Aeration equipment...which one and why?

[bferullo]

Looking to buy at LHBS, but here are some Morebeer links of what I am debating between.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/aeration-system.html : pump system

https://www.morebeer.com/products/oxywand-oxygenation-kit-05-micron.html

Thanks to all.

 

[MGamber]

I have the second one, the oxygenation kit, because of the stainless rod. I know that's going to the bottom of the carboy. A plastic tube may well not make it down there, especially when it's full of O2.

 

[yeahfairly]

The information they have listed on the aeration system explains the why you would be better off with the oxygenation system..... You'll never get above 8 ppm aerating...

The down side is that aeration takes longer than oxygenation. Because the atmosphere is only about 20% oxygen, the diffusion stone must be left running in the wort for approximately 30–120 minutes (however even 5 minutes of aeration is better than shaking the carboy.)

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

Second one no question about it pure 02 gets the yeast moving always keep an extra cylinder on the shelf as well

 

[Rev2010]

Like the others have mentioned, the oxygenation wand because it's much more efficient. Home Depot, and many other hardware stores, sell the small red disposable O2 canisters and they're about $11 over here. Takes away the physical strain of shaking a fermenter or pouring back and forth and is done within one minutes time.

Just fyi, I don't ever wash my wand. I sanitize it before use of course and after use I rinse it under running water and give it a quick burst of O2 to blowout any remaining wort in the stone. I then put it in my sanitizing bucket and stir it around vigorously to further rinse the stone. Then I simply air dry it and once dry I put the little plastic ziplock bag over the stone and store it upside down to keep dust out. The kit is well worth the price IMO.


Rev.

 

[NewJersey]

neither!
i havent brewed a beer in two years only to come back and find out that everything i was doing is wrong! godamn lodo thread!
i have an 02 tank and wand. works well. oxidizes the wort thoroughly.

 

[MaxStout]

Pure O2 with the stone.

Air is only ~20% O2, which limits the amount of dissolved O2 in wort to about 8ppm, and typically less. You can pump air all day, and you'll never get above 8ppm DO. Many beers need higher levels of dissolved oxygen to give the yeast a good start.

Using pure O2 in the wort won't oxidize your beer. The yeast will deplete the DO (and switch into anerobic phase) long before fermentation is done.

 

[mongoose33]

All the comments above about the O2 system? +1

Because the O2 wand is, well, a wand, you can control it. Imagine controlling a stone on the end of a floppy piece of tubing. When I thought about that, the aeration system was eliminated from consideration.

 

[IslandLizard]

+1 on using pure oxygen!
You should get at least 20 batches out of one of those red disposable tanks, just remove the regulator/valve off the tank after use, as they tend to leak notoriously.

As a wand you can use an old or spare long diptube from a keg. Attach the barbed stone with a short, 2-3" piece of vinyl hose.
Make sure to get .5 micron stone for smaller bubbles.
I keep the stones in a small container with some Starsan.

I sprung for a 40cf O2 tank, it will probably last me a lifetime of brewing. And then some.
I run at 1/4 l/m for 4 minutes. I get far less rippling, which is O2 that didn't get dissolved, making it out of the wort.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Some other options:
https://www.morebeer.com/products/vortex-carboy-cleaner-wort-aerator.html

https://www.morebeer.com/products/siphon-spray-wort-aerator.html

Something to think about:
http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/19/wort-aeration-pt-3-nothing-vs-pure-oxygen-exbeeriment-results/

http://brulosophy.com/2015/07/13/wort-aeration-pt-2-shaken-vs-pure-oxygen-exbeeriment-results/

Science!

Cheers

 

[Horseflesh]

I got this one because I wanted the steel wand and use of a full size bottle. No regrets.

https://www.williamsbrewing.com/Big-Oxygen-System-P3474.aspx

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Something to think about:
http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/19/wort-aeration-pt-3-nothing-vs-pure-oxygen-exbeeriment-results/

http://brulosophy.com/2015/07/13/wort-aeration-pt-2-shaken-vs-pure-oxygen-exbeeriment-results/

Science!

Cheers

The conclusions made in these exbeeriments bother me a bit sometimes. The 'nothing vs pure oxygen' one especially. The conclusion made is that the O2 doesn't produce a reliably distinguishable difference. That is not a correct conclusion. 16 out of 36 people selected the correct beer in a triangle test! That suggests there is a difference, but needs a bigger sample size. It doesn't prove there is a difference at the standard p<0.05 or p<0.01 levels. A test of this sort of size is sometimes used in science to get an idea of how big the 'real' study would need to be to prove something at a significant level. I actually find the qualitative discussion more useful than the p-values in exbeeriments (and I do enjoy reading them, despite this complaint). Enough of my rant.....sorry, it's a bit off topic.

 

[IslandLizard]

The conclusions made in these exbeeriments bother me a bit sometimes.

Also known as the mythbusters of beer. Just less entertaining as nothing goes "boom!" at the end. They never proved much either.

Enough of my rant.....sorry, it's a bit off topic.

No need to apologize, it's very much ON topic. If they did away with their incomplete semi-statistical nonsense and just tabulated actual tasting results we can draw our own conclusions. Their "judging panel" is shaky ground too.

That said, I too enjoy reading them.

Since I started oxygenating my wort while still pitching the proper amounts of yeast cells, I have had quicker starting, faster completing fermentations with more predictable attenuations. I have not had a stalled fermentation since. Due to those and attending to a plethora of other small details, the beer has been tasting better and better.

 

[kh54s10]

I think the o2 and wand are best, but I bought the pump because I don't care if the stone is right on the bottom. I see enough circulation that I am confident that I am getting what I can out of it. I also didn't want to have to buy o2 canisters all the time.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I totally knew I'd get that reaction. We like to justify our purchases and methods.

Statistically, you might expect 1/3 to guess "correctly" in a triangle test if the beers are the same.
This is wrong. You should actually expect a number NEAR 1/3, with your expectation fitting a bell-curve centered on that number. The chance of hitting that exact number is very low. What the p-value tells you is the probability that the actual result is related to randomness rather than actual difference in the variable being tested (rejecting the null hypothesis).

I do wish they would repeat more exbeeriments, and with a power calculation to avoid the type II errors that may occur (false negatives).

Is 16/36 correct guesses enough to convince someone that oxygenation is important? Even in a 1.100 beer comparing extremes of pure oxygen vs intentionally preventing aeration? When you're EXPECTING somewhere AROUND 12 to guess correctly by random chance?
Still arguably pretty unimpressive, even with a 0.079 p-value.

Throughout the series Brulosophy also tests their analytical methods by doing subgroup analyses like including only BJCP judges in the data, and the results are still the same. .. Or unblinding the participants to the test variable, which also didn't change the result.

Enough about Brulosophy and stats. Try this article on for size:
https://www.morebeer.com/articles/oxygen_in_beer

....
Spoiler alert!

At the very end of the article they drop this bomb:
"Attenuation and ester production in worts of the same gravity but differing levels of dissolved oxygen were equivalent.... the flavor characteristics were indistinguishable."

OK so they don't disclose exactly how they arrived at that conclusion, but the conclusion is the same nonetheless, even from the guys trying to sell you the equipment.
As I said earlier, it's something to think about.

Well there's my rant
I agree with some of what you guys are saying. Just playing devil's advocate here.
We're making beer. It's all good.

Cheers

 

[balrog]

I got the .5 stone and tried vinyl tubing and was annoyed by not having it at the bottom (easily) of the fermenter when I used it so I went and got the SS wand.

 

[IslandLizard]

I got the .5 stone and tried vinyl tubing and was annoyed by not having it at the bottom (easily) of the fermenter when I used it so I went and got the SS wand.

That was my experience too, that's why I immediately pulled the diptube out of an old, spare keg. 10 minutes later I enjoyed having regained that bit of control again. Floppy vinyl tube lost.

 

[balrog]

Whatever means this "old spare keg" of which you mythologically speak, @IslandLizard ?
That's like having spare beer, or unnecessary bacon.

 

[Horseflesh]

I also didn't want to have to buy o2 canisters all the time.

If you get a small welding bottle of oxygen, you have enough for hundreds of brews. Of course, it's more expensive.

 

[kh54s10]

If you get a small welding bottle of oxygen, you have enough for hundreds of brews. Of course, it's more expensive.

One of these? How long does 1.4 ounces of oxygen last?

 

[Rev2010]

I totally knew I'd get that reaction. We like to justify our purchases and methods.

I don't think that's it, but that comment seems more like a snarky response to criticism you don't care for I think the issue with the Brulosphy Exbeeriments is that everything they test seems to result in "No one could tell, doesn't make any difference". At least a large amount of the one's I've read had that result. My issue primarily is this - once you taste one sample your taste buds are tainted and it *will* affect the taste of the next sample. Unless you taste tested on different days with a 100% clear palette (like as soon as you wake up in the morning) you can't give a completely valid taste assessment. I know for sure there are some beers that if I drink before another it will make the following beer taste terrible. Just for an example, say I drink a Heineken then follow it with a Paulaner Hefeweizen the Paulaner will taste terrible. Just as an example. Now if you are splitting a batch of the same beer and making one small change I thing you will likely find tasters will have a damned hard time trying to differentiate them. It's not like adding coriander to one batch and not the other and asking which has coriander. But even then, for arguments sake yet again, if they first taste the coriander sample that lingering taste may carry into the next sample and they might still say they can't tell a difference. But between oxygenating one beer and not the other I really doubt people are going to see such a huge difference as to be able to detect it.

And oxygenating wort isn't primarily done for flavor characteristics as we all know anyhow.



Rev.

 

[mongoose33]

The conclusions made in these exbeeriments bother me a bit sometimes. The 'nothing vs pure oxygen' one especially. The conclusion made is that the O2 doesn't produce a reliably distinguishable difference. That is not a correct conclusion. 16 out of 36 people selected the correct beer in a triangle test! That suggests there is a difference, but needs a bigger sample size. It doesn't prove there is a difference at the standard p<0.05 or p<0.01 levels. A test of this sort of size is sometimes used in science to get an idea of how big the 'real' study would need to be to prove something at a significant level. I actually find the qualitative discussion more useful than the p-values in exbeeriments (and I do enjoy reading them, despite this complaint). Enough of my rant.....sorry, it's a bit off topic.

A larger sample may not end up producing a significant result. It might just result in more people being unable to determine a difference. We can't just assume a larger sample would result in a significant result.

My issues with Brulosophy have always been related to their testing panels. There's no control over what people were eating or drinking just prior to the testing. If you just had two double IPAs and now you're going to try to pick out some subtle differences...well, maybe. More likely, IMO, not.

I did such an experiment but I had people drinking no beer prior to the test, and I presented the beers in random order; some had one of the test beer, some had one of the comparison beer, and all the potential orders of presentation were covered: AAB, ABA, BAA, BBA, BAB, and ABB. So far as I've ever seen, Brulosophy experimenters never do this, and all of it calls their results into question.

More's the pity, too, because I think the processes they use to isolate only one variable are really pretty good.

 

[Horseflesh]

One of these? How long does 1.4 ounces of oxygen last?

Apologies, I was unclear. I meant a "real" oxygen cylinder from a welding shop--like the one pictured in the William's link. I calculated something like 500 minutes of gas at 1 liter/minute is in one of those. Even if I waste a lot, that is still a whole lot of brews. But, it costs $100 to get one from Central Welding.

 

[mongoose33]

One of these? How long does 1.4 ounces of oxygen last?

I think he means the larger ones that welders use, I think they're green. About the size of a 10# CO2 tank, I think.

The little ones get me about 15 brews, more or less. But I also use it to oxygenate my starters, too.

 

[mongoose33]

Since I started oxygenating my wort while still pitching the proper amounts of yeast cells, I have had quicker starting, faster completing fermentations with more predictable attenuations. I have not had a stalled fermentation since. Due to those and attending to a plethora of other small details, the beer has been tasting better and better.

This is the main reason I oxygenate. I want a quick start, a vigorous fermentation to outcompete any bacteriological nasties that have found their way into my wort. I do everything I reasonably can to keep them out, but all you need is microscopic hitchhikers on a dust mote to fall in and there you are.

And you point out the process I use too--that is, I believe small details, taken in the aggregate, matter. Every time I brew I try to do something better. Over time, I've had the same results as you: better and better.

 

[kh54s10]

I think he means the larger ones that welders use, I think they're green. About the size of a 10# CO2 tank, I think.

The little ones get me about 15 brews, more or less. But I also use it to oxygenate my starters, too.

Thanks, I was under the impression that you wouldn't get that many uses.

 

[IslandLizard]

Whatever means this "old spare keg" of which you mythologically speak, @IslandLizard ?
That's like having spare beer, or unnecessary bacon.

I have 21 corny kegs. A few are pretty old and don't have a manual PRV valve. I rarely use those for day to day operations. Although perfectly fine, I consider them spares, and handy to borrow a part from in a pinch. I use kegs for aging too, so yeah, they may get tied up for a year or longer.

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanks, I was under the impression that you wouldn't get that many uses.

As I mentioned before, you need to remove the valve/regulator from the disposables after each use to prevent them from leaking (slowly).

 

[mongoose33]

As I mentioned before, you need to remove the valve/regulator from the disposables after each use to prevent them from leaking (slowly).

Well, that's not strictly true. I never remove mine, and I've never had a slow leak. Now, having said that, I no doubt have jinxed myself.

But it's not a bad idea to remove the regulator just to be safe.

FWIW, I always have a spare O2 bottle on hand just in case.

 

[balrog]

I've not had a slow leak issue either. Altho I've not counted how many batches I've gotten from those, I know it's more than 10. I do know that when I got my first one I did remove every use (I only brew 1-2 a month) but I did not like releasing even the slightest PFFFT with every disassembly of regulator and tank.