Desperate for a solution to my oxidation problems!

to the folks who purge their bottles, a question: I understand using a counter-pressure filler to bottle fully conditioned from a carbonated keg, and that's what I do when I bottle fully carbonated beer, but are you guys doing this with uncarbonated beer that you is going to bottle condition?

On these I rack with an auto-siphon in to the bottling bucket, in which a freshly boiled sugar addition is already in the bottom, which I may periodically give a gentle stir with a sanitized stainless 18 inch spoon, and then bottle via the spigot in the bottling bucket, via a short length of tubing and a wand, which sits in the sanitizer bucket between fills, into freshly sanitized bottles. The bottles are in a cold star-san bucket, immersed full of sanitizer; I grab a bottle, pour the star-san back in the star-san bucket, and stick the bottling wand into the bottle, filling to the top. Removing the wand puts the liquid level right where it needs to be. I cap as I go.

Obviously some oxygen is introduced via this method but my understanding has always been that the yeast and sugar use all this oxygen in the bottle ferment that creates the carbonation.

 

I had a discussion with a brewing scientist and he stated exactly what you mentioned there: "yeast use all this oxygen".

He did then go on to state that since cap liners are oxygen permeable that hombrewed bottle conditioned beers will 'suffer' from oxygen ingress and subsequently oxidation processes will occur from that oxygen ingress over time.

If only there was a way for us homebrewers to be able to produce canned conditioned beer!! We could take them on the beach/golf courses and not be concerned of oxidation via oxygen ingress.

Cheers!

 

The yeast will use some of that O2, but not all of it.

 

oh because they aren't great, they don't produce that consistent of an amount of carbonation. I'm not sure why, you'd think it'd be simple right? Just use a defined mass and compress it. I got the little cubes and they flake apart which is part of the problem (came in a bag). Then they came up with the big clear carb drops, and they're better but, I'm still not a big fan, really.

 

What he said (Vikeman)...I suppose it doesn't matter much if you're willing to toss the Starsan and/or like residue beer : )

 

I was in your boat until I bought this. Well worth the money.

http://www.morebeer.com/products/sterile-siphon-starter-65-gallon-carboy-threaded-neck.html

 

I know this thread is a couple months old, but I've been having the same problem with my light, hoppy beers, complete with color darkening and flavor change. I had 3-4 batches do this and I've been slowly narrowing down the source of the problem. I finally discovered a low-level infection inside the spigot of my bottling bucket after replacing all my tubing, racking cane, bottling wand. I'm bottling a batch today with a new bottling bucket/spigot and I'm hoping this fixes the problem, otherwise I'll have to start over again in terms of finding the culprit.

 

I keep getting the darker colored, lack of aroma IPAs as well. It seems to me like it just started happening. Not sure if it's from an infection or dry hopping. Last two IPAs did have some older whole leaf hops used for dry hopping. I'm getting ready to dry hop a Maine Beer Lunch clone with fresher pellet hops and hope for no signs.

MiScusi, ever make that pale ale or IPA yet?

 

Anymore updates? Are you still having this problem?

 

I've been struggling with oxidation in my IPAs as well, trying to narrow down the cause, and I just had a thought:

When I dry hop, I place the hops in a nylon bag along with some marble-like glass rocks to weigh it down and submerge the hops. When I add the bag to the fermentor it immediately drops to the bottom, but because I leave the bag very loose the hops are hovering around the center.

After I add the dry hops there's usually major off-gassing that I see at the surface and through the airlock. Could this be O2? I had assumed it was CO2 and not an issue, but if it's O2/air then I could be introducing a lot of oxygen into the wort by submerging the dry hop bag.

 

I'm in the camp that method adds enough O2 to cause detectable oxidation. I stopped DH'ing that way and started putting my hops in a nylon bag into and empty purged keg and then purging a few times to try to minimize the amount of O2 introduced by that method (from the hops and from the process of opening a purged keg to add the bag)

I've stopped doing that as well and have been only adding dry hops during fermentation. Either the beginning or near the middle, I've had good results with both points. I think it's made a difference, but the aroma still seems to fade after about one week.

Have you ever heard of a hop canon? From what I understand they were developed for just this concern. It is a way to add a bunch of hops to finished beer while minimizing the amount of O2 you add.

 

Ipas do best when kegged. Less oxygen pick up and cold storage for carbing.

 

Did you read Dave's (@Naugled) post above? He kegs his beers yet he reports: "...but the aroma still seems to fade after about one week."

Cheers!

 

I didn't. I was addressing/responding to the original post and subsequent ones about talking about bottling. I isn't even see his post. Pretty sure I only read the first page or so. Otherwise, I would have replied directly to his post.

I personally haven't had any issues with dry hopping. On my ipas I do two dry hop additions. During fermentation and after all in primary. My last pale I dry hopped around 10 days.

When I bottled I got oxygen pickup, when I started kegging I didn't. That was the fix for me.

Cheers.

 

Wait. So, you are using siphoning to package beer? You are moving it far too much at a very volatile time in its life and are offering your beer a good many opportunities to pick up the kind of stuff you do not want it to pick up. The thing you do not want your beer to do as it travels to its vessel of occupancy is to give it any reason to pick up bubbles of air. i.e. make it as smooth a path as you can so that what transfers is solid liquid. A siphon is mostly definitely not creating that kind of movement for it to move through. It gets interrupted by the filter on the siphon. Chugged, and pulled up and over and into a tube and again into the bottling wand. That's five or six pick up points for all kinds of air. There's your oxidation problem.
In other words. Get a proper bottling bucket. Your beer will thank you.
Also too. How clean is your equipment?

 

Can you describe your DH process in more detail. It sounds like you do it all in the primary and then you keg the beer? Or something different?

 

I ferment in a speidel and I put the first round of dry hops around the 2 - 3 day mark, dependent on how active the fermentation is. My thought process is the active fermentation is going to absorb some of the aroma so after the beer is finished I add a 2nd round of dry hops. By adding the hops in during active fermentation I get the bio transformation. The 2nd round I only let soak for 2 - 3 days. I dry hop naked, no bags. All in the primary. The speidel has a spigot so I can transfer directly from the fermenter to the keg. One of these days I'll set a closed transfer and that will help even more. My IPAs don't last long and I've never seen any darking of the beer after I kegged it. Sometimes I DH in the keg but I haven't really noticed a difference and one time my dip stick got clogged at the 10% of the beer so unless I am dry hopping with a low amount I just do it in the primary.

I wish I still had my photos but one time I ended up with a full six pack of extra volume. I transfer the last of the beer into a bottling bucket and bottled. I poured a beer from the keg and opened a bottle. The side by side showed the bottled beer was significantly darker than the kegged beer. Also, had some diminished aroma. Same beer, same process with the only difference being bottled versus being kegged.

 

Wow. How longer after bottling & kegging was this? And did you notice a difference in taste between the two?

I notice a major taste difference around the time when my IPAs darken. I can't really describe it any better than "malty" or maybe "sweet". It reminds me more of an amber ale than an IPA.

I'm not sure kegging is ever going to be an option for me as I just don't have a good place to put a kegerator.

 

I couldn't find the side by side comparison but I found a couple pics that I posted on untappd. On the post with the bottle I mention that the aroma and hop flavor were muted, not terribly but noticeable.

From the bottle. Please ignore the label as it was a gift.



From the keg