Air Pump For Aeration Stone

[Ross]

Been planning to airate my wort properly for ages, so I can see a trip coming on to this store next week - more than happy to pick anything up for anyone.

how do you reckon the 7.5cm aircurtain would go compared to the s/s air stone? At $3.50 looks like a great buy.

http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod879.htm

cheers Ross

 

[Jez]

sorry Doc & PP,

as usual had a few obstacles get in the way of brewing.

will put one down either today or tomorrow & report back.

Jez

 

[Darren]

Been planning to airate my wort properly for ages, so I can see a trip coming on to this store next week - more than happy to pick anything up for anyone.

how do you reckon the 7.5cm aircurtain would go compared to the s/s air stone? At $3.50 looks like a great buy.

http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod879.htm

cheers Ross

[post="120583"][/post]​

Ross,
How would you sanitise the aircurtain? I would go the S/S stone, after all you only need so much oxygen in your wort.

cheers
Darren

 

[Ross]

Ross,
How would you sanitise the aircurtain? I would go the S/S stone, after all you only need so much oxygen in your wort.

cheers
Darren

[post="120612"][/post]​

In exactly the same way I'd sanitise my s/s airstone & connecting hoses.

A flush through & soak with napisan & then a solution of no rinse sanitiser on brew day. What's the difference??

cheers Ross

 

[Darren]

Napisan will make it fall to bits I suspect. Why do you think you need an aircurtain?

cheers
Darren

 

[Ross]

Napisan will make it fall to bits I suspect. Why do you think you need an aircurtain?

cheers
Darren

[post="120617"][/post]​

I very much doubt it :blink: & considering only air is blowing through it, cleaning it should be a breeze...

More well distributed air column, means more effiecient aeration...

cheers Ross...

 

[Joel]

A disintegrating el-cheapo airstone (just one of those blue 2 inch jobbies) is why I want a SS one. My last one only lasted less than 10 brews. I'd clean it after every job. Before sticking it in my wort I'd always soak it in phosphoric acid or neo-pink or napisan (whichever one took my fancy on brew day!), and rinse with boiled water. Then last weekend after cleaning it the plastic nipple pulled straight out of the stone bit.

 

[Jez]

Gave my 40L per minute electromagnetic aquarium air pump a go last night attached to my 5 micron stainless air stone.

First connected it to the airstone - both connections are same size & connect with 1/4 inch (6ml) tubing. I was also going to connect an air filter I got from G & G but the connections are smaller than 1/4 inch & I didn't have the right sized hose to connect it.

Filled 30 Litre fermenter with 23L of wort. Lowered sanitized airstone to bottom of wort & plugged in pump (no on/off switch). No variable speed control on pump either so full speed ahead.

Left it on for 5 mins. by 4min mark wort was foamed up close to top of fermenter. Waited for foam to settle & gave it another 5 min burst.

Waited for foam to settle, pitched rehydrated US-56, lowered airstone to bottom of fermenter again & aerated for 10 mins, this time keeping stone moving by rotating it in circles around fermenter.

At the end of 10 mins there was a 5-6cm dense, creamy layer of foam with tightly-packed bubbles (went up to about the 27L mark).

Doc - Glad I bought it but I would say 40L is overkill. 20L should be more than enough (particularly if you were happy enough with your old 4.2L jobbie). I think my G&G filter will reduce the power a bit so might look at connecting it in future.

Jez

 

[Doc]

Thanks Jez.
Yep I have those inline HEPA filters too.
Quicker saturation will mean that aeration speed will not longer the bottle neck in getting wort into the fermenter (it'll now be tap water temp to cool the wort).
I'll go the 20 litre job. Worst case I can turn it off and on during transfer from kettle to fermenter if I'm over oxygenating.

Beers,
Doc

 

[pbrosnan]

Hey Dreamboat,

I'd very much appreciate it if you could pick up two for me.

 

[sintax69]

Just want to get my head around this
you have the stone on some hose dropped into the wort
the hose is connected to a fish pump
this is where i am confused
doc has a hepa filter in there so is this to filter the air into the pump or out of the pump and what are they and where do you get them

Doc
How long did you get out of your old $15 pump and how long did it take to airate the wort

 

[BrissyBrew]

Ross if you are heading down I will take an airstone off your hands.

 

[PistolPatch]

If anyone is thinking of buying one of these pumps but would like to use it for not only aerating the wort but for cooling a fermenting box maybe hold on a few days.

I'll be buying one of the larger jobs in the next few days and will be seeing how well it works with this secondary purpose. Jez has informed me that the pump gets only barely warm so I can't see any probs with this.

Aeration: What I will do for aeration is have 2 hoses, one going into the wort (with an aquarium adjustor valve) and one just blowing off as this high volume is way too much for wort aeration as Jez just found out! (Hope the above idea helps Jez.)

Cooling:* The second use will be running a tube into my fermenting box (esky) which sits on top of my fridge, blowing cold air on a timer up to the esky and returning it to the fridge through a small hole I have drilled. (Same principle as the computer fan method that has been discussed here previously but a little simpler and less of a hole in your fridge.)

From prior experiments with a smaller pump, I'm pretty sure this will work well so spending the extra dollars on a larger pump might be worth it. Should be able to post the results back here on Thursday.

P.S. Ross, FWIW, I'd go for the Stainless Steel Stone. It does a brilliant job even with the tiny pump (2 litres per minute) I have and it will last forever.

*Just a secondary note on the cooling, I'm not only going to pump the air into the fermenting box but also through a mini immersion chiller that I have in my fermenter so I'll be able to post as to how much of a diff the the mini IC makes as well.

 

[dreamboat]

I picked up four of those s/s airstones when I headed out to the aquarium shop last week. Not a flash looking as the one shown in the picture on their website, but still looks to be a reasonable quality. I have been unable to give one a test as my pump is presently engaged elsewhere. I have now got takers for three of these....... so if anybody wants the last one, let me know. The stock level on these was well over a hundred, so if you miss out on getting one from me, don't panic as it looks like it will be easy enough to get more.... it turns out to be about 15mins drive from my work, so it is easy for me to go and get more, or there may be others who are Brisbane based out that way.




dreamboat

 

[Ross]

I've had a chat with the owner of the shop @ Brownsplains & he's happy for me to wholesale off him & sell at under his retail price (where I can). I will be heading over there this Thursday.

i was looking at getting s/s airstones, maybe some 20L airpumps etc.
If anyone has items they'd be interested in me sourcing/pricing for them please let me know by pm rather than this thread, as it's not a retail thread as such.

cheers Ross