My Aeration Idea

I had an idea on a way to efficiently aerate my wort before pitching and I can't see a thing wrong with it, but I wanted to mention it to you all to see what you think of this idea.

I bought one of those high volume air pumps with a dual-action pump (blows air on the up stroke and the down stroke). The pump is meant to inflate large inflatable things such as air mattresses. It comes with various tips, one of which fits my tubing nicely.

What I've been doing is sanitizing my tubing and my racking cane really well, plugging my tubing into this high volume pump, sticking the sanitized racking cane down into the wort, and pumping like mad. It's definitely aerating the brew. It even gets to the point where it foams up so much that I have to give it a break and let the foam settle down.

The wort does not come back up into the tubing at all, so there's no feedback with this system. It just seems like such an efficient way to aerate, like it's too good to be true. Anyone have any comments on this technique?

Google: Ozark Trail High-Output Air Pump, click "Images" to see exactly which pump I'm using.

I was going to say I would be worried about the oil but that is one of those raft pumps and they don't have any oil.

The only thing is that you are injecting atmospheric air into the wort and not pure oxygen. A lot of people do, so nothing to worry about. When I upgraded to aerating, I went the pure O2 route.

Interesting idea though and you burn some calories.

lol yeah, it can be a little bit of a workout but I gotta earn my right to drink the beer and exercise is a good way to do that! haha!

Yeah, it's not an actual O2 injection system by any means. Maybe I'll put a plant next to the pump while I'm going at it. At any rate, it's certainly better than dumping from bucket to bucket or trying to stir it vigorously, or shake.

You might worry about pumping "dirty" air into your wort. You can buy a filter that goes in line with your tubing. IMHO its not as good as pure O2, but better than nothing.

What would it take to get started with a pure O2 system?

An oxygen stone, an oxygen regulator and a tank of oxygen.

I use one of these:



And got the O2 stuff at HD in the form of a Brazing Kit:

Now that I think about it, I can definitely see the concern about the dirty air. Yeast cells are microscopic and my kitchen isn't the cleanest place in the house. I can definitely see some rogue yeast cells getting in there causing trouble. I'll probably spray the air with some Lysol and find a filter.

I drink beer in the 2 minutes it takes my fermenter to fill up with aerated wort. Sure beats shaking or pumping up a River Raft.

btw, what's an oxygen stone? Google wasn't very helpful there, neither was wikipedia.

Stone:

http://morebeer.com/view_product/18252//Diffusion_Stone_-_2_Micron_Oxygen_Stone



That Thermometer assembly posted above has one of those stones built into it.

Hmm, seems pretty expensive to get started with something like that. The thing that makes me hesitate is, even before I knew what the word "aerate" meant, I was brewing (somewhat) successful beer. I understand that the yeast requires a certain amount of oxygen to thrive. What I don't understand is, if I have no trouble getting the brew to ferment, what other point would there be to investing in an oxygen injection system? Does it somehow make the beer taste better?

bmantzey said:

Hmm, seems pretty expensive to get started with something like that. The thing that makes me hesitate is, even before I knew what the word "aerate" meant, I was brewing (somewhat) successful beer. I understand that the yeast requires a certain amount of oxygen to thrive. What I don't understand is, if I have no trouble getting the brew to ferment, what other point would there be to investing in an oxygen injection system? Does it somehow make the beer taste better?

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Don't really know about that. It looks freaking cool though. I wanted to be able to perform every step of the process with a beer in hand. So I had to find an alternative of shaking the bucket.

And my relatives have no idea what gifts to buy me so they always ask and I just send them links to stuff I want. That Therm assembly with the air stone showed up under the Christmas tree last year!!!!!

BendBrewer said:

I wanted to be able to perform every step of the process with a beer in hand.

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lol awesome!

nothing to see here.

slap an inline hepa-filter on that thing and you're good to go!

I think most who have upgraded to O2 have been very glad they did. It can be a bit pricey, but worth it. I got the Williams Brewing SS wand like in the link below, and I noticed a quicker, more complete fermentation in the last 5 or 6 batches I used it on. Once you have the stone, it last pretty much forever and the O2 cans last for quite a few batches, so the initial investment is a bit high but after that the cost is pretty low. And it really does help your beer.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/i-completely-underestimated-role-oxygen-235663/

Something to think about.

I use one of these and it works perfectly, oxygen stone included. You just need to buy a disposable oxygen tank from lowes for about 8 bucks, it lasts me about 5-6 brew sessions. I bought mine from a local homebrew shop. The model I have doesn't have the inline filter like this one does, but I have never had a contamination problem. This is well worth the investment because you can get the same oxygen levels commercial breweries demand, in about 2 minutes.

http://morebeer.com/view_product/16604/102281/Oxygenation_Partial_System

Use this to keep the foam under control.
http://morebeer.com/view_product/15464//Foam_Control_FermCapS_1_oz

So it doesn't matter that the oxygen from home depot isn't medical grade?

Read here, follow the supporting links, and draw your own conclusion:

http://www.survivalblog.com/2008/09/five_letters_re_welding_oxygen.html

I wouldn't mind using a hardware store O2 bottle in my brewery, but I gave up on complex methods for aeration a couple of years ago. A little splashing into the fermenter and a healthy dose of yeast works for me.

That article was helpful, thanks, what about the regulator and oxygen stone are there any cheap alternatives to those?

BrewsClues said:

That article was helpful, thanks, what about the regulator and oxygen stone are there any cheap alternatives to those?

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The regulator that comes with the HD brazing rig can be unscrewed from the torch hose. It's a non-standard fitting but you can just force a piece of tubing over the threads. It works fine for me.

Also, I've found that cheap aquarium air stones work just fine after soaking them in sanitizer.