Aeration with aquarium pump and aeration stone

[gregorz]

Hi,

I am thinking of aerating my wort with aquarium pump, filter and aeration stone. The downside to this method is reduced head retention. I'm interested in other brewer's opinion, that use this method. How big is a problem with head retention? Are there any other downsides? Do you recommend this method?

Best regards,
Gregor

 

[Brewed_Force]

I haven't heard of problems with head retention caused by pumping air into the wort. Surely it gives the same effect (without the elbow grease) as a damn good stir or whisk?

 

[Racinsnake]

+1
Topping up with the cool water from a height also works

 

[LarryF]

+1
Topping up with the cool water from a height also works

That's always worked for me Racin.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I did this on my last brew seemed OK. I got the idea having watched a micro brewery I spent a day at do it. So if i thought if they do it I'll try it.

 

[MyQul]

I read in the the 'yeast book' it's also possible to over oxygenate your wort using 02 and a stone so I guess you need to moniter everything carefully

 

[Twostage]

Hi,

I am thinking of aerating my wort with aquarium pump, filter and aeration stone. The downside to this method is reduced head retention. I'm interested in other brewer's opinion, that use this method. How big is a problem with head retention? Are there any other downsides? Do you recommend this method?

Best regards,
Gregor

I've never heard of reduced head retention due to wort aeration. I also wouldn't worry about too high a concentration of O2 as this applies to aeration with pure O2 which I don't think you are planning on doing.

Is it worth it ? Depends on the gravity of the brew. As MyQul (I think) has mentioned elsewhere, higher gravity beers need more aeration to ensure complete fermentation. I've done two experiments (so far) with aeration with a fish tank pump and stone.

First was a medium strength lager. I split a batch and aerated both with the aerator for ten minutes before adding the yeast. The aerator I have is a double header so I can do two brews simultaneously. The next morning I aerated one of them for another ten minutes. The result - the double aerated one fermented (slowly) for two days longer than the single aerated and ended up 0.2% ABV higher alcohol. Was it worth it ? Not really, I would rather have bottled it two days earlier.

Second was wine. One Demijohn I shook the grape juice before pouring it in. The other I shook and then aerated for ten minutes. The result - the shake only fermented to 12.5 and tasted sweet (this was red wine). The aerated went to 14.9 and was dry and even though I say so myself tasted like commercial wine. Was it worth it ? Yes.

So my thought would be that if you are doing low to medium strength beers then the usual splash or dribble from the siphon is fine. For high (which I'd put at 1.060 and above) I'd seriously consider a second aeration 12-48 hours later.

A final thought is that the concentration of a dissolved gas in a liquid depends on the partial pressure of that particular gas above it. So you could increase the O2 in a wort by aerating in a sealed vessel so more O2 gets dissolved. Sounds like another experiment involving a pressure barrel is required :-).

 

[MyQul]

A final thought is that the concentration of a dissolved gas in a liquid depends on the partial pressure of that particular gas above it. So you could increase the O2 in a wort by aerating in a sealed vessel so more O2 gets dissolved. Sounds like another experiment involving a pressure barrel is required :-).

Interesting. Not so long ago I've begun to aerate about 5L of my dilution water (I'm a maxi-biaber so make concentated wort diluted in the FV) in a jerry can by vigourously shaking it. My lag times since doing this have decreased quite a bit (6 hours when sprinkling dried yeast. 3 hours today when pitching a starter at high krausen). I strongly believe this is because of the increased aeration. Do you think that because I'm aerating 5L in a sealed jerry can I'm getting more disolved O2 into the dilution water - and therfore causing a decrease in lag time. My science-fu isn't strong enough to really get my head around this.

 

[Fil]

unless your having problems with yeast population growth that cant be solved with preparing a starter it may be more trouble than its worth ensuring microlife is filtered from the air before pumping into the beer for example.. the o2 route is safe but at a premium cost..

the limit of my aeration is pouring from waist height through a seive for small batches and pumping the wort thru the cfc and an upturned SS tube to maximise the drop for bigger volumes..

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[MyQul]

unless your having problems with yeast population growth that cant be solved with preparing a starter it may be more trouble than its worth ensuring microlife is filtered from the air before pumping into the beer for example.. the o2 route is safe but at a premium cost..

the limit of my aeration is pouring from waist height through a seive for small batches and pumping the wort thru the cfc and an upturned SS tube to maximise the drop for bigger volumes..

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Is that a piccy of a gnome taking a p*ss in your FV, Fil?

 

[Twostage]

Interesting. Not so long ago I've begun to aerate about 5L of my dilution water (I'm a maxi-biaber so make concentated wort diluted in the FV) in a jerry can by vigourously shaking it. My lag times since doing this have decreased quite a bit (6 hours when sprinkling dried yeast. 3 hours today when pitching a starter at high krausen). I strongly believe this is because of the increased aeration. Do you think that because I'm aerating 5L in a sealed jerry can I'm getting more disolved O2 into the dilution water - and therfore causing a decrease in lag time. My science-fu isn't strong enough to really get my head around this.

Now that is an interesting question. Increasing aeration actually increases lag as there is more O2 to be used up. Going to think about this one.:hmm: