Hey guys, got a question. Just had a rough time doing a closed transfer from my keg fermentor to the serving keg. I didn't bag the DH's, but to compensate for this I tilted the keg a bit before I cold crashed it for three days. Plus I've shortened the dip tube and I've DH before in the past like this, but I guess I just added toooo much hops this time. So after much cussing and swearing I ended up opening the serving keg lid and then taking the end of my transfer tubing and filling it that way. Needless to say there was some foaming. I've sealed it up and purged the head space a BUNCH, but how should I proceed. The beer spent 18 days in the fermentor, the yeast was US05, and I fermented it at 72 degrees and finished at 74 before cold crashing. I'm worried about oxidation, should I keep it cold and put it on gas and drink as soon as possible? Or as I planed, 74 degrees for another week then fridge and on gas? Not sure yet what the fg was, I took a reading but had to rush to work. I'm pretty sure though it was done.
Nothing you can do about oxidation at this point, so just let it carb and see how it is. People transferred beer into kegs via tubing for years with decent results, so you're probably fine.
I would leave it in the 70s for at least a day and see if any pressure builds up (i.e. still fermenting). Then chill, carb, and wolf it down. There's a better'n average chance it'll be okay. Oh yeah . . . I've gone commando before too:
thanks guys, yea I think I better get to drinking. PortLargo, that's a site I don't want to see again. I tried to use 20+ ponds of pressure and she wouldn't budge.Cleaned the dip tube three time before I just gave up and went old school. Luckily I was in the garage and was able to hose everything down.
When I was doing smaller batches I used to ferment in speidel, closed transfer on top of hops in my dry hop keg, then cold crash before doing closed transfer keg jump to serving keg. Dry hop keg had cut dip tube with some tubing in the shape of a J at the bottom. Used stainless steel wiring to mold the J shape of the tubing. This allowed for the beer to be pulled from above the sediment of dry hop and yeast when cold. Also would lay the dry hop keg horizontal and roll it around every day to maximize hop:beer contact.
Oxidation is one of the most most overhyped problems for homebrewers. Unless you are transferring with your hose way above the keg and splashing it, you will be fine. Homebrewers have somehow got to the point that they think if their beer *literally* touches oxygen, that it will become brown and taste bad. I've never bothered doing a closed transfer and my kegged NE IPAs are good for months.
Beer has been kegged for about 16 days now, been drinking for over a week and no signs of oxidation. Next time I'll just go back to bagging them, never really noticed a difference that I could tell.
I've had a beer before oxidize on me before, just once but it's happened. That beer was also kegged using a closed transfer, and went smoothly. Is it overhyped, maybe I guess until it happens to you, then it's not.
I keg with just a tube and spigot, no closed transfer. I don’t purge my kegs either. I’ve never had a problem with oxidization. The only time I have had oxidization is when I bottled ipas using a bottling bucket.
Yeah, you want to avoid transferring multiple time for sure. Another easy way to end up with oxidation is to have a loose fitting hose on your auto siphon as it will suck air in the entire time it siphons. There seems to be a misconception that air being on the surface of the beer is what causes it and it is so damn frustrating.
