Title basically says it. My brews have come a long way. Better recipe formulation, water chemistry, controlling ph, general process, etc. But, packaging is where I'm falling short. I keg my hoppy beers, but just fill the keg and purge a few times. I'm definitely seeing my beers oxidize after a period of a few weeks. The beer I'm drinking right now was my best NEIPA 3 weeks ago, but now it's just ok. So, I'm looking for tips on how to proceed. I know there are many methods of keeping out O2. I'd like something as simple as possible and generally trying to use the equipment I have (but I can upgrade as well if needed). My Details: - I generally brew 3.25 gallons of hoppy beers and serve in 3 gallon kegs. - I ferment in Fermonster w/ a spigot. - I do have some 5 gallon kegs I could ferment in and transfer to 3 gallon serving keg. - I occasionally cold crash, but generally let things settle in the keg because I feel cold crashing just invites more O2 with my current set up. Anyway, what would you do if you were me? What's your preferred method. Cheers
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/racking-from-primary-to-kegs-via-co2.217698/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/oxygen-paradox-for-dummies.468553/
There is truthfully only so much you can do when it comes to minimizing oxygen uptake. In other words, if you are doing it right and you still feel your beers are oxidizing don't lose sleep. The next step requires a massive amount of investment. Simply put, do everything a homebrewer can do. And live with it. I must say though that plenty of us are achieving fine results with our beers despite not having a multi million dollar canning facility. It can be done. That said, you should not be losing your beers to oxygen three weeks out. NEIPA is a particular flavor that needs special attention but if you think you are getting oxidation quickly there are probably a few areas to tighten up. Purge like a Mofo. CO2 is cheap. Use it. Purge everything. Purge everything again. Be gentle. Use CO2 every possible chance. My guess is that you have one specific area of concern that needs to be addressed in your brewhouse. Find it and fix it. Cheers.
My preferred method is a pressurized closed xfer from conical to keg. If you're not ready to invest in a conical, you might consider installing an assembly including a ball lock gas post onto (and through) your Fermonster lid. Something like: https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/bulkheadblg.htm You could even replace your airlock with a spunding valve attached to the post. When it comes time to rack, you'd remove the spunding valve (and put it on the purged keg's gas post during xfer), and attach your CO2 gas quick disconnect to the fermenter's post. I don't know what size tubing the Fermonster's spigot takes, but hopefully it's a diameter in which you can also get a swivel nut with a barb to fit the other end. Disclaimer: I don't own the product linked above, but it or something similar could do the trick.
Close transfer is definitely the next step you should take. Also, I’m a fan of purging the keg via the CO2 produced from fermentation to reduce O2 exposure. It does a better job than just adding CO2 and releasing PRV over and over again.
A couple of easy things that I found helped: pretty sure you are sanitizing your keg and forcing the sanitizer out with CO2. Maybe you want to do another purge or two. After sanitized you can fill keg with water and force out with gas. In theory there will be no oxygen in keg except the tiny amount in the posts that escaped the water-purge. I did the water-purge for about 6 brews in a row with no noticeable improvement, others say it helps. I did see an improvement by transfering to keg with lid closed. Connect a liquid disconnect to transfer line and fill keg from bottom (open PRV). Also, it's easy to purge your transfer line . . . with about 2 psi in the keg, connect the liquid QD to keg and let the remaining CO2 purge through the line, then immediately attach to your spigot. A few extra keg-burbs when it is all over never hurts. In your Fermonster the headspace should be all CO2. When you open the spigot, air(oxygen) will fill the vacated space. But it will not instantly co-mix with the CO2. I'm sure you stop transferring before the liquid level reaches the spigot pick-up . . . that should do a good job of minimizing oxygen contact with your packaged beer. As mentioned, don't try and economize on CO2.
For my next NE IPA, I am trying a new technique to see how it works out. Ferment as usual until 3-5 points from FG… Transfer into a well-purged keg, with my dry hop charge in it. This keg will be fitting with a floating dip tube, with screen. Spund beer until proper carbonation level. Once it has a few days, cold crash and then transfer to another well purged serving keg. Done by connecting the outlets of each keg to one another and move the beer over with CO2. Curious if it changes my end results any… My IPA’s have been fine, but as of late not enjoying the end result as much (they don’t change much from fresh over time, so not thinking oxidation is problem). Perhaps it’s just the yeast I’ve been using for the past few (WLP007). May not care for it much anymore like I used to… Will go back to London Ale III or Conan of sorts for my next one. Dry hopping is the tough part with the IPA’s, in terms of keeping oxygen out. For my lagers (and anything not dry hopped) it’s easy enough to get the beer moved/spunded when ready to go to eliminate O2. But the dry hopping complicates things a bit and I have not been a fan of leaving the hops in the beer full-term… Degrades the flavors for sure, especially over time.
I do a lot of secondaries (dry hopping, dry beaning, etc.) in a hop cage in a corny, then xfer out to a serving corny. Everything purged, and everything closed from time yeast is pitched.
Might have been said already, lazy and didn’t read replies: Fill keg 100% with water after cleaning and sanitized. Push water out with CO2. This is best method for homebrew. Also, push beer from fermenter to keg via CO2 through liquid out post on keg. Waste a couple oz beer to prime line going in to make sure it’s all beer and no O2. Force carb through liquid out post. Burp keg about 10 times. Keep cold.
Thanks for all of the replies. I think I'll try a couple of the different methods with my current equipment and see what works for me.
This is also essentially my technique, which seems to work well for me. Hoppy IPAs keep for months in my beer fridge. One difference is that for the initial keg purge I don't fill with any liquid; I just pressurize with CO2 to ~10 psi and then vent through the prv. I do this 6 times before filling.
You should use the Fermenter to purge your keg with pure Co2 during fermentation. It's a much more effective process.
I use SS Brewtech buckets and ported plastic buckets. What I do is fill my kegs with StarSan solution, force it out with CO2 (usually cleaning a beer line in the process), relieve the pressure in the keg, connect tubing to the valve on my fermenter, put a liquid QD on the other end, and fill via gravity into the liquid out post. Some people go further and either connect the gas post to the top of their fermenter, or pump CO2 in on top of the beer in their fermenter some other way. I haven't done that yet and I haven't seen significant oxidation, but ymmv.
I've found transferring from bottling buckets to co2 purged kegs the easiest. I just pushed beer with co2 thru top of bucket if transfer slows. Purging all lines with co2 and discarding a small amount first pass of beer thru lines. Never have issues with oxidation and my beers have improved greatly because of this, especially heavily hopped/dry hopped Ipa's.
Heres how Ive been doing it. I fill the keg with c02, lets gravity work. When I take off my bubbler I purge the fermenter right in the top from my bottle. I do this a few times during the 5 minute transfer. I also keep pulling the ring on my closed and sealed keg as the pressure will fill up from liquid and stop flowing. The hose is on the black side of the ball lock. I also put a little C02 down the tube before I hook it up
Im in the middle of trying this for the first time myself. I have a 90 degree blowoff barb coming off the lid of my SS brewbucket, a 2-barb reducer to take the 1/2'' tubing down to 7/16'' tubing, all hooked up to a QD on the gas in post of the keg filled with sanitizer - that keg is jumpered to an empty keg, and it is in the middle of pushing that sanitizer over... It seems to have sort of stopped half way though, with about 1/4 of the first keg still full of liquid.. I pitched on Friday afternoon, its now Monday, so I sort of figured it would all be pushed out by now, bubbling away How are you doing it @paulaner ? do you just have it hooked up to a single keg no sanitizer? how do you make sure the system is gas tight and not leaking? (assuming you don't have a pressure rated ferm? ) Cheers!
Single keg, I fill with sanitizer and pressure transfer it to my fermentor for ease of use, and once emptied I pressure ck the keg. Then I have a gas ball lock connection on my fermentor, that hooks up to the liquid in ball lock on keg and my gas in connection on the keg goes into a cup of sanitizer to act as the liquid lock. You can find much more here as I based my setup off of this. http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/bre...rging-transferring-stabilizing-finished-beer/
I just tried this ideal cutting the gas tube flush with the keg to get all the sanitizer out with the floating dip tube and it works great. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/closed-transfer-with-floating-dip-tube.670543/
