Generating oxygen for wort aeration from sodium percarbonate

[Simonh82]

This may be a completely idiotic idea (and I'm entirely prepared to believe that it is) but I'd like to explore the idea of generating oxygen to aid wort aeration from sodium percarbonate.

My current aeration methods are fairly standard. I let the wort flow from my boiler at a height, into my fermentation vessel and thrash it with a paddle as it fills up. When it's about half full I put the lid on and shake it hard for a couple of minutes and then carry on filling and thrashing. If I'm feeling particularly strong, I might give it another shake when it is full. This method has served me reasonably well, the worst I've suffered is a couple of semi stalled brews which needed a bit of a stir to get the yeast going again.

In Yeast, by Chris White, I read that you can reach the recommended level of dissolved oxygen by shaking the vessel after filling the head space with pure O2. I don't want to invest in a proper oxygen rig for financial and space reasons so I'm considering other ways to do this.

I've seen a method of purging vessels and head spaces of air by putting vinegar and sodium bicarbonate in a bottle and running a tube through a hole in the lid. The reaction generates CO2 and this can be used to purge a vessel with.

Has anyone tried doing something similar with Sodium Parcarbonate and water? I have a cheap and easily available source in my local £ shop which sells big tubs as laundry stain remover.

If I were to try this, is water the best thing to dissolve it in? I know these kind of strongly oxidising materials can be dangerous so I don't want to blow up my house, or my beer.

Is this a ridiculous idea, or something worth trying?

PS. with the greatest respect I don't want to turn this into a 'I never bother doing anything to aerate' vs 'you can only achieve good beer with pure O2' debate.

 

[seabass07]

Iirc, it ends up releasing hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down into o2 and water while the sodium carbonate remains. So unless you want that in your beer, not a good idea. Some is OK, but it will wreck your water chemistry if you don't account for it.

 

[behindthetimes]

If I understand your thought, the chemical isn't actually going into the beer, you're hoping that it off-gasses O2 when mixed with water, which you could then push into another space and perc through the wort. I haven't done the math, but I really don't think it would push enough O2 to make it worthwhile, I think both pressure and concentration seems like it would be too low to be effective. In fact I don't think sodium percarbonate reacts violently enough with H20 to produce any vapor pressure at all.

 

[seabass07]

Oops. Missed the putting it in headspace part.

Considering whatever you dissolve it in will also absorb o2, you will not get much from that method.

 

[Simonh82]

Thanks for the replays. My intention was to collect any off gassed O2 in a bottle and then feed it via a tube through the bottle lid into the FV headspace. I'm certainly not intending to add it directly to the wort!

My fear was that it would not release enough oxygen. When I've used it for cleaning it is certainly a much less violent reaction than mixing vinegar and sodium bicarbonate, which is where I've heard of this method used before.

It seems like it might be possible with the use of a catalyst but i've no idea what that might be.

 

[Gemadrken]

This in no way specifically answers your question; but its been a killer technique for me. In fact this may be entirely off topic

Go to a local hydroponic gardening store (an aquarium store may have what you need, or just order it online).

Buy their smallest air pump and smallest air stone and some tubing.

Run the air stone in a sanitary bucket before putting it in your wort; IE run it in a star san bucket.

Then put it in your wort as you chill it if you ferment in a carboy; if you ferment in a bucket with a lot of head space then put it in your bucket.

I've had fermentations start around 24 hours with dry yest, around 72 hours with liquid yeast and no starter or oxygenation.

With an air stone/air pump and yeast starter I get vigorous fermentation within 12 hours

Simple yeast starter will cost you $10 including initial investment; and cheaper after that

Air stone/air pump/tubing setup will cost about $15 and you only really need to get it once

Pump style (similar pumps will work)
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...bd39uMlb-bPwNQJ5OsYQEcU1aCUUTZ7cS_RoCirPw_wcB

Air stone style
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W4PZTA/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Tubing
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Penn-Plax-Fish-Aquarium-Standard-Air-Line-Tubing-8-ST8-/191758591983

Personally I've found wort aeration through this method gives me fast, short, vigorous fermentation. But i've still had success with no aeration

No matter how you go about aeration; your wort will only hold so much oxygen.

At 15C (59f) your wort will hold about 10mg/L of dissolved oxygen
At 21C (70f) Your wort will hold about 8.8mg/L of dissolved oxygen

So oxygenating too long is pointless; it won't get past those thresholds

But oxygenating long enough with the right method has been great in my experience

On topic though

"As an oxidizing agent, sodium percarbonate is an ingredient in a number of home and laundry cleaning products, including non-chlorine bleach products such as OxyBoost, OxiClean, Tide laundry detergent,[1] and Vanish.[6] Dissolved in water, it yields a mixture of hydrogen peroxide (which eventually decomposes to water and oxygen) and sodium carbonate ("soda ash").[1]"

With further research; H2O2 is fatal to yeast (and most microbes); and while it dissipates eventually it does not do so instantly. This could cause problems; but it also could be fine. That all depends on concentration.

 

[Simonh82]

This in no way specifically answers your question; but its been a killer technique for me. In fact this may be entirely off topic

Go to a local hydroponic gardening store (an aquarium store may have what you need, or just order it online).

Buy their smallest air pump and smallest air stone and some tubing.

Run the air stone in a sanitary bucket before putting it in your wort; IE run it in a star san bucket.

Then put it in your wort as you chill it if you ferment in a carboy; if you ferment in a bucket with a lot of head space then put it in your bucket.

I've had fermentations start around 24 hours with dry yest, around 72 hours with liquid yeast and no starter or oxygenation.

With an air stone/air pump and yeast starter I get vigorous fermentation within 12 hours

Simple yeast starter will cost you $10 including initial investment; and cheaper after that

Air stone/air pump/tubing setup will cost about $15 and you only really need to get it once

Pump style (similar pumps will work)
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...bd39uMlb-bPwNQJ5OsYQEcU1aCUUTZ7cS_RoCirPw_wcB

Air stone style
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W4PZTA/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Tubing
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Penn-Plax-Fish-Aquarium-Standard-Air-Line-Tubing-8-ST8-/191758591983

Personally I've found wort aeration through this method gives me fast, short, vigorous fermentation. But i've still had success with no aeration

No matter how you go about aeration; your wort will only hold so much oxygen.

At 15C (59f) your wort will hold about 10mg/L of dissolved oxygen
At 21C (70f) Your wort will hold about 8.8mg/L of dissolved oxygen

So oxygenating too long is pointless; it won't get past those thresholds

But oxygenating long enough with the right method has been great in my experience

On topic though

"As an oxidizing agent, sodium percarbonate is an ingredient in a number of home and laundry cleaning products, including non-chlorine bleach products such as OxyBoost, OxiClean, Tide laundry detergent,[1] and Vanish.[6] Dissolved in water, it yields a mixture of hydrogen peroxide (which eventually decomposes to water and oxygen) and sodium carbonate ("soda ash").[1]"

With further research; H2O2 is fatal to yeast (and most microbes); and while it dissipates eventually it does not do so instantly. This could cause problems; but it also could be fine. That all depends on concentration.

Thanks for the air pump suggestion. I don't know why I've never considered this. Something about leaving it hanging around in my fermentor for a while makes me worry about infection but I suspect this is isn't a big issue in reality. I'll look in to it.

I'm definitely not suggesting adding the sodium percarbonate directly to the wort. I'm sure this would do awful things to the yeast.

Then again... Maybe I could use it in a White IPA to get it extra sparkling and white!

 

[Gemadrken]

Thanks for the air pump suggestion. I don't know why I've never considered this. Something about leaving it hanging around in my fermentor for a while makes me worry about infection but I suspect this is isn't a big issue in reality.

I literally had the same concern before I gave it a go.

You can sanitize your air stone and tubing by soaking it during your boil; then once you are chilling your wort and its under ~130f (which is a semi random temp) drop your air stone into your boil kettle and start aerating your wort there; it only takes about 5-10 minutes. If you aerate the entire duration of your wort dropping from 130f to ~68f you will have your wort well aerated by the time you funnel it into your carboy.

If you use a brew bucket with a big opening you can dump your wort into your brew bucket and then drop your air stone in for ~15 minutes.

My concerns went away when I kept reading about how people would pour their wort between two buckets several times to aerate with good results. With that in mind; an air pump is more effective aeration and imo way less chance for contamination than pouring your wort between buckets several times.

I hope that makes sense; these things can be difficult to explain hah.

Point being: You really only need to oxygenate for like 15 minutes post boil; then everything can be cozy and sealed

 

[Couchy]

Why not skip the messing around with Sodium Percarbonate and tubes and airstones and add Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) directly into the wort prior to yeast pitching.

A molecule of Hyrdogen Peroxide (H2O2) is just a water molecule (H2O) with an extra O (oxygen atom) added. In the presence of organic matter (like wort) the extra O is released into solution (in other words it oxygenates the wort) and whats left is simply good ol' H2O, or water. This breakdown into oxygen and water happens pretty quickly.

Hydrogen Peroxide is usually sold as a 3% solution (eg. hairdressers use it to dye hair). You need someone who knows how to calculate chemical equations to work out how much 3% H2O2 solution to add to the volume of your wort (5 galls/20 litres?) to provide the level of oxygen saturation in the wort you are after.

Any Sheldon Coopers out there?

 

[Gemadrken]

Why not skip the messing around with Sodium Percarbonate and tubes and airstones and add Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) directly into the wort prior to yeast pitching.

A molecule of Hyrdogen Peroxide (H2O2) is just a water molecule (H2O) with an extra O (oxygen atom) added. In the presence of organic matter (like wort) the extra O is released into solution (in other words it oxygenates the wort) and whats left is simply good ol' H2O, or water. This breakdown into oxygen and water happens pretty quickly.

Hydrogen Peroxide is usually sold as a 3% solution (eg. hairdressers use it to dye hair). You need someone who knows how to calculate chemical equations to work out how much 3% H2O2 solution to add to the volume of your wort (5 galls/20 litres?) to provide the level of oxygen saturation in the wort you are after.

Any Sheldon Coopers out there?

H2O2 is extremely anti-microbe

http://worthwellness.com/why-is-hydrogen-peroxide-one-of-the-best-treatments-for-yeast-infections/

^Lol its the only "proof" i could find in a 2 second search

 

[Couchy]

Yes Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) is anti-microbe if used in sufficient concentration.

But I'm talking about adding it in proportion to a relatively massive volume of wort (eg. 5 gall) which will dilute the amount of oxygen released to something brewers look for when oxygenating wort (eg something like 12 parts per million (ppm)?). That level of oxygen is not going to hurt yeast - in fact they will use it for growth and reproduction (which is why we seek to oxygenate wort).

And as I said in my previous post you would add the H2O2 before pitching yeast, just in case there are initial high concentrations of oxygen being released in parts of the wort as it chemically breaks down to oxygen and water.

Its just another way of introducing free oxygen to wort. You can do it by bubbling pure oxygen gas through the wort pre yeast pitch. Or you can add H2O2 pre yeast pitch.

The answer I don't have is how much 3% solution of H2O2 you need to add to 5 galls of wort to achieve, say, 12 ppm of oxygen.

 

[Gemadrken]

Its not necessarily the O2 that would harm the yeast; its that H2O2 can be unpredictable in something like a wort. Different enzymes change how fast it reacts; it can go fast or very slow. IMO when an air stone is crazy easy I just wouldn't risk it

H2O2 likes to destroy things; especially organic things. Every time i've gotten the 35% stuff on my hands the area turns paper white and stings like nothing else hah.

12 ppm of dissolved O2 is about as oxygenated as your gonna get something; unless maybe you have pure O2.

I wanna try oxygenating with electrolysis sometime.
A current between a cathode and anode will result in the following: 2(H20) --> 2H2 + O2; and aerate to 12 ppm (although I don't remember exact measurements)

Even there though; I have no idea how it would react with the countless chemicals in a wort hah.

The way I see it; aerate to make a super happy wort to pitch your yeast into where you are entirely confident nothing will go wrong

If you added the h2o2 and you didnt have the correct enzymes it could take potentailly several days for the h2o2 to break down. I don't think the 3% stuff would be a big problem; but it could do more harm than good.

But hey I might be wrong on all of that; I haven't tested. Im just happy with mah air stone hah

 

[arcturus]

on some bottles of hydrogen peroxide, it will have something along the lines of "10 volume" which means that 1 part hydrogen peroxide yields that many parts oxygen. a science person told me that. word on the street is that 300 ml oxygen is good for 5-6 gallons of wort, you can do your own math if you don't like that number. that means 30 ml (one oz, two tablespoons, half a shot, whatever) will do the job.
yeast contains catalase which decomposes h2o2. some may die, just overpitch a wee bit.

 

[madscientist451]

Your idea seems like a big hassle for very little return. I ferment in a carboy. I use a big funnel, dump my chilled wort in and add a healthy pitch of yeast and I get active healthy fermentation every time. To me, pitching a good amount of healthy yeast is the important thing. Didn't Brulosophy do an experiment that showed that using oxygen didn't matter? Sorry I've busted my ass all day and too lazy to look it up myself...

 

[arcturus]

you are quite right, woodland brewing did a whole scientific, 27-sample experiment which showed that adding h2o2 to wort has little to no impact whatsoever.
now, for those who use bottled oxygen, why not use a 20 oz soda bottle hooked to a tube to bubble in o2 produced from h2o2 mixed with a splash of starter? cheap, easy, cover girl.