How many of you guys aerate with an oxygen tank?

[Willygilly]

That's the way I did it, but I think now that oxygenation should be done first.

 

[jerrylotto]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned temperature. Your boil drives pretty much all of the dissolved oxygen out of solution and not unlike carbon dioxide, there's an inverse relationship between temperature and oxygen solubility. So you want to be down at fermentation temperature before you oxygenate. This might be a little bit off topic but I thought it was important to document.

 

[bionicbelly]

I did the disposable cylinders for a little bit. I think if that was the only option, I'd skip it. To expensive, and the cylinders are almost impossible to find. I got the Blichmann oxygenation regulator, as it uses a regular welding tank. A 20lb bottle is basically a lifetime supply, and it pays for itself by not having to buy the disposable cylinders. I think I was getting 2-3 batches per cylinder, and I think they were like 12 bucks each. I did already have an oxy tank for my torch. I can't remember exactly how much they are.
As to whether or not you have to use oxygen, I really don't know. I just (almost) always have. I always have good fermentations, usually getting to FG days before they "should" My last batch, a 1.052 altbier went from 1.052 to 1.014 in 48 hours. (healthy pitch of Kolsch yeast, fermented at 58F). Not sure if that is the O2, or just a combination of things.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/b...EUh94JyWIOv7XgO185Bdhjz08Ly9YT2BoCa_MQAvD_BwE

 

[Bobby_M]

How many do not aerate? No artificially induced O2?

We are in that camp. Never have, never will.

The devil is in the details. Someone may read this and say "see, this guy is successful and doesn't use oxygen". The problem is that they also are not likely following all the other things you do that mostly negate the benefits of oxygen.

A few cases where oxygen is not going to make any noticeable improvement:

Lower OG beers, say under 1.050.
Dry yeast pitches
Liquid yeast grown up on a stirplate
Pitching a bunch of liquid yeast from a week old pack(s).
Sever overpitching from a freshly harvested cake

Where it may make a noticeable difference:

Higher OG beers
Pitching an older pack of liquid yeast with no starter
or pitching a fresh pack, but still technically underpitching from a cell count perspective.
Reusing harvested yeast that has sat in the fridge for a while

 

[TBA]

BTW, was at Lowe’s over the weekend. Finally had the little red oxygen cylinders back in stock.

 

[anthonyws]

Well, it is an oxidizer!

I started using medical oxygen shortly after getting into brewing. Buttoday, after 5 years I read an article that there is a possibility of over oxygenation.....who knew?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Maybe someone can confirm that over doing it with oxygen will do this to your beer.

BeerSmith podcast #269 may offer some ideas.

 

[murphyslaw]

Wow. I saw this thread title and assumed the responses would be overwhelmingly pro-oxygen.

I believe that in Jamil and Chris White's yeast book, they say too much can O2 isn't really a practical concern. It can be bad, but you'd have to do something weird to get high enough for it to matter.

 

[Alex4mula]

I use the red bottles and oxygenate for one minute with an oxygenation stone. I watch for bubbles in the beer without too much reaching the top (waste). The bottle las 15 to 20 batches of 5 gallons. Other than providing good O2 my main reason is not to bother shaking a heavy glass carboy.

 

[mashpaddled]

I tried it out with a couple tanks a while back around the time Yeast came out and we all decided it was really important. I don't dispute the science but I never felt like it improved my beers over my usually sloshy racking process on brew days. After the two tanks ran out I never bought more. I would return to that process if I brewed higher OG beers or larger batches. I don't seem to have a problem with my typical 1-3 gallon 4-6% ABV batches.

 

[BBBF]

I tried it out with a couple tanks a while back around the time Yeast came out and we all decided it was really important. I don't dispute the science but I never felt like it improved my beers over my usually sloshy racking process on brew days. After the two tanks ran out I never bought more. I would return to that process if I brewed higher OG beers or larger batches. I don't seem to have a problem with my typical 1-3 gallon 4-6% ABV batches.

You using dry or liquid yeast? Oxygen isn't really needed with dry yeast and a moderate starting gravity.

 

[Mr Freddy]

For what’s is worth the ACE hardware in Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 just got about a dozen Red O2 bottles today . The tools manager told me their warehouse just got a good batch in for a number of stores in SoCal. So if you are on the hunt right now I’d check ACE. He said it was the first batch they have had at this location in almost two years. Picked up 2, just in the nick of time, used up what I had left on the last batch.

 

[kqngw]

This is generally not required except for making large batches.