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Aeration Stone

Sorry I haven’t updated the blog in a few days.  My wife delivered our baby girl on Sunday night.  I am happy to report that everybody is well and life is back to normal…well, as normal as it can be.  I would tell you more but that’s another blog.

So, I have been thinking about another piece of equipment: an aeration stone…or more likely an aeration system.

The aeration system is not something I need to go all grain, but I think it would help my beers from being good to being great.

Right now, I aerate my wort by letting it run out of my brew pot’s spigot into my fermentation bucket.   I place my bucket two feet below my kettle and it splashes around real well.

I just wonder if that is enough.

I am thinking I could get an aeration stone, along with the aquarium pump, the HEPA filter, and the tubing and aerate my wort that way.

Here’s a picture of the aeration stone (made out of stainless steel):

Aeration Stone

What are your thoughts on aeration?

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6 Comments

  1. Danny

    If I were you, I’d look at the kit offered by williams brewing. It has the stone on the end of a stainless steel tube so you don’t have to worry about it floating up like you would if it was a barbed stone on the end of tubing.

  2. Ben

    Congrats on the baby girl! Personally I go oldschool, I pick up the fermenter and shake it up a bit. Works for me!

  3. Congrats on the baby!!! Very well done, sir, very well done.

    In my experience, if the yeast are rolling within 24 hours, they had enough oxygen. I wouldn’t aerate unless the fermentation was too sluggish.

  4. Ted

    A big congratulations to you and your family! That is exciting news. Have lots of fun with you new baby!

    I’ve considered getting an aeration system like this, but like Ben, I use the shake/swirl method. I pour the wort from a pot through a screened funnel, and while it takes a few pourings, I stop and swirl the wort in between pours. I guess I’ve developed a special technique of swirling and tilting the carboy to get all the tiny O2 bubbles into solution.

    Also, if the yeast starter is big enough, or I’m pouring over a yeast cake, aeration is not as critical. The oxygen is mainly required for yeast reproduction to generate a big enough army in attacking all those wonderful wort sugars. And a half a day of lag time is sometimes a good thing.

    Be well.

  5. Actually, I have to agree with Danny. I have a brewing friend that has that stone setup and it’s very nice and easier to use that mine, which is the stone on tubing thing and an O2 cylinder.
    The advantage to the tubing set up is that its easier to clean, i.e. just replace the tubing. The the SS dip tube set up makes it easier to handle in and out of the carboy or fermentor.

    I greatly recommend aeration or Oxygenation as a step towards better beer. Even if you make a “big starter” there will still be cell division (growth) in the wort. [It’s difficult, or not practical, to actually make a starter bigger enough that there is no cell growth]. Aside from that you need some cell division to get the characteristic flavors of each straining to really shine through. That’s why pitching directly on an entire yeast cake is not recommended, it is over pitching. It doesn’t matter much for using a clean yeast like US-05. But you’ll get less flavor profile from a Belgian strain or a wheat style yeast if you over pitch.
    So aeration or oxygenation helps get the new yeast cells that grow to be at peak health in the wort. The aeration stone set up is a good late stage step towards making better beer.

  6. Congrats on the new daughter!

    I use the shake method, but I have an oxygen canister/aeration stone that I haven’t gotten around to trying out yet.

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