Oxygenation

Is it safe to use the small oxygen tanks sold at hardware stores to oxygenate wort? If so, how long to you let them run to do a 5 gallon batch? Do you run it wide open, for how long?

I think 2 minutes no more would be good

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/dip-tube-great-326781/

I use a sanitized dip tub and a 3/8 hose. usually the lowest setting on the guage

I'm thinking about boiling up some honey and doing a 2 min aeration honey addition this weekend with my current brews

zrule said:

Is it safe to use the small oxygen tanks sold at hardware stores to oxygenate wort? If so, how long to you let them run to do a 5 gallon batch? Do you run it wide open, for how long?

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Yes it's safe. I run mine for 1 minute at what I would call a medium rate of bubbles, not wide open. I think if it's too fast the O2 will just bubble right out, not dissolving. I have the O2 kit from Williams, so it's going through a stone. No idea if the flow rate I use is enough or not since the actual flow is not being measured. All I know is that some O2 is making it into the wort.

I have read to open the O2 just enough to start getting bubbles, and then run it for 20 seconds for an average gravity beer. That's what I do, seems to work fine. 1+ to Williams, and the hardware O2 is fine.

Either Whitelabs or Wyyest has a youtube video (I'm behind a work firewall, and can't find it for you!) where they test the viability of pure O2 and just shaking the keg. If I remember correctly, it was 90 seconds of pure O2 infusion and about 15 minutes of shaking to get to the proper PPM for optimum yeast health.

There's a thread on here where we discussed this, and I ran some bottled wort through a dissolved O2 meter. I can't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but about 60s wide open for low-medium strength ales got me to about 10?ppm, and about 90-120s got me up to 15ppm for lagers. So I do 60s for regular ales, 90s for big boys, and 90-120 depending on the strength of the lager. Really big beers get the first dose and then another shot 8-12 hours later. If you can dig up the thread it's got a lot of good stuff in it.