I recently picked up an aeration wand from Williams Brewing and gave it a go on the Arrogant Bastard clone ( CYBI #2 ) on Saturday. Aerated wort and pitched yeast around 9pm and by 7am the next morning it was going crazy. I did pitch a starter that had been going for about 24 hours so the lag time was pretty shortl. Previously, I had either shaken the better bottle, used a paint stirrer, or used an aeration pump with sterile filter. This method beat them all. Pure oxygen from Home Depot and the wand from here on out.

Also, thanks to Williams brewing for developing this wand and stone. I am able to place it right where I want it instead of fighting the tubing.

I use the same, should also get better attenuation

Yep, first time I ever bought from Williams was directly because of the aeration wand (heard about it in another thread on the BN forums). It is the best solution I have seen, and comes at a fair price.

It is simply awesome. I would recommend skipping the home depot O2, though. Spend the ~$150 and get a larger tank of O2 that will last you over time. Its way cheaper, the per batch cost of O2 is outrageous on the Home Depot cans. Try Airgas to find a location in your area.

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Man you must be brewing a ton to need a large O2 tank the home depot one lasted me almost a year of brewing 5 gallons every 2 weeks seems like decent deal to me at 7 bucks a container

How are you guys sanitizing that Williams oxygenation setup? Do you put it in the boil for the last 15 minutes? I'm thinking of getting one and I like the idea of the metal wand a lot better than the plastic tubing that morebeer uses.

For santitizing, I just soak it in star-san.

I start the oxygen while its in star-san and then move it to the fermenter. After the designated time, i move it back to the star san still under pressure and tehn turn off the oxygen. I'll then soak it in PBW overnight to clean it.

I think that by keeping it under pressure the whole time it's in the wort, I'm minimizing any pickup of debris.

@Stinkfist - Man, I only got like 5 (10 gal) batches out of the Home Depot canister aerating for 45 seconds per carboy. My experience plus what Jamil said on one of the recent Brew Strong shows convinced me to go get a bigger tank.

@maxwell - I pasturize it in the HLT while I'm heating the sparge water. After that I drop it in the bucket of sanitizer. Every other batch I will boil it.

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