Aeration

This weekend I'm doing my first full boil, which I'm happy about. However, in the past I aerated the liquid in the fermenter through a few different methods combined, including splashing the wort from the brew pot into the fermenter, shaking up any water additions prior to adding it, and shaking the whole fermenter if I felt the previous two weren't enough.

Since one of my two main methods goes away when doing full boils, I was sitting here thinking and remembered that I have an aquarium pump we bought a couple years ago and ended up not liking due to all the noise it created in the fish tank. So I just found it and now I'm wondering how and if I can use it for aeration.

Can I just connect a tube to it, weigh the tube down so it falls to the bottom of the fermenter, and just turn on the pump for a while? The thing doesn't seem very powerful, but I know people use these things for aeration.

Yes, a lot of people run aquarium pumps to aerate, its a pretty common method. Personally, I do full boils and still have success with my shake to aerate method.

Yes, you can probably just drop the tube in, but most people will buy a diffusion/carbonation stone (available online at most homebrew shops) to get it to bubble nicely. Also, since the pumps pushes air, you need an inline filter to sanitize the air, also available online. I know morebeer.com sells both, but Im sure many other sites do too

People do use aquarium pumps with a 2 micron stone to make tiny bubbles that cause the oxygen to dissolve faster. It takes IIRC about 30 min to get 5 gallon aerated to about 8 ppm.

chode720 said:

Yes, a lot of people run aquarium pumps to aerate, its a pretty common method. Personally, I do full boils and still have success with my shake to aerate method.

Yes, you can probably just drop the tube in, but most people will buy a diffusion/carbonation stone (available online at most homebrew shops) to get it to bubble nicely. Also, since the pumps pushes air, you need an inline filter to sanitize the air, also available online. I know morebeer.com sells both, but Im sure many other sites do too

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Ah, sanitize the air, didn't think of that part. Ok, well, this weekend will be another shake brew, then

Thanks!

BioBeing said:

People do use aquarium pumps with a 2 micron stone to make tiny bubbles that cause the oxygen to dissolve faster. It takes IIRC about 30 min to get 5 gallon aerated to about 8 ppm.

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Whoa, 30 minutes?! And that's prior to pitching?

I guess I was expecting it to be faster.

yes i use a fish take aerator all the time to oxygenate my wart. i would suggest getting new tubing and air stone. also get an inline air filter to prevent other contaminants from getting into your brew.

try this it costs $20

it doesn't actually take 30 minutes to reach 8ppm. it actually takes maybe 5 - 10 but the 30 is just to be sure.

TipsyDragon said:

yes i use a fish take aerator all the time to oxygenate my wart. i would suggest getting new tubing and air stone. also get an inline air filter to prevent other contaminants from getting into your brew.

try this it costs $20

it doesn't actually take 30 minutes to reach 8ppm. it actually takes maybe 5 - 10 but the 30 is just to be sure.

Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks! I'll get one of those as soon as the SWMBO gets over what I just spent to upgrade to all grain

TipsyDragon said:

yes i use a fish take aerator all the time to oxygenate my wart. i would suggest getting new tubing and air stone. also get an inline air filter to prevent other contaminants from getting into your brew.

try this it costs $20

it doesn't actually take 30 minutes to reach 8ppm. it actually takes maybe 5 - 10 but the 30 is just to be sure.

Click to expand...

Definitely going to have to get that before doing my next beer, which will be my first lager. I know I have an aquarium pump sitting around somewhere, I just didn't know how to use it properly for aeration.

I use the aeration stone connected to pure oxygen tank...available at Home Depot..
Usually only a few minutes of pure oxygen aeration is needed.

OK - 30 min was too long.

An apparatus diffusing air into chilled (< 70 °F/21 °C) wort typically needs to run for a minimum of 15 minutes to achieve adequate oxygenation, where the same set-up using pure oxygen would require only a minute or two at the most to achieve the same result.

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Link <-- read this for more background too.

I use pure oxygen too. Gets a higher ppm in less time.

This is what I use, it works very well!!!

I had a question for following up on aeration: I just did a partial boil a impatiently added and aerated (shook 2 gallons of wort in the fermenter) before it had properly cooled. I did not take the temp before doing this but I'm guessing it was somewhere around 120 F. How will this affect it???

You didn't mention anything about pitching yeast but if you pitched yeast onto 120 wort it will cause some off flavors. Still will produce beer but will not taste as good as normal pitching temps...I try to get to about 80 or lower. before pitching yeast