Hello,
I have been brewing for a couple of years and came across an article, unrelated to beer making, which touched on an issue we all deal with - oxygenation of wort before pitching the yeast. The article was about keeping fish aquariums oxygenated by means other than bubblers and infusers and referenced using oxygenation tablets. Has anybody considered using something like this to oxygenate wort - would obviously need something deemed “food grade”.
Please, no flame throwers on account of an innocent question.
The article indicated that the tablets were a temporary replacement for bubblers or could be used when transporting the fish. So, you would need to keep adding tablets to the tank as the oxygen was metabolized by the fish. There was also some feedback on the article that indicated that this form of oxygenation not necessarily good for the fish - not sure why or why not.
I just chased down the ingredients for one of the brands of oxygenation tablets and the active ingredient is Potassium Chlorate - probably not a good chemical to ingest.
Seems that a good chemical engineer could synthesize something more benign.
for a 5 gallon batch it is just a drop. It was all the rage when it first was announced and lots of people tried it. I tried it in a starter a few times. Then it came out that New Belgium discovered they had shelf life issues from the experimentation and they abandoned it.
FWIW Budweiser experimented with cinnamon in the mash to prevent oxidation years ago. Cinnamon is a power anti-oxidant and the amount used was small and the flavors and aromas all boiled out leaving no hint of its presence. But apparently Bud didn’t want people to find out there was cinnamon in the beer and abandoned it.
2 KClO3(s) → 3 O2(g) + 2 KCl(s) (per Wikipedia) is the reaction gone to completion. However, based on Wikipedia it sounds like the reaction would evolve oxygen over time not just when you need it. Also lots of bad things can happen like using pure oxygen.
I think one of the Papazian’s books says to use cinnamon. I always wondered where the cinnamon thing came from. Is the cinnamon for hot side aeration or for other oxidation purposes?
Not exactly, but O· can probably digest yeast pretty well…
Yeah, K Chlorate sounds like nasty stuff to deal with. But if you can manage it safely then it may be ok for starters or maybe something like a high gravity mead, where you’re introducing oxygen over an extended period of time at the beginning of fermentation.
probably use a mix stir and tell every one that he had great results and it’s cheap and easy.
Anyway, that would be my method if I was looking for something aside from an aquarium set up. I would not look for an “artificial” method of aeration. I would consider experimenting with the olive oil method though. There were homebrewers experimenting with it who reported good results “back in the day”.
It doesn’t. It was meant for yeast storage, not to replace aeration. And even that didn’t work out well. I interviewed Grady Hull, the creator of the process, about it and there’s a section in our book. He was mystified where homebrewers got the idea it could replace aeration.
I never saw anyone report good results with OO. I saw one pretty good test that gave it poor marks. Everyone else kinda went “Well, it didn’t hurt”. Not exactly resounding praise!
In our defense, the paper he wrote is titled Olive Oil Addition to Yeast as an Alternative to Wort Aeration.
The final paragraph of the intro also states, “In this paper we will look at the results of a study in which full-scale fermentations were conducted . . . with yeast that was treated with olive oil during storage instead of aerating the wort.”
I think what might have been missed is that the olive oil was added to the yeast in storage tanks five hours prior to pitching. It was not added directly to the wort.
