Oxygen Aeration Question

[MotterFocker]

Hey,

I'm new to brewing and am going to start all-grain brewing soon. I've done extract and used dry yeast up to this point, but am planning on going to liquid yeast and starters. I've heard alot about oxygenating the wort and want to start doing that.

I have a portable oxy-accetylene kit that has a decent sized oxygen tank (much bigger than the disposable ones). It has a regulator and normally gets hooked to the green torch line.

I'm assuming there are others out there using this type of tank. What is the best way to go from the regulator to the difusion stone? Do I need an in-line filter? What pressure do you normally aerate at and for how long (5 gal batch). Am I better off with a 2micron or 0.5micron stone.

Thanks for the help!!!

Dave

[BadRock]

Get ya one of these...


Aeration Partial System

You won't need much pressure, and you can run it for 30 sec to a couple minutes depending on the OG and yeast pitch.

[HopRunner]

I use my torch O2 tanks to aerate my starters and my wort. The pressure is super low... I don't know exactly but a half a pound or so. I have one of those stainless steel diffuser stones. I don't know what the whole diameters are. Just make sure you can get the hose and stone disconnected and reconnected easily. You will have to keep that hose and stone clean and sanitized.

I haven't used a filter. I've been wondering if I should but I haven't noticed a problem.

I have found the "foam control" drops to be very important. Your starter and your wort will foam out through the top of your Erlenmeyer flask and the carboy if you don't use the foam control. At least that is how it is for me.

Brew Strong!

[tavish2]

i use a .5 micron stone and say screw the filter. the O2 is realativly pure and anything that might be in there is gonna get caught in the diffusion stone as this is a sterile filter size.

[MotterFocker]

Great. Thanks for the tips. Does anyone know what thread the Oxygen-Accetylene torch fittings are? I'm assuming it's an mfl type thread, not pipe thread. Looking forward to my first all-grain, which should happen this weekend. I have all the grains milled. Need to start my starter (White Labs London Ale)..... Sorry, this kegerator thing is quite convincing and I've had a couple extra pints tonight......

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
On Tap.... Irish Red Ale (extract, awesome), Big Brown Nut Ale (extract, carbonating), Miller Lite (for the ones that can't live without domestic)
Fermenting.... Irish Stout (extract), Bavarian Wheat (extract)
On Deck.... Brown Ale (all-grain), Fat Tire Clone (all-grain) x2

[TunaCan]

I've been using my oxy-acetylene rig to aerate my wort on my last two batches. I literally just push the vinyl tubing from my air stone to the welding tip and open the O2 for about 30 seconds. Appears to work. . . .