Brewed a RyePA on Saturday, 1/28, and tried something new this time. A recent visit to Costco (AKA the 200 dollar store) turned up a gadget for wine geeks. It is called the Vinturi and is intended to aerate red wine as you pour it from the bottle into a decanter or even a glass. It uses the venturi effect to pull air through two small holes as the liquid passes down the main channel. I bought one (for about $20) with the idea that it might be useful in the brewery, as an alternative to canned oxygen and an air stone. Since there were two of us brewing, there were plenty of hands to manage the wort flow from my counterflow chiller output hose through the Vinturi into the carboy. It sure seemed to add air, as the wort was real foamy when we finished the run off. We'll see if the resultant ale finishes with a nice low terminal gravity.
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seems that perhaps one of these could be made to work in-line...perhaps like a mini-hop-back...to take some of the manual futzing out of the equation.... something with the right geometry that worked at full throttle would be best, i'd think.
dave
When i first started brewing, i used a homemade venturi solution.
used a piece of copper pipe, probably 1/2 foot long bent at a 35 degree angle. one side was attached to the output of the chiller the other hung into the carboy.
The carboy side of the pipe has a series of small holes dilled into the pipe on 4 "sides". those holes provide the same venturi effect.
Dave's thoughts about a design that allowed a solo brewer with only two hands to manage wort flow are probably worth thinking through.
Makes me wonder if a funnel would work if small holes were drilled into the narrow tail piece. I may try that.
In answer to the other question about backing up, were it not for the fact that there were four hands on this particular brew session, it could have been problematic. My brew partner just lifted the Vinturi slightly above the neck of the carboy when it started to back up. I throttled the flow out of the chiller to match the outflow of the Vinturi. This allowed us to throttle the flow of the cooling water through the chiller and still let the wort remain in contact with the chiller walls long enough to cool effectively.