2 micron aeration stone with pure O2?

I'm not the type of person to disassemble my rig after each brew to soak the parts. So i'm giving up on inline O2 as my 0.5 micron stone is constantly clogged.

I'm considering getting the 2 micron stone on a wand and using my flow meter to hit the wort after chilling it. I know the 2 micron is for aquarium pumps. But if I'm controlling the flow with a flow meter, the two micron should be fine, no?

Cheers

Is there no saving your existing stone? Based on intuition alone I expect a 2u stone would be incrementally less efficient than a .5u stone due to the larger bubble size.

fwiw, I use a .5u stone with a home made wand setup with a medical grade flow meter set for .5 LPM. I swirl the contents of the carboy for the duration of the oxygenation so the bubbles have to travel further than just "straight up" in the expectation that this increases the rate of absorption (that intuition thing again

Cheers!

I think the 2 micron stone should be fine. But if you want to get rid od your .5 stone I would be interested at trying to save it.

day_trippr said:

Is there no saving your existing stone? Based on intuition alone I expect a 2u stone would be incrementally less efficient than a .5u stone due to the larger bubble size.

fwiw, I use a .5u stone with a home made wand setup with a medical grade flow meter set for .5 LPM. I swirl the contents of the carboy for the duration of the oxygenation so the bubbles have to travel further than just "straight up" in the expectation that this increases the rate of absorption (that intuition thing again

Cheers!

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I guess I'm wondering why 2 micron is appropriate for aquarium pumps and .5 micron for pure O2. I thought the issue was flow rate. That aquarium pumps pump at much lower pressure than an O2 tank. But since I have a flow meter, I figure I can dial the flow in properly and avoid the clogging up stone.

So will it really be less efficient that the .5 micron stone if I manage the flow rate?

Dgonza9 said:

I guess I'm wondering why 2 micron is appropriate for aquarium pumps and .5 micron for pure O2. I thought the issue was flow rate. That aquarium pumps pump at much lower pressure than an O2 tank. But since I have a flow meter, I figure I can dial the flow in properly and avoid the clogging up stone.

So will it really be less efficient that the .5 micron stone if I manage the flow rate?

Click to expand...

For a given volume of gas turned into bubbles, the smaller the bubbles the greater the total surface area. In turn, a gas volume with greater surface area provides higher absorption rates than larger bubbles.

So, yes, the finer pored stone will be more efficient with a given volume of O2. How much more efficient I do not know.

I know zip about aquariums and what their owners are trying to achieve with their aeration stones. But I suspect they aren't paying for the air they're pumping while I'm buying the pure O2 I'm using. Hence I opted for the .5u stone which I'm certain will be more efficient than a 2u stone.

As for rate of flow, I suspect slower is better, but I couldn't prove that without an O2 meter. In any case, I don't think it changes the geometry thing...

Cheers!

The kit for pure O2 from williams brewing has a 2micron stone in it. Before I bought a stone I was going to go for the .5 but read many reviews of them plugging up.

I went for the 2micron and pure O2 and have had no problems. I'm sure the .5 would be more efficient, I figured the small amout of extra O2 I would have to use was worth not having to worry about it plugging up.

Lechien said:

The kit for pure O2 from williams brewing has a 2micron stone in it. Before I bought a stone I was going to go for the .5 but read many reviews of them plugging up.

I went for the 2micron and pure O2 and have had no problems. I'm sure the .5 would be more efficient, I figured the small amout of extra O2 I would have to use was worth not having to worry about it plugging up.

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That's what I'm thinking, too.

if the stone is stainless steel, just run half a cup of hydrogen peroxide thru it after use and then store it in a small container of clean water or starsan solution until the next use. you shouldnt have any clogging problems if you do that.

audger said:

if the stone is stainless steel, just run half a cup of hydrogen peroxide thru it after use and then store it in a small container of clean water or starsan solution until the next use. you shouldnt have any clogging problems if you do that.

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Thanks for the tip. I honestly neglected it a lot, thinking running some hot water and oxy thru it was good enough.

I use the 2 micron stone and rinse it off after use, and then dip it in a bucket of starsan. I do this while the gas is on. I store it dry in a spare sanke tube. Works great. I use about 1.5 lpm on the flowmeter for 45 seconds. It's money.