Does my home brew need PURE OXYGEN or is AMBIENT AIR OK?

[@thebackyardbrewer5611]

I bought the air pump early last year and it is one of the best investments ive made since my inkbird and an old fridge. The quality difference in my beer probably went up 10 to 20%. I use it for lagers as well fermenting cold and the results are very good but i suspect they could he better with pure O2. Its good to see that you finally have this important piece of the puzzle (O2) available again on your website

[@KegLand]

YES the O2 was out of stock for almost 2 years which we were all very disappointed about but finally its back!

[@peterscully4961]

Great vid. The best no BS vid I have seen in the HB scene for a long time. I'd like to add that oxygen is used by yeast in the initial mass growth stage of yeast - if you are pitching high rates it is unnecessary. You can't do too much, though, just waste expensive oxygen (or with the pump system you could leave it on something stupid like a day or two and maybe extend the initial stage of the yeast too long - if it's also too warm it might not taste good.)

[@KegLand]

Thanks for that Peter. We appreciate it!

[@MattSkinah]

Thanks for the great helpful info. I make mead at 1.100 gravity and this is very commonly known to degass and aerate daily, but appears to not be known for beer. Why is this? We usually stop airating at the 1/3 sugar break or the 6% ABV point when you also stop adding nutrients (TOSNA). Are there any guides as to how many days, ABV limit when doing beer as its below the levels we stop with mead? Interested to know a little more on the science behind this as brewing different styles have their own little tricks.

[@KegLand]

aerate daily can be a bit risky. It's ok fir the first couple of days but giving too much oxygen once you are days into the fermentation will degrate the beer in other ways.

[@dyaballikl]

My pump just arrived (subsequent to watching this video). Can you elaborate on the foil wrapped around the stone in boiling water method of sanitising the stone? What does the foil do? Should we avoid exposing the stone to boiling water, or is that to protect the tubing? Does the boiling method clear the pores of the stone or should stellarsan suffice?

[@AndriesEllis]

Do you have the carbonation stone on MFL thread separately? Like on the wand.

[@alexsaarberg5404]

So, for a 20l batch you put 60-120 sec @1l/m. How about 100 liters? Is that 5 times longer or no?

[@CarlMar2111]

Nice vid. Is there a way to configure the O2 system to dispense inline as you're transferring it to the fermenter out of the kettle? It would be awesome if there was some kind of solution that combined those steps.

[@KegLand]

Have you seen the hop bong video. If you insert the carbonation stone into the hop bong this makes the perfect product for dosing oxygen inline. When you have a closed system like this you have the added benefit of increasing the absorption and not as much blows off into the air so it's a good way to go. I probably should have shown this on the video too.

[@CarlMar2111]

Thank you@@KegLand - I hadn't seen that but I just watched it and wow! Exactly what I need! :)

[@dyaballikl]

Does everyone not keep a bucket of mixed stellarsan that they turn over every few weeks for sanitising whatever needs doing?

[@dyaballikl]

I also put one of your taps on that bucket so I can refill my spray bottle and pour in bottles and such. Very handy.

[@KegLand]

@@dyaballikl Yes this is a good idea. If you have diluted stellarsan sitting for a long time it's worth checking the PH every now and then to make sure it's below 2.6pH. If that is the case then you can use it indefinitely. Thanks for that Dyaballikl. This is a good tip!

[@marklpaulick]

Dry yeast manufacturer often say they don’t need oxygen… does adding o2 do nothing for them? Or still help some?

[@KegLand]

While dry yeasts are packaged with O2 and nutrients, best practice is definitely to alos oxygenate and use nutrient for a healhy fermentation

[@danallery8207]

I've always used a stir mixer on a hand drill before pitching to the wort.. thinking it would be bad to do it after pitching... should I stir after pitch also?

[@KegLand]

Stirring after you pitch is fine. I would not be concerned about that. As long as you get the oxygen into the wort either at pitching time or close to it then you will be fine. The yeast can handle the drill mixer too so I would not be too concerned about that.

[@NykolaiMcherron]

If you're using the pump kit to oxygenate your starter to the desired pitching rate, for both standard and larger gravity, do you need to oxygenate your wort?

[@KegLand]

If you use the pump kit to oxygenate the wort then this will be fine for standard gravity beers. I personally think if you want to do really great lagers even if they are not high gravity then you should either: 1. Add loads more yeast (4 x 11gram packs) 2. Make a starter (remember to add nutrient) 3. Pitch 2 x 11gram packs in fermenter and use pure oxygen Either one of these solutions will get you to a good result.

[@NykolaiMcherron]

@KegLand Thanks heaps! I make starters for all my brews (typically 1 x 11g pack of yeast, scaled to pitch a 40-50L batch). So just to clarify if you're hitting the right pitch rate w/ an oxygenated and nutrient filled starter that has an adequate cell count, you don't need to oxygenate the wort? Thanks for all the work you guys do! My garage wouldn't be the same without yah :)

[@andrewbarker1190]

@@NykolaiMcherron Hey mate, the volume of your starter is probably the most critical element at play. Yeast will reach a maximum density per litre pretty quickly. For starters...you are on the right track that CONTINUOUS oxygen is really important. Ain't nobody can afford to continuously flow O2, so an aquarium pump is the way to go. It's also great if you can continually dose carbohydrate, that's what a yeast bioreactor does, which is how yeast companies grow up volumes of yeast. It also allows 'toxic' CO2 to be knocked out of suspension. On the homebrew scale, go as big a volume starter as you can, add a stir bar/plate to knock the CO2 out of suspension, have a stone and aquarium pump to continually add oxygen. I know you are good for yeast nutrients, make sure there is plenty of zinc available. Don't use DAP though. Keep it nice and warm too. Should be fully grown in 24-48 hours. Aerobic pathways produce 18 times the energy of anaerobic pathways.

[@NykolaiMcherron]

@andrewbarker1190 Perfect! Thanks heaps Andrew :)

[@andkar83]

I use the sparge head during cooling down and transferring to my fermenter, is this sufficient o2?

[@KegLand]

Yes provided that the wort is cold by the time it goes through the sparge head then you will probably get close to 8ppm saturation with this.

[@fdk7014]

The beer needs none. The yeast would but it comes fully loaded with all the sterols it needs so unless you are going to re-pitch the yeast many times adding oxygen does nothing.

[@joshuapinter]

How come all of the yeast pitch calculators would say otherwise? Especially for lagers.

[@fdk7014]

@@joshuapinter Because they all copy each other

[@KegLand]

It's fair to say that if you pitch a bucketload of least in your lager and pilsners then you might be able to get away without using oxygen but when you start pitching this much yeast you will also find that it costs more than just purchasing the oxygen especially if you are brewing lagers and pilsners frequently. There is a very good reason why professional breweries use oxygen frequently and that is because it works.

[@fdk7014]

@@KegLand It is also fair to say that you don't need to add oxygen to normal pitch levels, which numerous experiments show. Oxygen is needed when you re-pitch the yeast, otherwise it will run out of its store of sterols after a couple of generations. Fermentis even recommends NOT to add oxygen as it will not have any benefits and it risks adding contaminations. "We don’t recommend aerating the wort in normal conditions. The dry yeast has been produced and dried with a specific know-how of the Lesaffre Group, in order to maximize the Ergosterols content of the cells. This allows the yeast to grow/multiply and ferment well.However, you could aerate the wort in particular cases, for example if you recycle the yeast. There is no difference (for the O2) between Ale and Lager."

[@laxation]

​@@fdk7014i think it's only recommended for liquid yeast

[@bumscorchos1070]

Are you telling me oxygen is back in stock??

[@MittyMagoo]

Yes, nitrogen too

[@KegLand]

Yes finally. Sorry for the long wait. Covid really caused some issues to these DG products and getting them shipped.

[@brendanquinn6894]

Your home brew needs someone to drink it for you. I can help out if you like ?

[@KegLand]

I will keep that in mind! : )

[@richardsanchez8808]

Kegland should work on creating better products instead of creating many products. The low quality of kegland items and the bad engineering is why i dont buy your gear anymore.

[@hugojeller]

I'm actually curious to know which products do you think need improvement. I have a few Kegland products and I'm super happy with all of them.

[@KegLand]

I am sorry to hear that. As a company I would say we spend more on new product development than any other company in the home brew industry. With that said if there is a particular product that you think we need to re-design please let us know the specifics of it and we would be more than happy to look into this.

[@richardsanchez8808]

@@hugojeller tri-clover lid is trash. The thermowell is trash on all lid configurations. Can't read temperature accurately when it's pretty much touching the temp twister. With the tri clover it's actually touching.. Even if bent like is in assembly instructions. I mean, the thermowell isn't cheap. I can't figure out why it's not bent correctly when purchasing. I have hop bong attachment that I'll never be able to use because temp twister being set up correctly is more important for my uses. The tri-clover lid also has severe connection problems after adding all accessories. There's no third ball lock on any lid type to attach spunding valve while force carbonating. Had to use the useless thermowell hole to attach the additional ball lock to do this. The thermowell shouldn't even be an option though because with any lid type it's pretty much touching the temp twister. I contacted whoever runs the Facebook account and they just kept blaming kegland china (I'm in asia). Quite a few times I've been in huge time crunches where i really need a product and they'll wait weeks until the order times out without contacting customer so i wait weeks to find out my product isn't going to be shipped at all rather than communicating with my multiple requests asking if it will be shipped. It's impossible to tell because all orders are shipped last day before cancelation anyways. Kegland china doesn't communicate on any sales platform at all. (alibaba, shopee, lazada). Biggest thing that made me mad though was the way whoever runs the Facebook account offered no relevant help whatsoever. If they were nicer i probably wouldn't care as much, but they were pretty much 🍆 about it and super dismissive. It ruined my outlook on the company.

[@nghicks42]

Overall I’m definitely happy with the items I get from KegLand. Sure, many could be improved by overengineering them, but that could push them out of the range of hobby-level affordability. I’m not building a spaceship and don’t need that level of precision. KegLand to me means “inexpensive enough to buy, good enough (even great, sometimes) to use.”

[@hombredeletras8112]

@@richardsanchez8808 Use a carbonation cap tee-piece to add an additional carbonation cap for a spunding valve/whatever other accessory you might wish to attach