Air Pump / Air Stone Video Benchmark

[waeltken]

Hey all,

I bought a stainless air stone with the inline HEPA filter to use with my aquarium pump. I hooked it up in a glass of water to get an idea of the flow and there seem to be only a few bubbles. Now I usually use a siphon sprayer attachment on my auto-siphon when transferring the cooled wort into the fermenter, so I should be fine in terms of aeration, but I'd still like to use this thing.

Can anybody upload a quick cell phone video of a well functioning air stone setup in a glass of water so I can check whether

a) have a clogged air stone
b) have an air pump that's too weak
c) have a defective hepa filter
d) I am just paranoid that I will unnecessarily expose my cooled wort to open air with it not working fast enough

Also, how long are you supposed to keep the airstone running in the wort?

Do you get a noticeably better fermentation? Taste?

I'll try to upload my video here in a link as well. Maybe you can just give me feedback if the bubble rate looks good or a too low.

Many thanks!


- Henrik

 

[waeltken]

Here's a quick video of the running setup...

http://youtu.be/ZxxuTNX-MYk

 

[Sheldon]

six second video, am i missing something?

 

[Saccharomycetaceae]

I've had problems in the past with my airstone getting a little clogged after use in several batches - boiling it in a dilute vinegar solution has helped clear mine out.
Also, couldn't tell for sure from your video, but it looked you were getting some pretty big bubbles coming out of there indicating that either you've got air leaking at the hose barb/hose junction or from where the hose barb sits in the airstone itself. I also had that problem once and messing with it, trying to to just re-seat it fixed it.
To answer how long to run the air, I usually run for 10-15 mintues (longer end of that range for higher gravity brews). Be careful that it doesn't cause a bunch of foam to ooze out of the top of the carboy though!
Hope something in there was useful.

 

[mpcluever]

You cannot over-aerate with air like you can with pure oxygen. Supposedly the yeast will consume any concentration you give it up to the maximum using air. Foaming and time and the only real factors. Oxygenating your wort leads to much faster fermentations with lots of healthy yeast. I notice a significant difference using oxygen.