If I was going to purchase a carb stone what are the important factors in deciding which size to buy?
Are you talking about length, or size of the holes? Can you post some links to what you are looking at?
what the heck is a carb stone?
It’s typically a sintered stainless stone, like little bbs fused together. It creates tiny bubble when you are adding gas to your beer/wort. I have one I use for O2 when I oxygenate my wort before pitching. I have a few I use to carbonate beers sometimes. The tiny bubbles have more surface area than one big bubble of the same volume would have, so the gas goes into solution faster.
Think aquarium air stone - same thing, but stainless so you can sanitize it.
I bought a aeration stone from Williams Brewing some years back but I always thought about buying another one and use it as a carbonation stone. The stone is attached to a long (2ft?) S/S tube. I think I paid around $40 for the wand and O2 connection but I think you can buy just the wand for around $30.
-J.K.L.
2 micron if you will be using an aquarium pump, 0.5 if compressed O2
Tom nailed it.
I was checking out what NB offered. They sell a 2 micron and .5. I’ll pick up the .5 as I’ll use compressed O2.