[one_seat]

I've been thinking of changing how I aerate my wort. Currently I use a fine mesh strainer at the discharge of my boil kettle to filter and aerate my beer it works pretty well and I get a good foam and good attenuation. I'm thinking maybe I might want to change my technique a little. I'm worried a little about contamination and the foam lowering my head retention. I'm a ships engineer on an oil tanker and we have foam aerators that use the syphon effect to draw in air by water moving fast past holes in the line. What I want to do is drill little holes in a nylon line at an angle that will pull air into the wort. Then take cotton balls that I will boil in water to sanitize and wet as per "how to brew" and a pvc pipe big enough to surround the nylon line and stuff the cotton balls in there to filter the air going into the wort. I can adjust how much air goes into the wort by changing the size of the holes or how many their are. I could use soapy water to dial it in and see if it works in principal. Ideas and/or Anyone try anything like this?

Ps. I have a pump so it's not gravity fed.

Maybe the quick drawing will show it better than I can describe my idea.

[dmtaylor]

Neat idea.  In theory it should be possible and effective if you can get the holes of the right size.  However, several concerns/problems:

A) Hoses are plastic and also have pretty thick walls, which might tend to seal up on you.  Wort will tend to soak up into these capillaries, dry up and thus clog them all up.  And along with this...

B) Not sure how in the hell you'd sanitize this hose!  So instead of preventing contamination, you could be CAUSING it.

C) Not sure that the wet cotton balls are really doing much for you besides being a major PITA.

D) Not sure how you'll get the holes of the right size.  Plus you might need 100 holes to get this right, I don't know.

[hopfenundmalz]

You might try something drilling holes into tube section of plastic, copper, or stainless steel. That is an old homebrewer's trick. Here is a result of a search, the author used to be a regular here.
http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2010/12/27/wort-aeration-with-a-perforated-pipe/

I do like your idea of the cotton filters.

[zwiller]

"If it ain't broke don't fix it"  I think aeration on the homebrew scale is pretty much a non-issue or is very much at the bottom of the list things that can really have an impact on your final product and for that reason, I am also out. 

[dmtaylor]

Maybe the OP is commercial?

[Stevie]

Mark V used to promote his bit of hard plastic tubing with holes as a cheap and effective method, never tried it myself. I can't always chill my beer to pitching temp, so I prefer to aerate later

[dmtaylor]

My method of aeration is to pour the wort into the carboy.   

[narvin]

"If it ain't broke don't fix it"  I think aeration on the homebrew scale is pretty much a non-issue or is very much at the bottom of the list things that can really have an impact on your final product and for that reason, I am also out.

Interesting.  So, you think essentially everyone is getting at least 8ppm of DO, or that it's not important to have that much oxygen available to the yeast?

I don't think it's the most important change you can make, but it seems to me that neither of the above are true.

[dmtaylor]

I think aeration matters.  But how much, don't know.  More experiments are needed.

[Hand of Dom]

Sounds rather like this:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/Venturi-Aeration-Experiment.html

[denny]

I think aeration matters.  But how much, don't know.  More experiments are needed.

The purpose of aeration is to provide O2 so the yeast can synthesize cell walls that aid in reproduction.  If you pitch enough healthy yeast, that isn't necessary.  The need for aeration is in inverse proportion to the amount and health of the yeast you pitch.  If you pitch a healthy slurry from a previous batch, for instance, you don't need to worry about aeration.  Same is you use dry yeast...no need for aeration in most circumstances.

[zwiller]

"If it ain't broke don't fix it"  I think aeration on the homebrew scale is pretty much a non-issue or is very much at the bottom of the list things that can really have an impact on your final product and for that reason, I am also out.

Interesting.  So, you think essentially everyone is getting at least 8ppm of DO, or that it's not important to have that much oxygen available to the yeast?

I don't think it's the most important change you can make, but it seems to me that neither of the above are true.

Yes  http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm and what Denny said.  Another factor is that the fatty acids in trub help with membrane synthesis too. 

If you want to increase wort aeration you will need to inject pure O2 as all other methods have been proven inferior. So, in this case, the new widget really is not going to perform any better than splash/shake in terms of DO.  I forget the science but it has to do with percentage of O2 in air (it’s mostly nitrogen) and the solubility of O2.   

[one_seat]

I know the importance of aerating the wort. I was just trying to come up with a creative solution to solve the problem(there can be a lot of free time on a ship). Looks like others have tried this I couldn't find anything on it thanks for linking it.

[zwiller]

Forgive me, I forget not everyone is like me and some people actually have free time to experiment   I am not 100% certain that 8% DO cannot be exceeded with air.  You have to dig further to confirm.  Who knows, you just might be able to eek out a few more %. 

Have you looked into how pH affects brewing?  Proper pH makes a HUGE impact on your final product.  http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing

[zwiller]

ROTFLMAO