Borret
Crazy Eye's Brewery
- Joined
- 15/2/05
- Messages
- 838
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I have been doing some research and experimentation with wort (and water) aeration. I do own a stainless airstone and filter and havent had any issues yet but dont like the fact that these things are a porous bacteria trap if not cleaned properly and I dont own a pressure cooker to properly sterilise it.
So I have been toying with an inline venturi aerator (particularly now that I am running AG wort out of a kettle). I have made a few prototypes with varying degrees of success with other peoples efforts in mind. But last night I tried another and it works really well and very simple to make.
Its efficiency is derived from the fact that it necks down from a curved crimp that I made and expanding back out at the point of injection. This creates more of a low pressure zone to draw in the air, more so than a straight tube with holes, and hence draws in more.
Due to the toughness of the unannealed SS tubing I have, small holes werent possible (broken TiN drills :angry: ) so I cut slits at the appropriate position which gives a fine injection point longitudally but a good cross section for draw. You can actually hear it sucking really well when hooked up to a tap on low flow (ala kettle drain speed).
So here are some photos of the latest piece. I will fine tune slot position and make a housing for it yet that I can feed filtered air into to supply it and stop the airborne gremlins getting in. Im fairly happy so far.
Cheers
Borret :blink:
The photos
Bubble flow with flash (appears bubbles are still)
and in the best light I could get last night for an action shot (and I photoshopd the colour levels to make it easier to see the stream of bubbles)
So I have been toying with an inline venturi aerator (particularly now that I am running AG wort out of a kettle). I have made a few prototypes with varying degrees of success with other peoples efforts in mind. But last night I tried another and it works really well and very simple to make.
Its efficiency is derived from the fact that it necks down from a curved crimp that I made and expanding back out at the point of injection. This creates more of a low pressure zone to draw in the air, more so than a straight tube with holes, and hence draws in more.
Due to the toughness of the unannealed SS tubing I have, small holes werent possible (broken TiN drills :angry: ) so I cut slits at the appropriate position which gives a fine injection point longitudally but a good cross section for draw. You can actually hear it sucking really well when hooked up to a tap on low flow (ala kettle drain speed).
So here are some photos of the latest piece. I will fine tune slot position and make a housing for it yet that I can feed filtered air into to supply it and stop the airborne gremlins getting in. Im fairly happy so far.
Cheers
Borret :blink:
The photos
Bubble flow with flash (appears bubbles are still)
and in the best light I could get last night for an action shot (and I photoshopd the colour levels to make it easier to see the stream of bubbles)