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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  RE:  Wort Oxygenation ("David Houseman")
  Oxygenation ("A.J deLange")
  Oxygen ("A.J deLange")
  pumpkin ale, yet again ("Bernd Neumann")
  Oxygenating the wort (Thomas Rohner)


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Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 07:25:08 -0500
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE:  Wort Oxygenation

Richard,

You said "But I'm pretty tired of buying one of those $10 oxygen bottles,
and only
getting a couple of batches of wort before the bottle is empty."   First two
points:  At my local Home Depot these are something like $7.95, a bit less
than $10.   A couple batches?   I've found I get something like 10 to 20
batches.   I haven't counted them but I brew something like 10-12 batches a
year and I buy a new bottle less than once a year.   The instructions that
came with my Oxygenator was about 2 15 second shots of O2 for a 5 gallon
batch.   That's what I've done and it works great.   To my main reply
however, I've been looking for a much larger O2 tank.   Getting one is easy
at Roberts Oxygen, and they aren't expensive, but it's an entirely different
regulator than the CO2 regulators I have and they ARE expensive.   I do have
a box of used medical O2 regulators I bought on Ebay, but one can't buy
medical O2 with an Rx (and it's the same oxygen).   So how can one adapt a
medical O2 regulator to a standard welding O2 tank?  If anyone has an easy
and inexpensive solution to this, please post it.  I have a extra 20lb CO2
tank I can trade in at Roberts.  And if there's a way to do this, I have
extra medical regulators to sell.

David Houseman



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Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 13:27:40 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Oxygenation

Oxygen bottles are similar to CO2 bottles except that there is no liquid 
in them, they are pressurized to a higher pressure and great care is 
taken in the design and manufacture of the regulators to insure that 
there is nothing combustible in them. Similar to CO2 you get O2 bottles 
from the local gas supplier who will take your empty and replace it with 
a full one. This is welding gas but it is essentially the same as 
medical gas except I think the medical stuff (which you can't buy 
without a prescription) has a wee bit of CO2 in it. Key in getting a 
setup is avoiding the cost of the high dollar regulator that a welder 
uses. I solved this problem by asking if they didn't have any old 
medical regulators lying around the shop. They did and so I got the 
regulator free. For small quantities of starter etc I use one of those 
little sintered stainless aeration "stones" available from various home 
brew suppliers. For larger quantities a larger "stone" based on the same 
principal serves. In use I crank up the gas pressure until bubbles are 
just breaking the surface and then let it run for about 5 minutes. This 
is sufficient to get the wort saturated. A little goes a long way. The 
last time I got the bottle filled was years ago.

A.J.


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Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 16:34:34 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Oxygen

Oxygen bottles are similar to CO2 bottles except that there is no liquid 
in them, they are pressurized to a higher pressure and great care is 
taken in the design and manufacture of the regulators to insure that 
there is nothing combustible in them. Similar to CO2 you get O2 bottles 
from the local gas supplier who will take your empty and replace it with 
a full one. This is welding gas but it is essentially the same as 
medical gas except I think the medical stuff (which you can't buy 
without a scrip from your doctor [the use of the usual term for this triggered
the spam filter]) has a wee bit of CO2 in it. Key in getting a 
setup is avoiding the cost of the high dollar regulator that a welder 
uses. I solved this problem by asking if they didn't have any old 
medical regulators lying around the shop. They did and so I got the 
regulator free. For small quantities of starter etc I use one of those 
little sintered stainless aeration "stones" available from various home 
brew suppliers. For larger quantities a larger "stone" based on the same 
principal serves. In use I crank up the gas pressure until bubbles are 
just breaking the surface and then let it run for about 5 minutes. This 
is sufficient to get the wort saturated. A little goes a long way. The 
last time I got the bottle filled was years ago.

A.J.



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Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 17:30:25 +0000
From: "Bernd Neumann" <homebrewz at hotmail.com>
Subject: pumpkin ale, yet again

Steve Alexander  "suggests":

>>>I've a better suggestion for pumpkin beer.  Add the pumpkin spices to
the beer and keep the pumpkin separate, dashing it to bits in a 5 gallon
bucket and adding enough cool water to make a thick pumpkin mash.
After the sparge, add a few quarts of the spent grist to the pumpkin
bucket.   Let the two 'ferment' seperately.   When the beer is ready in
~3 weeks, take the rotted pumpkin-in-a-bucket pour it over your head and
repeat 3 times, "Real brewers do not ferment vegetables".   Shower and
have a nice pumpkin-spiced beer.    This *may* cure you of your bad
habits.  This method also works with carrots, beets, potatoes and other
ill-advised vegetable beer styles.>>>


I take my brewing very seriously. Most of the year I'm brewing various 
German lager styles strictly to style guidelines. I don't like a lot of the 
commercially available pumpkin beers because they taste like a ground up 
pumpkin pie in a bottle.  However, I do enjoy the homebrewed version. 
Pumpkin ale is not my favorite style. The main reason I make it, is because 
it makes for great gifts for friends around the holidays.

I've been a reader of the HBD off and on for about 9 years, been a brewer 
(real or not) for over 10, and have been doing 1/2 bbl all grain beers for 
about 7. This was my first post in over a year and only because I felt I had 
something usefull to contribute to the discussion on pumpkin ale. If you 
feel otherwise, fine, although that is no reason to disparage my brewing 
preferences or skills on an open e-mail forum.

Bernd Neumann
Howes Cave, NY



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Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2006 08:27:13 +0100
From: Thomas Rohner <t.rohner at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Oxygenating the wort

Hi Rich

we are using a oxygen bottle about 3 feet high, we use it for 8 years 
now. We had it filled twice in this time. We brew every other saturday,
that makes around 1000 litres each year. The regulator is a medical
type that gives you a certain flow rate. One of my brew-buddies is
a hobby pilot, he uses the same setup, when he flies in high
altitudes.(no pressure cabins in small planes)
So you can probably get it at your local airport or at a hospital.
Since oxygen is highly pressurized in these bottles, it really takes
a long time to empty it. Our regulator has a pressure gauge, that
shows the pressure in the tank. So we know, when to refill it.
If oxygen is intended for humans to breathe, you can assume it's
healthy for your yeast.

Cheers  Thomas



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