Aeration foam and yeast starter questions.

Just brewed the 10th batch of my life as a brewer, first batch since last spring. I tried some new stuff and now have new questions.

1. This was the first time that I used an aeration system, (fish tank pump, hepa filter and stone), I was only able to run the pump for a couple of minutes at a time due to foam buildup. I ran it 5 times for a total of 10 minutes. Is this long enough? Is there a way to reduce the foaming?

2. I used liquid yeast for the first time. White Labs 001. I did a 1qt starter three days prior. It had an excellent krausen/great activity. On day 3 it had finished and the yeast mostly settled out. I shook the hell out of it to re-suspend the yeast, but it still had several small yeast clumps. I pitched clumps and all. Is that normal? I expected the yeast to re-suspend completely.

3. Since I did a yeast starter and aerated the wort, I assume that I might get an aggressive enough krausen to pop the top on my bucket, so I just set the lid on top without locking it on and put foil over the bubble hole. I plan to cap it tight and put bubbler on after the fermentation slows. Is that a safe approach?

Thanks in advance,

John

1. try fermcap. does wonders with foaming during boiling, or perhaps get your stone lower in the wort. or a bigger container I use the same setup and haven't had a problem with foam getting out of control. longer run times for big beers are better, i like to run for an hour for barleywines or wee heavies. for 1.040-1.060 it's usually 15-30 minutes--enough time for me to clean and tidy up basically.
2. normal? never happened to me. would i be worried? not ever a little bit.
3. for ever ten brewers you are going to get at least eleven answers for that. but in short you are extremely unlikely to have any issues regarding that approach.

1. I run the same setup, but the foam doesn't become an issue for a good 10-15 minutes. I use a pretty big stone, which could contribute to the foam issue.

2. I usually slosh my starter around a good bit, but never shake it. So far, no issues from it that I know of.

3. You'll more than likely be fine. A blow off would be safer though.

1. I'm sure that is enough time to oxygenate. One way to help reduce the foam on oxygenation is to ensure that the air bubbles are small, i.e. don't have your oxygen come out at full force. The smaller the bubbles coming out of the stone the smaller foam build-up that I get.

2. It is fine, some of those chunks are going to be yeast, not all of it will resuspend into a nice solution and that is just fine.

3. If I'm ever worried about an aggressive fermentation I would just make a blow-off tube. Follow this link to see an example: Revvy's Blow-off tube

1. My stone is a 4" aquarium stone. Maybe I need to buy one of the 5 micron Stainless ones. Is there a way to restrict the flow from an aquarium pump?

2. Should I have brewed when the starter was on day 2? At that point I was still able to get all of the yeast to re-suspend but the starter was still actively doing its thing.

3. I wanted to do a blowoff tube, but did not have the right size tube to go over the airlock, so I am improvising on this one. I always used a blow off tube back when I did my primary's in a 5 gal glass carboy, but that was with a big 1-1/8" tube. Now I am using an Ale Pale with the rubber grommet hole that is designed to fit an airlock. It appears that my airlock needs 1/2" tube. My 3/8" stuff would not go onto the thing.

Well, after15 hours, I have a strong enough fermentation to lift the lid on my ale pail. I guess I aerated well enough.

Because of contamination concerns, I used a spray bottle to spritz the edge of the bucket that the foam was getting ready to overflow with some starsan. With just one spritz, the foam retreated massively. I had the pail full to the 5 gal mark, so there was about 4-5 inches of head space. One spritz took the foam from being over the top edge to about 3 inches down. Anyone else ever do this?

I know, I know. Next time I will have a Blowoff Tube. This is just the first time I ever needed one with the pail. Always used one with carboy, but will have to modify pail to use same or need to devise a different system. I do have a plan, it involves 5/8" Polyflow and a bulkhead fitting.