Anyone use the disposable oxygen tanks for aerating?

[SpanishCastleAle]

I recently read somewhere that even when using a stone, most of the O2 doesn't get dissolved in the beer (sure, you could run it long enough if you can keep the foam down). The suggestion was to run the O2 enough to fill the headspace of the carboy (which ime will be full of foam by then) and then shake the crap out of the carboy.

I have the Williams kit and have run it with and without the filter and didn't notice a difference (other than it flowing better without it). I mostly just use it for starters and lagers, usually not for typical ales.

 

[Slurm]

I use this, from William's Brewing.

Great... now I have something else that i really want to buy... That is an awesome piece of kit.

 

[boo boo]

I recently read somewhere that even when using a stone, most of the O2 doesn't get dissolved in the beer (sure, you could run it long enough if you can keep the foam down). .

Good suggestion.

What I was told was to just let the O2 trickle into the fermenter so it can be absorbed, rather than being blown out into the headspace where it would be lost.

 

[malkore]

Yes, you just trickle the O2 in. I basically start my flow at the top fo the wort so I can see its actually bubbling, then I put it down ot the bottom and move it slowly around (I too have the williams 22" stainless wand airstone setup).

Doing this, I do not see the O2 make it to the surface. i don't actually get foam on top of the wort (in an appreciable amount). And from my experience with dissolving gas into liquid...the above tells me O2 is definitely going into the wort.

 

[Sarrsipius]

I've been using the disposable cylinders with the valve shown in this thread but have been very dissapointed with how many batches/cylinder I've been getting. Seems like I get about 5 or 6 minutes of O2 from a cylinder. I guess at 8 bucks a tank it's only a couple bucks extra per batch but it seems like I should get more from a tank that size. Anyone know what the pressure is on these when they are new? Are you guys getting better results?

 

[calebawilson]

can you buy the regulator or valve to dispense the o2 from the bottle at HD I have tubing and a airstone just need a way to get the o2 into it.

 

[MikeSzwaya]

I just recently went back to the red O2 tank + SS stone method after years of using an aquarium pump/HEPA filter. This time though, I picked up a flowmeter to measure out the O2 rate.

The Yeast book noted that around 9-12 ppm O2 was optimal and was something you just couldn't get using atmospheric air (aquarium pump, shaking, etc).

I don't have the book in front of me now but I'm guessing it was White Labs that did an experiment where they measured O2 content in 5 gallons of wort after a set amount of oxygenation: 1 min, 2 min, etc. at 1 L/min. I think the 1 L/min for 1 minutes (basically 1 liter of O2) yielded 12 ppm O2.

The authors recommended a trial-and-error approach to dial the oxygenation rate in, assuming that people understandably didn't have a method to measure O2. Personally, I don't have the time or patience to experiment with getting oxygenation right.

For my 10 gallon batches, I've been adding 2 liters of O2, mainly at 0.5 L/min for 4 minutes because the 1L rate is pretty intense and causes a lot of foaming. Even at 0.5 L/min, the flowrate seems high. It foams and you can see the surface disturbance. I believe though that the O2 is trapped in the bubbles and that as the yeast goes through lag phase, it scours up the O2 in the headspace.

So far, the results have been really, really good. I'm getting far more consistent attenuation than I did with air.

Anyway, this went a little off track from the disposable O2 tank thread. Sorry.

To answer Sarrsipius, I've had this O2 bottle for a while. I think I've gotten at least a dozen batches out of it.

 

[Rundownhouse]

Mike,

That's awesome info, thanks. Any chance you could take a short video of your .5L/m flow into wort and post it? That could really help out all of us left just guessing how much O2 we're getting in our wort.

 

[SankePankey]

. This time though, I picked up a flowmeter to measure out the O2 rate.

Yeah, I want to get a flow meter. I have an in line stone that's right after the boil kettle, in stead of right after the plate chiller like alot of folks do, like sabco chill-wizard. (I chill in the kettle, so). The stone is inside a tri-clamp tee and on the outside is a ball lock corny post (this was a custom weld). Anyhoo, it's nice to have whatever tubing connected to the tank be removable from the stone rather than permanently attached. That way you can store the stone in Vodka or something if you want or clean it without discoloring your tubing or having to sanitize that.

Anyhoo, back to the point. In using the little red tanks, a flow meter would be great cause I'm just guessing at this point. And, I've found that as the tank becomes emptier, it flows way less than when new, so you just never know enough to know without a flow meter. I figure at some point, I'll graduate to a medical oxygen tank with a regulator that has a flow meter in it - rather than buying a separate flow meter from Dwyer or something because those are equally expensive and I have to go fill one tank (CO2) every so often anyways as it is.

 

[caiafa]

I just bought a 2l refillable tank and pressure regulator. Have to go to fill it up next week.
I'm thinking of buying a oxygen meter to measure the dissolved gasses.

 

[hlhorne]

How does everyone store their O2 cylinders? I guess more accurately, WHERE in your home do you store your cylinders? All the fire and flammability warnings are kind of creepy. Is there any safe place in a house? I figure the garage is not a good place, especially since the summer, since the temperature could easily creep up rather high.

 

[tgmartin000]

I figure it can't be worse than the little camping propane cylinders I keep in the basement.

 

[outside92129]

brewing o2 is stored in the garage with the rest of the beer gear, it's next to the welding gear. Hopefully i'll never pick up the wrong bottle when aerating

But i do have separate tanks for brewing and cutting. I get 'em refilled at the same place and have separate regs for them ($10 used on ebay) not because i'm anxious about reactions, just because i'm lazy and don't want to disconnect/swap out the gear each time i want to do something.

 

[rack04]

I have several empty disposable tanks. What is the proper way to dispose of them? I assume I can't just throw them away in the trash.

 

[davis119]

I have several empty disposable tanks. What is the proper way to dispose of them? I assume I can't just throw them away in the trash.

That's what I usually do with my mini propane tanks. Idk what else to do with them the table has no info....

 

[outside92129]

The red O2 tanks are aluminum. I cut them open then recycle them. Propane tanks are made of steel, also cut open for recycling. The recyclers are obviously ansy about accepting tanks that may have fuel inside them, so by cutting them open you can let them quickly tell that they're safe. There is a safety issue here of course, be careful when cutting them as, well, you can ignite the contents with you in close proximity. (recycler employees won't be cutting tanks open)

 

[Pappers_]

Thread resurrection . . .

I shop at a local hardware store (Ace) whenever I can precisely because of the issue raised in the earlier posts in this thread about the giant box stores.

Now my question - is there no place to send these O2 canisters to be recycled or re-used? I'm skeptical that if I just put it in with my village's recycling that it will actually get recycled, but what do I know? I see outside92129's post above about cutting them open, but I don't have the tools to do so and wouldn't in any case for the safety issue he raised.

 

[outside92129]

the O2 canisters are aluminum so they're quite soft, try hitting it with a hammer and then just putting it in with the household recycle. A metal recycling place will definitely take it. Because it was O2 it's not going to be dangerous to cut - it's just air, no fuel.

 

[Pappers_]

the O2 canisters are aluminum so they're quite soft, try hitting it with a hammer and then just putting it in with the household recycle. A metal recycling place will definitely take it. Because it was O2 it's not going to be dangerous to cut - it's just air, no fuel.

Thanks!

 

[gizmodog51]

guess i'm behind the 8 ball.....i shoot by wort up with O2 at 1/2-3/4 valve opening for only 30-40 seconds..........

yet when i use a starter usually i have activity with in 15 minutes!

wonder what the advantage would be to have a 5 lb O2 bottle?
i've heard that local fire stations will fill them for free...at least my neighbor who was a diver said F.D. filled his tamks as long as they were current.

maybe worth the investment on a used bottle for those who use copious amounts of O2.


GD

 

[worxman02]

the O2 canisters are aluminum so they're quite soft, try hitting it with a hammer and then just putting it in with the household recycle. A metal recycling place will definitely take it. Because it was O2 it's not going to be dangerous to cut - it's just air, no fuel.

That's not completely true. Pure O2 is an oxidizer and will increase the temperature of a flame and can be lit on fire. There is a reason why people on medical oxygen are told to stay away from open flames like gas stoves. They don't make oxy-acetelyne welding torches for nothing!

I wouldn't cut into the container unless you are sure that it is completely empty and even then I would be very careful.

 

[zymurgistic]

yesterday i finally got to do a properly controlled experiment to confirm for my own little nerdy self the DO levels from shaking vs. injecting pure O2. purchased 20 cubic foot O2 cylinder from local welding supply, it's roughly the same size as a 5 lb CO2 cylinder. also purchased regulator, you cannot use a CO2 regulator on O2 tanks. DO meter was borrowed from my assistant brewer who works for a company that sells safety equipment and lab supplies, incl DO meters, he confirmed for me that the meter had been calibrated at their shop two days before.

10 gallon batch cooled to 68F pitch temp, OG of 1.066, split into two buckets. for first bucket*, i did my old standard down-on-one-knee bucket sloshing with frequent burping until blowoff hole in lid was no longer visibly pulling a suction between burps. probably sloshed at good clip for four minutes? then removed lid and tested with meter, reading showed 7.97 ppm of DO. this jibed remarkably well with what i had read, that the theoretical max for agitation-method is about 8ppm. (someday i'd like to build a mechanical agitator and give it like 30 minutes and see how much higher it goes.) for second bucket i used pure oxygen. previously i had played around with the airstone submerged in bucket of sani water to get a sense of what would be a good psi to see on the regulator. i decided on 13.5 psi. with the airstone sunk to bottom of the ferm bucket, i turned on gas and timed for two minutes. DO meter read just over 8ppm. i gave it another 60 seconds and it read 12.20 ppm. the literature i've seen mostly converges on 10 ppm as a good minimum DO for ale worts. too much O2 is, i think, only really a concern for packaging breweries who don't want any lingering O2 in the bottles to cause staling and stability issues. i'm a pub brewer so i don't care if i'm a bit above 10ppm.

* sloshing bucket (the first tested) was actually the second filled. evap rate from boil was higher than expected so i ended up with probably only 4 gal in the sloshing bucket, which is an important here to the DO test conducted because you can slosh the liquid a heck of a lot better when it's only 3/4 full than when it's almost completely full.

next step will be to add my flow meter to the oxy tank rig. i picked up a cheapo thorpe tube style flow meter from welder supply for @ $15. with this i will have a quantitative sense of how much oxygen by volume i'm actually using in those 3 minutes. if it's crazy high, like 1/4 of the tank or whatever, i'll experiment with using lower psi for longer time.

another test i'd like to conduct is the aquarium pump method. this is attractive since air is free. only downside is having to come back and remove aeration after an hour or two or however long it happens to take. also, i'd probably want to rig up some type of filtration for air, so that's further assembly time. but i have a friend with a degree in microbiology and he's pretty confident that for brewing purposes, i could use a pretty simple filtration method, like an inline pvc pipe filled with cotton balls that i've spritzed with alcohol.

pic of 2-micron airstone used:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/carb-stone-2-micron.html

 

[gizmodog51]

mechanical agitators are used in the waste water plants to raise DO in the effluent. also blowers are used which force air thru large diffusers much like the oxygen stone is used in homebrewing. all those bugs used to breakdown the poop need oxygen too...LOL!
the splash & tumble method is used by water treatment plants to remove hydrogen sulfide as well as helping to add oxygen to the water.

as a home brewer i used the shake and pitch method for many years with great results only because i was cheap.

eventually evolving to Y. starters & oxygen diffusion revealed that with the heightened DO from diffusion the yeast showed almost immediate signs of fermentation.

appreciated your results from your DO tests.......thanx

GD

 

[hogwash]

pic of 2-micron airstone used:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/carb-stone-2-micron.html

I think it's usually recommended to use a .5 micron stone for oxygen. That's what I use based on advice from HBT. I'd be interested to see what your ppm would be after your first 2 minutes with a.5.

 

[jeepinjeepin]

wonder what the advantage would be to have a 5 lb O2 bottle?
i've heard that local fire stations will fill them for free...at least my neighbor who was a diver said F.D. filled his tamks as long as they were current.

maybe worth the investment on a used bottle for those who use copious amounts of O2.

GD

I doubt it. Firefighters use compressed air, not bottled O2.

That's not completely true. Pure O2 is an oxidizer and will increase the temperature of a flame and can be lit on fire. There is a reason why people on medical oxygen are told to stay away from open flames like gas stoves. They don't make oxy-acetelyne welding torches for nothing!

I wouldn't cut into the container unless you are sure that it is completely empty and even then I would be very careful.

Close. O2 will not burn on its own. A gas stove is not dangerous to a med O2 user unless its leaking or there are other flammables present. It's better to err on the side of caution though. Gas stove lit + O2 + say, fingernail polish remover being used in the same room could make a boom.

Cutting an disposable O2 tank with a hacksaw is almost completely foolproof, just don't do it if you smell a gas leak or just filled your lawnmower and reek of gasoline.

 

[zymurgistic]

yes, agree, 0.5 micron should in theory perform better. stay tuned!

 

[gizmodog51]

Quote:
Originally Posted by gizmodog51
wonder what the advantage would be to have a 5 lb O2 bottle?
i've heard that local fire stations will fill them for free...at least my neighbor who was a diver said F.D. filled his tamks as long as they were current.

maybe worth the investment on a used bottle for those who use copious amounts of O2.

GD

I doubt it. Firefighters use compressed air, not bottled O2.


you are SO right! what was I think of????

GD

 

[zymurgistic]

Clarification: CO2 is sold in pounds, but O2 is sold in cubic feet. this is because CO2 liquifies in the bottle, but O2 does not. now, in the big bulk tanks that the distributor uses to store O2, it *does* liquify. but not in the tank sizes sold to the end consumer.

so actually you won't see "five pound oxygen tanks" anywhere. i believe the confusion arises from the fact that a 20cf O2 tank is roughly the size of a 5 lb CO2 tank.

 

[ja09]

Can anyone tell me how many batches you get out of the small oxygen tanks from HD?

Funny story.. I used one last night for the first time and my wort was bubbling like crazy, huge, giant bubbles. I didn't think it looked right, but what the hell. Turns out the stone wasn't tightly threaded and oxygen must have been pouring out the threads. Used the whole tank in 90 seconds!

 

[hogwash]

Can anyone tell me how many batches you get out of the small oxygen tanks from HD?

Funny story.. I used one last night for the first time and my wort was bubbling like crazy, huge, giant bubbles. I didn't think it looked right, but what the hell. Turns out the stone wasn't tightly threaded and oxygen must have been pouring out the threads. Used the whole tank in 90 seconds!

When I first got my set up I didn't think the disposable tanks would last long but that was over a year ago and I'm still on my first tank. I've probably done 15 or so batches since then.