Desperate for a solution to my oxidation problems!

Have you personally had good experiences with carb tabs? I have read a few posts where some folks have stated they had issues (inconsistent carbonation) with sugar tablets. I personally have never used them.

Cheers!

 

All this talk has me worried about the two IPAs that I'm working on, one of which I dry-hopped on Friday and the other of which is going to be getting dry-hops in about 10 days. I have to bottle them both and I don't have the hardware to do a forced CO2 transfer right now (and one of them is in a bucket, anyway). Aside from only using my auto-siphon once in the process, I'm not sure what I could do to cut down on oxygen exposure. What kind of hardware would it take to purge the bottles with CO2 before filling, and is that worth doing?

 

“Aside from only using my auto-siphon once in the process, I'm not sure what I could do to cut down on oxygen exposure.” Ward (@Scumbag81) mentioned that the auto-siphon is a source of oxygen ingress. If we take that at face value you should use your auto-siphon zero times.

“What kind of hardware would it take to purge the bottles with CO2 before filling, and is that worth doing?” You would need a CO2 tank, a regulator and some tubing. There is no doubt that a bottle that has CO2 in it vs. air is ‘better’. I personally do not purge my bottles with CO2 and I still have good luck with my bottles IPAs. Yesterday I drank a homebrewed IPA that was bottled on 12/12/14 and it still had a nice aroma and a very good flavor despite being over 3 months old.

Purging bottles with CO2 is unnecessary for me but you might reach a different personal conclusion in this matter.

Cheers!

 

You could ferment in a bottling bucket or add a spigot to your normal bucket? Or you coudl try Jacks way. Im not sure Id worry about it though unless youre facing the same issue.

 

I do it often, but I haven't used the commercially prepared products. I transfer to kegs under CO2 and typically have a t-fitting and valve as a means to pull off some beer to bottle and sample. This makes cellaring a few beers easy. I add a measured amount of disolved sugar to each bottle. I've typically had good results. You'd think "dose" tabs would make consistency even easier, but I just haven't bothered personally.

 

I bought a speidel for multiple reasons but one was I thought I could use the spigot to transfer to a bottling bucket or bottle. However, the spigot gets filled with trub so I can't use it. If I tilted the fermenter from the get go would that be ok?

 

I have a buddy who does this. He brews 1 gal batches and ferments them on a tilt/angle so that he can siphon from the side that has no trub. Guess it helps him to minimize losses. I see no reason why you can't put a wedge or something under your Speidel to keep the valve higher and clear of trub.

 

When I cold crash I tilt it with a book. It seems like I can get more liquid with less trub when I shipon. I don't know why it would matter if it was tilted during fermentation. Just anytime I make adjustments like this I always wonder if it could have a negative impact. I guess it's just like a jimmy rigged conical fermenter, but not.

 

Hey MiScusi,

Just wanted to say that I am consistently having this problem as well and that I am in the middle of some tests which are supposed to determine the cause. IPAs are fine at bottling, very dark and sweet after 2 weeks of carbonation. Don't let people tell you that you're not aging the bottles enough.

My bottling tests (varying a bunch of variables) are starting to come in and two potential factors are emerging as likely causes: (a) something in the priming sugar solution, or (b) oxidation by the bottling wand while bottling. 12 days in, I'm cracking bottles of a fresh IPA which were filled *very* slowly and carefully and which were carbed using those Cooper's drops (not priming sugar in boiled water). They're light-years better than my previous bottles.

Anyway, still have to gauge the full results, and I'll try to remember to post here when I'm done.

 

PBW must be rinsed very thoroughly before using Starsan (but then again so should Oxiclean)

 

That's good!...Just looking at one variable you mentioned

 

Hi, I see this is getting to be an old thread, and I enjoyed reading the comments above. I'd buy a new bottling bucket, too, plastic is NOTORIOUS for harboring bacteria that cannot be surface sanitized. (there was a really great study done showing just how horrible plastic cutting boards were vs wood-even for harboring bacteria).

 

I'm done with carb tabs. done I say.

 

Care to share with us the reason why?

Cheers!

 

If I were repeatedly cutting my plastic fermenter bucket I might worry about it. : )

 

or else what? I thought the acid starsan "neutralized" the alkaline/caustic PBW residue if any was left behind. (I agree what the best practice is, i.e. what you said, and that's what I do, but I'm just wondering.)

 

Maybe he meant the PBW residue would raise the Ph of the Starsan solution, reducing its effectiveness. It definitely would raise pH. I don't know how much PBW you'd need to take Starsan solution's pH above its effective limit.