Aerating wort.

Can you use an air pump from a fish tank (sanatized obviously) to aerate your wort before you pitch your yeast? Has anyone ever used one? Just curious, I was moving my fish tank today and the thought popped in my head.

I use an aquarium pump, with in-line filter to aerate my beer. The problem is you have to keep the pump going for about 20-30min to fully saturate the oxygen in there, remember air is 20% oxygen. I am very happy with this method, however I want to get an O2 cylinder for my high gravity beers, I feel that the aquarium pump cannot saturate enough oxygen into high gravity wort.

Iordz said:

I feel that the aquarium pump cannot saturate enough oxygen into high gravity wort.

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You're right. I don't have the sheet anymore, but along with my oxygenation kit they had some specifications as to the maximum amount of oxygen that could be dissolved in the wort for different aeration methods: shaking the fermenter, bubbling with air, or bubbling with pure oxygen. Just a minute or two with pure oxygen gets significantly more O2 into solution than even the theoretical maximum amount you can get from using just air.

Funkenjäger said:

Just a minute or two with pure oxygen gets significantly more O2 into solution than even the theoretical maximum amount you can get from using just air.

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This is the reason I am going to buy an oxygenation kit. But aquarium pumps are a good alternative, as long as you use a filter.

I've had very good luck with a pump and filter. On some of my bigger beers, I've plugged the pump into a timer and aerated for 15 minutes every two hours for an entire night. Makes for maximal yeast growth.

david_42 said:

I've had very good luck with a pump and filter. On some of my bigger beers, I've plugged the pump into a timer and aerated for 15 minutes every two hours for an entire night. Makes for maximal yeast growth.

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Hey Dave, When you say bigger beers, what do you mean?

I've had great success with a wine degasser.

Bulls Beers said:

Hey Dave, When you say bigger beers, what do you mean?

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i think he must mean beers with a high starting gravity like an IIPA or a barleywine.

The aquarium pump and shaking the wort allow only a maximum of 8 ppm of O2 into the beer, less for higher gravity ales. Using the pure O2 wand can get you up to about 20 ppm, if you airate for a couple minutes. I find that about a little under a minute will do nicely, I don't know what the exact ppm measure of O2 is, but I am pretty sure it is above 8. I don't do much longer than a minute since the air canisters are slightly more than 5 bucks each and I get a total of 7 - 8 minutes of air time out of them.

Ah here we go... From BYO magazine:
http://***********/mrwizard/1128.html

Fact: Wort has an oxygen content of about 8.5 ppm when saturated with air (79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen) and an oxygen content of about 43 ppm when saturated with oxygen.

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I was pleased with my aeration kit (small pump plus hepa filter plus stone) from AHS. I say "was", because it recently got to the point where it wouldn't push hardly any air through the stone. I don't know if the filter got wet, or if the stone was clogged, but the bottom line was that the pump was simply not powerful enough to push air through anymore. So I broke down and got an oxygenation kit. SO much easier and faster. You don't have to run an extension cord for the pump, and it's done in 2 minutes.

I just rack from the keggle to the fermenter with about a three foot drop, kind of "splash loading" if you will. Didn't even know these other ways were optional.

I have just found out that I have way better results aerating the starter for 5 minutes with an aquarium pump. The first time I tried it on a Kolsh and had the quickest start by far. I Pitched a california ale starter after 24 hours and it blew through the airlock the next day. This has never even come close to happening by just aerating the wort. I can't imagine what would happen if I aerated the starter and wort.