From classy to ashy

Abrasive personality. Personal attacks. Is BrewBetty back?

 

Homebrewing = your home and your beer. The right way to do it is the one that you like.

 

To get back to the original question, I have experienced a rapid change in a beer. Based on what I know now, that beer was clearly oxidized. It was an IPA with a big hop dose. It went from fantastic to crappy in a very short time, essentially overnight.

Now that beer was bottled, and its rapid degredation was the reason I started kegging. I decided I could not figure out a way to bottle in a splashless manner, and so I went the kegging route (and have never looked back).

If I had to guess, I'd say that your beer fountain is responsible for the introduction of oxygen. While it is possible that the beer may condition itself out of its current state (if it isn't oxidized), I wouldn't bet on it. Let us know how it turns out and good luck.

Cheers!

 

I wouldn't think some splashing would cause a problem unless your cold crashing before racking to the keg. Only time i lost a batch over night was when i had a keg leak that i think was caused by a splitter that i recently bypassed and switched to a dual guage.

 

Oxidation of IPAs was the bane of my brewing existence for a long time. Everything I read about oxidation in brewing texts was related to staling reactions and shelf life - which is very much a thing don't get me wrong - but it doesn't seem to be very well documented that extremely hoppy beers can oxidize like lightning. Over night -gone-to-shit in a blink.

With a bit of digging a while back I found some research pointing to the heavy isohumulone load contributed by the hops being oxidized into various aldehyde compounds, which contribute a distinct f'ng disgusting flavor to beer. The modern nut job hopping rates we practice today exacerbate this problem. Once glorious hop aroma turns to the sweet, metallic dirty dishwater flavor. I'm no organic chemist but the above is what I gleaned from this paper:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1979.tb06843.x

Nowadays I have a different kegging process which is only slightly more work. If no keg hops , I fill up the keg to the absolute brim with sanitizer, push it all out, then hook up transfer tubing from spigot on fermentor to a liquid QD on the liquid out post on the keg. Hook up CO2 to blow off rig, add about 2psi of head pressure, and transfer into the keg. You can also probably get away with just using gravity but I'm a bit ocd about this now... This gently fills from the bottom up in a O2 free environment. No oxidation let downs ever since !

 

Did you ever experience "ridiculous change in a beer overnight" as reported by @campbellvt?

Cheers!

 

Jack, maybe not within say... 12 hours. But noticeable at 24, then fully out the window by day two. I'm thinking of a specific situation: Its my 3rd or 4th time kegging, and first time kegging an IPA. Beer at FG, cold crashed, transferred into non purged keg with hops, lid off, just siphoning in. Headspace purged a few times, beer put on tap. Looking back, this is just a terrible process (I was learning!) but shows the potential for oxidation with this style of beer.

This would have been a delicate 4 srm NEIPA, tasting amazing out of the fermenter, that turned into disastrous brown dishwater within about 72 hours. Looking back its a terrible process and I was asking for this to happen - but it proves what is possible.

I think if I had bottled that batch I would have been in much better shape as I would have the re fermentation in the bottle to clean up the O2 a bit. Without the re fermentation aspect of bottling, I think you have to be very, very careful when kegging these styles.

 

I think if you use a good amount of CO2 purged into the empty keg as well as the head space you will sleep better and have vibrant beer too.

Since you have the gas, consider purging everything. Keg. Carboy. Tubing. Headspace. Anywhere you smell oxygen gets a blast with magic CO2 gas. It is pretty cheap insurance, and it will make a difference. Oxygen is ubiquitous (ponder the importance of that thought for a second...) but it can be dealt with.

Cheers.

 

Have a beer and get free advise from someone smarter than you. Yeah! You heard me.

Will you bother to address these questions without personal attacks? That is is what a scientist does. Are you a scientist or are you a crank? Your choice. BA is not the mountain you want to die on.

A tenured professor I know once dressed down a young PhD. The comment was along the lines of "Your analysis shows promise but your methods suck."

Go back to the drawing board. Prove your point. Prove it again. Revise. Rewrite. Swallow your pride, and do it again. In a phrase, tighten your shit. You are making bold claims in an extremely traditional arena. Nobody will give you the time of day if you continue to be a hard headed fool. Nobody will even bother to pay attention once your reputation is sunk. By you none the less. So drop the border line claims that are weak and easily refuted and focus on the best data you have.

Look, I get it. You are frustrated because you are invested. Now is the time to step it up and get your shit tight. No failures just reevaluation. Are you a scientist invested in breaking new ground or are you a hobbyist? Well?

And cut the ad-hominem attacks already. That will make you toxic across the board. Forever. Do not think your peers are not aware today or tomorrow.


Cheers.

 

Oh yes absolutely do now - I was describing my first attempts at this. What I'm certain of now though is that a heavily dry hopped cold side oxidized beer makes itself known in a BIG way. I used the questionable process described above for a few non hop forward beers and didn't notice anything remotely close to that gross n the 6 weeks or so it took to tank them.

 

I must be lucky. I’ve never had a beer oxidize. And I fill my keg very haphazardly... lid off... gravity fed... whooshing around...
I do pump lots of CO2 into the keg first. But I only release the pressure one time after it’s sealed. Don’t want to let too much of that hop aroma drift away. Then I’ll release it a second time to lower the PSI when I use the beer gun If I’m filling bottles.

I would like to force fill the keg like you guys describe some day.

 

Two words, sounding valve. Also, I'm loving the world series of dice refrence... everyone get butt ass.

 

Three words....baritone or sopralto?

 

That autocorrect gets me every time... spunding valve!

 

Title: From Classy to Ashy

Funny, that’s also the title of my upcoming autobiography...

 

So... Ad-hominem attacks are fine when they are from you two though? Makes sense, when its all you got.

My "science" is all backed up, and cited (of which I have literally NEVER seen you do, I will give Jack that at least). You literally use the same argument over and over, and over, and over. Which is completely invalid, because you refuse to read it. Lets be honest and call a spade a spade, no matter what I cited, you would (loudly) call me out, because of your bias against me. Your posts try to show how wrong I am, but really just shows how immature you are when you just use attacks and zero factual information. I am sure you are trying to bully me into not posting or leaving here as that can be the only take away from your playground antics.

Never once have I lost my temper like you do in your posts. I imagine you spend a lot of time writing out these long diatribes of how much I anger you, when instead we could actually have had meaningful technical conversations that would have benefited the entire community. Or maybe that was just my hope from one professional to a (questionable) another.

If I bother you so much, the professional and adult thing to do would be to click the unfollow button. As I will continue to post, because backing down to online bullies is not my deal. But getting out the proper information is.

So spare yourself a long and hate fueled post towards me, and simply answer the question. Can we interact like professionals? I honestly look forward to a good honest debate with your counterpoints (cited of course). As I always continually search for the best answers.

 

Guys and gals: ask yourselves if you adding light or heat to the conversation.

Cheers

 

So I’ve been taking refractometer readings and small tastes from the current ale I’m fermenting and dropping the leftover into a separate cup and leaving it out. It’s been out for two days. Just pulled another small sample this morning and the color difference is striking. This is what oxidation must look like and for sure I’ve never had it happen to an ale in a keg even with my loose kegging practices.
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