Refill Oxygen tank.

Being the enviromental concious person that I am I bought this tank for aerating wort so I didn’t have to use disposable. I have called about 15 welding shops and I’m not having any luck finding anyone who is able or willing to fill the tank. Does anyone have any suggestions on who might be able to fill it besides welding supply? I don’t have a perscription for medical supply stores.

Can’t do an exchange for a full one?

Sell it on eBay, and buy a welding tank.

Medical supply stores will need a perscription for an exchange :(. That’s also how all the welding supply stores do it. The problem is that this tank is different then there tanks.

Looks like a medical O2 tank. Have you tried exchanging it at a medical supply shop?

Edit: Doh!  Nevermind.

I may have too unfortunatly. Welding tanks are a lot more expensive.

Harbor Freight sells new ones for around $80, but most places will only do exchanges anyway so if you can find a cheap used one it won’t matter.

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Ditched the O2 in favor of a mix stir. Have never looked back.

The welding place near my house said that he could refill my medical tank they just couldn’t, “certify it for medical use” - whatever that means. I haven’t had the need to try it yet; however, you might try calling them and telling them that you have a medical tank that you are using for homebrewing and see if that changes their tune.

Let us know how this plays out.

How long do you run it and at what speed? Seems like a much cleaner/easier approach than oxygen.

You run it fast for several minutes.  Works fine for ales under 1.060.  For lagers or big beers, one should be aware that the yeast will benefit from more O2 in the beer, so an O2 tank is recommended.  Not saying you can’t make beer without O2 in those cases, just what is best practice.

FTR, I’ve had great fermentations in both lagers and big beers using the Mixstir for aeration.

The last sentence was for you Denny.  :wink:

+1, big beers and lagers benefit from more oxygen than you can get from straight aeration.

Try it! You’ll lke it!

Check this out:  http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm

P.S. I have heard that others were able to exchange their medical tank for a regular tank.  YMMV

So, it sounds like that by not aerating, I’ve been skipping a pretty substantial step in my brewing - is this correct?

I don’t actively aerate anymore.

Since I started aerating with an aquarium air pump. I’ve been getting explosive fermentations on the 2 batches I’ve used the pump for. I have heard that it is a critical step.

so i recently aquired a medical O2 tank. several weeks ago i took it to a local gas supply place, where our club gets a discount i would add, to get it checked and refilled. told them exactly what it was for and that i did not have a scrip for it. they called me last week to say it was ready. i went today to pick it up. they would NOT let me pay for it and take it w/o a prescription/license. others in our club have done the same thing at the same place and not had this issue. their tanks came back with the paint on the top changed from green to orange. mine was still green. i got there 5 minutes before they closed on a friday for a holiday weekend, so needless to say there was not a manager there to speak with. the guy there and i had a very cordial conversation about my intened use, etc. i fully understand his hesitation to let me have it. i plan to deal directly with the manager next week to try to resolve this.

That’s not good. At the very least they owe you your tank back without a charge. I would think they could empty it in front of you. It’s a real shame because this would cut down on waste. And the medical regulators are perfect for hooking up the filter/stone. I think I am going to sell mine on amazon. Your defenitly entitled to your equipment back. But if they sold you a controlled substance the employees could probably be fined personally on top of fines to the business. In the same way fines can be imposed for selling alcohol to minors. O2 can kill your brain cells but these rules are really nothing more than someone wanted to make money out of licenses and permits to sell oxygen so in other words steal from people who aren’t in the best of health. I wonder how they sleep at night.

I wondered at first how a medical tank was sold without a prescription to an individual. Oxygen tanks can be had from Harbor Freight or the like and filled at the welding shop.