Aeration technique

The only real part of my brewing process I'm not completely happy with yet is the aeration of my wort. I do full boils, so thought I would help my brews by buying an aquariam pump + aeration stone.

Do any of you guys use this technique and, if so, are there any guideline amounts as to how long aeration via this method takes? Is it possible to over aerate the wort and could this have a negative affect on my brew?

Any tips appreciated.

Cheers

IIRC, the max you can achieve with "aeration" is 8ppm and it takes approx. 15 minutes but creates a lot of foam. Might consider a regulator for the smal O2 tanks and it will take seconds bu does have the potential for over "oxygenating"

I used an aquarium pump for aeration for a couple of brews, but then got tired of the tremendous amount of foam it produced and the length of time, so I switched to oxygenating with pure oxygen for 2 minutes.

You cannot over-aerate the wort with an aquarium pump and air because the atmosphere is only about 21% oxygen. You can over-oxygenate with pure oxygen, so you need to be careful.

I can't remember exactly how long I aerated for, but I believe it was about 15 or 20 minutes. I always had to pause to let the foam settle down a few times, so the total time was not continuous.

I have an aquarium pump for sale if you want one...

I use a wine degassing wand. Easy to sanitize and does a fantastic job. Would never use anything else.

I wanted to try the aeration stone method to try to get my FGs a little lower. I have read that you get saturation at 50 minutes using the air pump/stone and 1 minute using pure o2. I used the pump & stone in the kettle after cooling until it nearly foamed over, and then again in the carboy until I filled the headspace. Probably 45 minutes total. Fermentation took off very quickly, was bubbling in 5 hours, and krausen filled the headspace in 12. 24 hours krausen filled the 1" blowoff and had reached the airlock water, but has settled down since (3 days in). Hoping for a nice dry finish on this one.

If my primary is my Better Bottle carboy, then I just continually shake the crap out of it as I am transferring the wort from the kettle.
If its my bucket, then I just use a plastic mash paddle and stir like crazy.
Both processes work great for me

mr x said:

I use a wine degassing wand. Easy to sanitize and does a fantastic job. Would never use anything else.

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I am curious having read several people using this method. It seems on its face counter-intuitive, however if it works for you, keep it up. Is there any way to measure o2 saturation that is accessible to the home brewer? e.g. not a spectrometer.

Have also heard of people using paint stirrers in a drill. My drill is nasty dirty greasy, so I keep things like that far away.

The paint stirrer is the same as a degassing wand. But I haven't seen a SS paint stirrer up here. It just whips air into the wort.

SavageSteve said:

I used an aquarium pump for aeration for a couple of brews, but then got tired of the tremendous amount of foam it produced and the length of time, so I switched to oxygenating with pure oxygen for 2 minutes.

You cannot over-aerate the wort with an aquarium pump and air because the atmosphere is only about 21% oxygen. You can over-oxygenate with pure oxygen, so you need to be careful.

I can't remember exactly how long I aerated for, but I believe it was about 15 or 20 minutes. I always had to pause to let the foam settle down a few times, so the total time was not continuous.

I have an aquarium pump for sale if you want one...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info guys.

Savage, I am in UK and have seen one on Ebay for £7, but I'm not sure this is the best option now. Gonna think about all the options.

What equipment do you use to saturate with pure oxygen?

Cheers

Adam's Apples said:

Thanks for the info guys.

Savage, I am in UK and have seen one on Ebay for £7, but I'm not sure this is the best option now. Gonna think about all the options.

What equipment do you use to saturate with pure oxygen?

Cheers

Click to expand...

I was just teasing about selling the aquarium pump.

I bought this setup from MoreBeer: http://morebeer.com/view_product/16604/. It's just a regulator for a small disposable bottle of oxygen that you can get at a hardware store, some tubing, and an inline sterile filter.

I also bought the wand and diffusion stone from MoreBeer: http://morebeer.com/view_product/18255/. It's a stainless steel tube with a 0.5 micron diffusion stone welded to one end. It's easier to move the stone around in the carboy with a rigid tube than with plastic tubing.

Also, the wort shouldn't be saturated with oxygen, just brought up to the right concentration. Too much can be harmful to the yeast and/or cause oxidation problems. Ideally, I should get a flowmeter to measure how much oxygen I'm putting into the wort.

BTW, I was in the UK in January, and had some of the best beer in my life from the many pubs I visited.

-Steve

I have 2 plastic buckets sanitized when I brew . I just fill each half way and pour from one to the other realy gets the wort mixed. Last patch the little beasties were having a party in 4-5 hours and I needed a blow off tube the next morning .

mr x said:

The paint stirrer is the same as a degassing wand. But I haven't seen a SS paint stirrer up here. It just whips air into the wort.

Click to expand...

I use a plastic "squirrel cage" type paint mixer to aereate my wort. I just soak it in my sanitizer and use a cordless drill. Works great, plenty of bubbles and you don't have to worry about throwing your back out dumping wort back and forth.

My system is extremely high tech...I take the end of the siphon hose and shake it back and forth near the top of the carboy as I siphon from kettle to primary. I also cover the top of the carboy with a sanitizer soaked paper towel to help prevent bacteria from entering the carboy. I also use dry yeast and flocculation occurs within 24 hours. Never had any problems!

After reading all these posts I can not believe that there are not any using oxygen. I have been using oxygen to aerate my wort and it only takes 60 seconds using an aeration stone. You do not need to blast it with high pressure either, let the stone do the work. I origionally got the oxygen to propigate yeast because it works so well for that purpose too.

Here's a photograph of my high-tech aeration system:


Between whipping the wort well with a wire whip and pouring into a carboy through a funnel, I seem to be getting good enough oxygenation. My last beer took off within 6 hours of pitching, using unrehydrated Nottingham.

The best aeration tool is O2. A short 1 min shot provides enough O2 for the yeast. It is the simplest and easiest method.
However a setup is somewhat expensive and you have to replace the O2 bottle on a regular basis. Most of the other methods are much less expensive.

I currently use a pitcher to pour my wort back into the bucket multiple times. This is a decent aeration technique but I know I am far from ideal. At some point I will upgrade to O2 but I havn't budgeted it yet.
Craig

ScottyG and I use bottled oxygen and a fish tank stone from Wal-Mart that we throw away after every use.

We oxygenate for 60 seconds and compared to brews that just use the "splash method" they really take off nice. With a starter, four hour lag times and more complete fermentation than we got without the oxygen.

It really is the way to go. One little bottle of oxygen lasts close to forever. Although we are considering a stainless steel aeration stone simply because it is reusable unlike the Wal-Mart aquarium stones.



Gedvondur

I have a large metal strainer that I use during the boil - just stick in the pot and boild with the wort - I used it when I was steeping grains (to hold the grain for sparge) and now I use it to break apart the wort when pouring it back and forth between a couple of pails. After going back and forth a few times - the fermentation really takes off.

i use a SS splatter screen that fits over my bucket mouth and then open the valve. its a really low-tech way to aerate liquids and also work as a hop/protien break screen.

CBBaron said:

The best aeration tool is O2.

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This is just me earning my EAC card, but that would be Oxygenation. Aeration is the passing of air through liquid. Oxygenation is the same thing but with oxygen. Oxygenation happens during aeration too, but not as efficiently. In the case of wort, sometimes reduced efficiency can be a good thing.

You can't really over aerate, but you can over oxygenate without trying to.



:rockin:

And don't forget the new trend towards the use of Olive Oil. More and more study suggests that this could be a superior metthod to air/O2 entrainment and has the benifit of reducing the staling effect over long term storage.

1 drop Olive Oil to 5 Gallons or a coated needle in the starter is actually too much but on a homebrew scale has been producing good results.

The end result is that the fatty acids (Oleic) in the OO are readily taken in by the cell thus eliminating the need for the cell to synthisize this very compound from O2.

GilaMinumBeer said:

And don't forget the new trend towards the use of Olive Oil. More and more study suggests that this could be a superior metthod to air/O2 entrainment and has the benifit of reducing the staling effect over long term storage.

1 drop Olive Oil to 5 Gallons or a coated needle in the starter is actually too much but on a homebrew scale has been producing good results.

The end result is that the fatty acids (Oleic) in the OO are readily taken in by the cell thus eliminating the need for the cell to synthisize this very compound from O2.

Click to expand...

SavageSteve said:

I was just teasing about selling the aquarium pump.

I bought this setup from MoreBeer: http://morebeer.com/view_product/16604/. It's just a regulator for a small disposable bottle of oxygen that you can get at a hardware store, some tubing, and an inline sterile filter.

I also bought the wand and diffusion stone from MoreBeer: http://morebeer.com/view_product/18255/. It's a stainless steel tube with a 0.5 micron diffusion stone welded to one end. It's easier to move the stone around in the carboy with a rigid tube than with plastic tubing.

Also, the wort shouldn't be saturated with oxygen, just brought up to the right concentration. Too much can be harmful to the yeast and/or cause oxidation problems. Ideally, I should get a flowmeter to measure how much oxygen I'm putting into the wort.

BTW, I was in the UK in January, and had some of the best beer in my life from the many pubs I visited.

-Steve

Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know all your techniques guys.

Steve, what beers did you like?

Cheers

FSR402 said:

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:rockin:

Google that Sh*t!. A lab study was also perform at the New Belgium brewery. I think the thesis is posted here, somewhere.

I use an O2 cylinder and love it. Fast, easy, basically fool-proof.

There is a misconception out there that you can easily over-oxygenate your wort. Personally, I think it is bunk. So do the major yeast manufacturers. See the Wyeast oxygenation FAQ -- they state that at the homebrew scale, over-oxgenation isn't an issue. I think this is another homebrew myth based on extrapolating from commercial brewing.

The olive oil method is gaining interest as an alternative to oxygenation. Essentially, the idea is that olive oil could provide the unsaturated fatty acid compounds that yeast will otherwise synthesize using oxygen. In theory, the olive oil addition is one way to circumvent the need for providing oxygen to the yeast. The research was done by Grady Hull at New Belgium brewery and his thesis can be downloaded here:

http://www.brewcrazy.com/hull-olive-oil-thesis.pdf

There are already threads on this topic, so discussion about the olive oil technique are probably best directed there.

Crazytwoknobs said:

This is just me earning my EAC card, but that would be Oxygenation. Aeration is the passing of air through liquid. Oxygenation is the same thing but with oxygen. Oxygenation happens during aeration too, but not as efficiently. In the case of wort, sometimes reduced efficiency can be a good thing.

You can't really over aerate, but you can over oxygenate without trying to.



:rockin:

Click to expand...

This is me defending my EAC card. We know the OP was generically talking about getting oxygen into the wort without concern to the semantics between oxygenation and aeration. Yeast don't care about the 70% nitrogen content of air.

FWIW, a reasonable investment would be the oxygen setup from Williamsbrewing.com since it's not much of a price difference than the air pump but tons more effective. You don't need to use much O2 so those small tanks last a while.

You're totally right. I was also thinking that an O2 system might be more sanitary?