Starter Aeration Using Aquarium Pump.

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Dave70

Le roi est mort..
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Can anyone see a problems with with this? It's easy enough to fit my pump with a small sanitised foam filter to arrest airborne nastys but I don't know if the air delivery may be a little aggressive for the yeast. Or would they enjoy a nice luke warm bubble bath you think?
 
Give those yeasties a spa bath, they will be happy
 
I can't imagine it would be a problem, wouldn't be that much more vigorous than a spinning stir-bar.
The main reason why I guess it's not used so often, is that the air-stone would be much harder to sanitize and clean than a stir-bar and pushing the tube in the top of the flask is a little more difficult than a foil cap.
 
Why not just shake the starter?

Normally I do. To buggery, I shake it. But stir plates seem popular and as far as I can see it's all about helping the yeast expel CO2 and introducing O. I doubt the yeast cares if we're achieving this by way of bubbles or spinning it in a vortex.
A clever person would probably first establish how much oxygen can be realistically dissolved in 2L of water vs how much is actually required by the yeast to do its thing.

Maby a good old shake is all it needs?
 
I can't imagine that it would be too aggressive, given that we spin them for days on stir plates and shake the crap out of them. I also can't imagine that it would be easier than a stir plate, but if it's easier for you then I'm sure it would work just fine.
 
Can anyone see a problems with with this? It's easy enough to fit my pump with a small sanitised foam filter to arrest airborne nastys but I don't know if the air delivery may be a little aggressive for the yeast. Or would they enjoy a nice luke warm bubble bath you think?

It's how I regularly build my starters (not really a starter, more a yeast growing exercise).
I have a 5 litre container, and run the airstone from an aquarium pump. Stop the pump if the foam gets too much, but if you give it a gentle shake a lot of the foam will collapse anyway. Eventually it will stop foaming.
If you are concerned about the foam, I have also done it with just the airtube from the pump without the airstone. I weigh the end of the hose down with a SS nut, and if you place it correctly, it will basiclly circulate the wort, perhaps not as good as a stirplate, but almost as good.
 
Normally I do. To buggery, I shake it. But stir plates seem popular and as far as I can see it's all about helping the yeast expel CO2 and introducing O. I doubt the yeast cares if we're achieving this by way of bubbles or spinning it in a vortex.
It's also about agitating the starter to ensure it's well mixed and the yeast does not floculate early - but either method will achieve this.
 
It's how I regularly build my starters (not really a starter, more a yeast growing exercise).
I have a 5 litre container, and run the airstone from an aquarium pump. Stop the pump if the foam gets too much, but if you give it a gentle shake a lot of the foam will collapse anyway. Eventually it will stop foaming.
If you are concerned about the foam, I have also done it with just the airtube from the pump without the airstone. I weigh the end of the hose down with a SS nut, and if you place it correctly, it will basiclly circulate the wort, perhaps not as good as a stirplate, but almost as good.

That sounds like a great idea. Far easier to sanitise the tube than the stone also.
Since I do my starters in the kitchen (getting to chilli downstairs) it will also make for a great conversation piece.
Admittedly, most of those conversations will take the form of ' so how long is that going to sit there for?'.
 
From what I've read, and can remember, shaking will get you as much dissolved O2 as other aeration methods. If you want the optimum you need pure O2.

Another thing with a sealed 75C+ wort starter vessle is any bug-carrying dust in the airspace will fall out and be pasteurised at least - that's my paranoid theory on starters. When cooled and shaken it's oxygenated with "clean" headspace air. You'd need a very fine filter on the intake (and clean internally) of your airpump to ensure you aren't innoculating your starter with bacteria and wild yeasts.

YMMV.
 
From what I've read, and can remember, shaking will get you as much dissolved O2 as other aeration methods. If you want the optimum you need pure O2.

yes, and shaking also gets the job done considerably faster
 
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