Aeration stone and foam

I scored 7 full medical O2 tanks and 2 regulators for free and decided to use them to aerate the cooled wort. Been shaking the fermenter up to now. I bought an aquarium stone and it seems to work fine. But, within a minute of use in the Ale Pail, the foam was overflowing. We scooped off the foam and ran some more O2 for half a minute and the foam was over the top again. So we stopped after just a minute and a half of aerating.

Is this normal and how long should we run the O2 to get good aeration? Is there any good techniques for controlling this foaming action? Hopefully we got enough O2 in there because after 24 hours the airlock is bubbling away nicely.

sounds like the pressure is either too high or the stones pores are to large. All I get with the 2micron stone and the little red tank is about 2 inches of foam after 90 seconds to two minutes

It really doesn't take much. I hear about folks hitting it for less than a minute.

Don't fear the foam!

Oh, wait, wrong subject.


Get a glass of water. Put your stone in that and adjust the pressure until you see bubbles. Back the pressure til the bubbles go away and stop. And then adjust forward again until they are very light. Make a note of this pressure and use it to oxygenate your wort.

Basically, you want to see bubbles but you don't want to churn the water. O2 that reaches the top is not going into solution. It's going into atmosphere.

Ideally, if possible, you could get a flowmeter and find the point where you have positive flow with little to no sign of bubbles (if possible) indicating that the O2 flow is going into solution thus maximizing DO and minimizing waste.

ChshreCat said:

It really doesn't take much. I hear about folks hitting it for less than a minute.

Click to expand...

Not very many are good for much longer.


Zing!

Yeah, we tested it in the bucket of sanitizer and played with the regulator. But we just turned it on full in the wort. We will try turning it on just a little next time.