minutes in a vicious whirlpool in the carboy and I know I have plenty of o2 in there.

Yeah you should be fine.

Too bad about the empty tank. If you can, always open a new box and take a few you KNOW will have gas in them. I think there are d-bags out there who buy oxygen canisters, use them, then return them.

sloose said:

I don't even go that fancy- I use a sanitized wine degasser attached to my dewalt. Two minutes in a vicious whirlpool in the carboy and I know I have plenty of o2 in there.

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How many PPM is "plenty?"

osagedr said:

How many PPM is "plenty?"

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Enough that I have 4+ " of foam at the top? The carboy rockers hope for an inch of foam to tell when they've properly rocked it. I can't tell for sure how many ppm, but my fermentation a never lag.

I'm also whirlpooling in my blichmann while chilling with the IC and filtering out hop and cold break in a strainer + paint strainer in my funnel to my carboy. The wort gets plenty of o2.

sloose said:

Enough that I have 4+ " of foam at the top? The carboy rockers hope for an inch of foam to tell when they've properly rocked it. I can't tell for sure how many ppm, but my fermentation a never lag.

I'm also whirlpooling in my blichmann while chilling with the IC and filtering out hop and cold break in a strainer + paint strainer in my funnel to my carboy. The wort gets plenty of o2.

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I'm sure you are doing the best you can and that you believe your wort is getting "plenty" of oxygen.

Point of View A: I do __________ and my beer turns out great! So this is evidence my brewing process is working. Besides, there is no "right" way, it all comes down to personal preference. My friends never complain about the free beer I give them.

Point of View B: What do professional breweries do? What do guys like Zainasheff and Strong suggest? What does fermentation science indicate is the best practise? I guess I should do that if I want my beer to be the best it can be.

osagedr said:

I'm sure you are doing the best you can and that you believe your wort is getting "plenty" of oxygen.

Point of View A: I do __________ and my beer turns out great! So this is evidence my brewing process is working. Besides, there is no "right" way, it all comes down to personal preference. My friends never complain about the free beer I give them.

Point of View B: What do professional breweries do? What do guys like Zainasheff and Strong suggest? What does fermentation science indicate is the best practise? I guess I should do that if I want my beer to be the best it can be.

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With aerating just plain ambient air you can get ~8ppm with a stirring device or just plain rocking. Professional breweries don't have the option of using a power drill. They *have* to oxygenate. They shoot for 8-10ppm.

We can hijack this guys thread all we want. The reality is his beer will be fine. An oxygen system works best, in the absence of said system, rocking or stirring will do just fine.

http://blog.flaminio.net/blogs/index.php/beer/oxygen/081408-wort-aeration

sloose said:

With aerating just plain ambient air you can get ~8ppm with a stirring device or just plain rocking. Professional breweries don't have the option of using a power drill. They *have* to oxygenate. They shoot for 8-10ppm.

We can hijack this guys thread all we want. The reality is his beer will be fine. An oxygen system works best, in the absence of said system, rocking or stirring will do just fine.

http://blog.flaminio.net/blogs/index.php/beer/oxygen/081408-wort-aeration

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Some good info at that link. If you are flooding your headspace with oxygen then using a drill-mounted stirrer you can get sufficient levels of oxygen.

The info you cited also notes that the oxygen requirements are greater at the start for higher-gravity beers. The guy also says that he routinely hits 12-16 ppm, certainly far beyond what you are going to get from a paint stirrer with regular air.

Again, it all depends on what the individual brewer perceives to be "just fine." You can cut lots of corners and still get beer, but the more things you do right, the better your beer will be. You've made your choices and I've made mine, but what I want to avoid is other brewers reading these threads and getting misleading information.