Aerating w/ diffusion Stone

I FINALLY decided to upgrade my wort aeration from using the piece you attach to a drill, to pumping pure O2 into my wort. Just received my oxynator today, bought a new O2 tank, and tested it in water to see how it works. The O2 comes out very slow through the diffusion stones, just small bubbles that break off the stone, and into the water, but at a slow pace. I was anticipating it to be a bit more vigorous. Was my anticipations wrong? Is it usually a pretty anticlimatic activity when expecting something a bit more vigorous?

Mine will put out a good deal of O2 if I turn it all the way open. It will foam up like crazy. The O2 should just lightly break the surface of the wort so that it dissolves more efficiently and you have less waste.

My instructions said not to handle the stone with your bare hands because the oils from your skin may clog the pores. You could try boiling it and see it the flow improves.

It seems pretty consistent across the board that the valves that come with our oxygenation setups need to be cranked all the way open to get good fizz action.

Mine's the same way.

I'm curious, I will boil the stones to see if it improves. HOwever, I'm wondering if my regulator is bad? I have it cranked all the way open, but not much results. I'll boil, if I see bad results, I'll consider returning the regulator. How vigorous is the surface of the wort when it hits? Is it kind of a rolling effect? or is it just a handful of small bubbles?

I've recently switched from using an aquarium pump and stone to an o2 bottle and stone. I just crack the regulator open enough so it just starts flowing out and within 30-90 seconds my carboy or bucket will be filled with foam. So if you have to crank it open all the way I suspect theres something wrong. Make sure your tubing and airstone are completely dry, I suspect if there is water inline it will have a hard time forcing it through the airstone.

I always boil my airstone before I use it and when I'm done to make sure its clean. The tubing I rinse with clean water when I'm done and spray it with starsan before and after but I make sure its dry, whipping it around seems to force all the liquid out of the line.

I know when I was using my aquarium pump and stone if there was any liquid in the line it really had a hard time forcing it through.

What kind of regulator do you use and where do you get 'em?

EDIT: Nevermind. I see they are dirt cheap on ebay.

It's all good. The pores were closed from touching the stones. I boiled them for about 1 minute and tested them out in water, and they worked great. I can't wait to try this out on something real like WORT instead of water lol