Lawrence Brewers Guild

About a year ago, I bought one of these:



It is a air pump that has a HEPA filter in line and uses a 2-micron stainless steel air stone. After about 10 batches, it isn't working so well. Either the stone is clogged, or the filter.

I've been thinking about using one of these with disposable oxygen tanks:




Several places sell the regulator portion for $20-$25, a new 0.5-micron stone would be approximately $14.

Today, at Home Depot, they were clearing out their disposable oxygen tanks that normally run $8 for $2.77. I bought a case of 12 because they were cheap thinking I'd probably get 3-4 10-gallon batches aerated per tank.

How do you aerate your wort? After I bought them, it made me wonder how much a larger, reusable tank would be at Praxair, but then wondered how much is the deposit/initial cost for the oxygen tank (vs. disposable tanks), a higher quality oxygen regulator vs the pictures above, etc.

For cooling, we use an immersion chiller with a whirlpool arm as discribed by Mr. Malty. http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php
When the wort gets at or below 80, we transfer it via our pump to our fermenter using the whirlpool arm. The tip of this arm is crimped which causes a significant jet. In our plastic sanke fermenter, for 10-gallons, we'll get a 3-4" layer of foam from all of the aeration just with the whirlpool arm jet. Is this enough? Should we be aerating it more? With oxygen? How about standard gravities (1040 - 1055) vs. high gravities (1070 plus)?

What do you use, and what are your thoughts for our process (particularly the whirlpool arm jet aeration thing)?

Guess I should go to Home Depot tomorrow to see if they have any left. I use an O2 set-up similar to what you have pictured, but with a smaller stone. I'm happy with the results, but wish I had a heavier stone. Once I'm running O2 through the line, mine won't hold the it under the wort without a weight.

SS stirrer on a cordless drill. It has some spot welds on it that I don't trust StarSan to sanitize. Goes in the boil for 20 minutes. Aerate for 2 minutes. I know that doesn't get 02 levels quite as high as pure 02 but it seems to work just fine here.

I got tired of buying the little red cans from Home Depot. Got pricey. One of the best investments Ive made was upgrading to a 5# O2 tank. This tank will last a few years. Most dont realize you can over saturate or use to much O2. If your getting a bunch of foam then the O2 is not concentrated in the wort. The nice thing about straight O2 is a few minutes with a stone at 2LpM or less will give you a nice concentration.

I use a 2uM aeration stone inline after my CFC with a 5# O2 tank with a regulator. As Andy stated, a #5 tank will last a good part of your brewing lifetime.

One thing to think about is to add a shut off or check valve before the stone. If you don't you could get cleaner or wort up into your regulator and that is a $30 opps for regulator replacement parts.

Jason

I was using a setup similar to yours Rob, but I recently got my hands on a HUGE 02 tank (given to my mother in law by medicare, which she doesn't use) so I will be using this in the future. I have a .5 micron stone with in-line filter. The plan is for less than 2 minutes of pure 02 set on 2 on the regulator.

Is my math wrong? The top line is the cost of a oxygen regulator, cylinder, and fill of O2 gas at Praxair. They fill it with 20 cubic feet of O2, which from an online formula I found is 26.6 oz of O2.

The bottom is the disposable cylinders I purchased clearanced from Home Depot. The regulator is $25, gas is free (comes in the prefilled disposable cylinder), each cylinder is $2.77 and has 1.4 oz of O2. After 4 cylinders, the cost per ounce is cheaper than buying a larger setup. At a case of 12, it is half the price per ounce than the larger setup.

The clincher seems to be purchasing the Type R cylinder (normally a 5lb CO2 cylinder). If you could get the regulator and/or reusable cylinder for cheap, than it maybe be worth it.

Unless, I'm doing my spreadsheet wrong, seems like I'm ahead keeping the disposables and buying the regulator to go with it. Thoughts?

Dont know about you Rob, buy I never buy this type of equipment brand new. Especially at a over priced welding shop. You can find a reg. on ebay for around $20 bucks (I found one for free actually). I also traded in a old rusty co2 tank someone gave me for the deposit on the o2 cylinder. I know everyone doesn't have the junkin' capabilities to do as well as I did money wise. Are you saying Praxair wants $97 for a deposit on a 5# o2 tank? That in itself seems pretty extreme even to me. I guess my point is dont buy brand new and keep any eye out. And you wont ever run out of o2 suddenly like you do with a red can.

My 5# o2 tank lasted me 2yrs. And I brew heavy 10-24g batches. Ive also shared my o2 on that tank on every club brew ever held here at my home. Just cant see the red cans going that far. Keep looking Rob, there is gold at the end of the rainbow!

Yeah, they wanted $77 for the regulator and $97 for the cylinder 'resale'. He did say I could probably find a lighter duty regulator for $40-50. I know I've seen individuals selling cylinders on this forum and elsewhere for cheap. Can any cylinder (CO2, etc.) be turned in for the deposit? Also, I looked on eBay and there were quite a few cheap regulators.

What do you think of these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-Chemetron ... 43a146aef2

New one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Welding-CGA-540-Oxy ... 27b4930d37

I have a medical O2 tank that you can have Rob. I'm sure it's out of date, and has no reg. Not sure of the size but it's about 2'+ tall. Don't know if anyone in Lawrence will fill it though.

Rob,

Take a look at your local pawn stores. They usually have a plumber cutting torch set, acetylene and O2 with regulators for both gases and a cutting tourch. I kept the O2 and regulator an sold the rest of the stuff. Paid $180 for the set and sold the acetylene and cutter for $100.

Harbor freight has #5 O2 tanks for about $89 new. They had them on sale last month for $75 I think. Regulators were about $38-45 new.

If you want to go this route, I can swing by and pick then up for you.

Jason

Rob,

I think the Chemetron is a medical O2 tank regulator. They have different fittings than the welding O2 tanks and I don't think you can get them filled at your local gas guy (as they are for medical use, are a higher purity filtered and scrubbed O2). If you know someone in the medical field....or....say...a firefighter, sometimes they can do a deal to hook you up...but that is rare.

Jason

I have one like the Chemetron hooked to my 5# o2 tank. Take a look at the fitting that attaches it to the tank vs the first link you posted. The fitting in the first link are used to hook up to a medical o2 tank. You do not want that. It is harder to fill a medical tank. Not sure if Praxair will do it or not. Worth a call, but they would when it was the other place. Otherwise a prescription is needed.

I also second the motion on a oxy/acty. reg's. On your ebay search look for those. I have some myself and they will work on a 5#er. Your welcome to stop by and look at all the different reg's as I have 3 different kinds. I still say have some patience and you will be rewarded with a cheap setup. Also, Praxair should take any tank and put it towards your deposit for a o2 tank. Don't buy a tank as Praxair doesn't fill on sight, same as co2.

Rob Martin wrote:About a year ago, I bought one of these:



It is a air pump that has a HEPA filter in line and uses a 2-micron stainless steel air stone. After about 10 batches, it isn't working so well. Either the stone is clogged, or the filter.

I had the same problem with my aquarium pump. My original pump, from a home brew place, was designed for a 10 gal aquarium. Then I went to a pet store and got a pump for a 40 gallon aquarium, the biggest one they make with one outlet. No proboblems now. As soon as the 2 micron stone hits the wort, the surface starts rocking and I get a head space filled with foam in a fraction of the time.

Reading this post makes me feel like I clearly do not aerate my wort enough. I usually just depend on some level of aeration when I pour the wort through my double sanitized strainers into my fermentation bucket. I wonder now if I should invest in something?

I don't seem to have any issues with having a healthy fermentation as far as I can tell.