Blow off water back into fermenter during cold crash

I may have just learned a hard lesson in cold crashing beer...

I had a blowoff tube going into a bucket of sanitized water. During the initial fermentation, some of the yeast blow off did go down the tube and discolor the tube and water in the bucket some. I just left everything as is, so as not to disturb anything.

I cold crashed my beer down to 38 F, and, as expected, there was suction back into the fermenter. I didn't think it would be enough to suck the water all the way back up. Actually, I'm not sure it did go all the way back up. But when I lifted the hose to empty it, some of the water went into the fermenter. Maybe just a couple tablespoons. Hard to say.

It is a closed system. The water was sanitized. All the light brown stuff in the hose is from the beer yeast (Saccharomyces, of course). There could be other yeast on the surface of the water in the bucket.

I'm thinking that I infected my beer in some way. I guess I can just continue and hope for the best. Next time I will handle the cold crash differently.

I'm bringing the temperature back up to 67 F now for three days of dry hop before I keg.

Anyone have any experience with this? Any suggestions or responses regarding this little mishap? Thanks!

Doesnt sound like enough sanitizer got in to do anything. I just have a question on your procedure of cold crashing. Why did you cold crash if you are going to warm it back up to dry hop? Would it have been easier to to dry hop it when its already warm for 3 days then cold crash it before you keg it?

That's a fair response. I might change the order of operations next time.

I think I read somewhere about someone else doing it in that order. I read a lot of beer books, magazines, and websites so I don't recall. May have heard it on a podcast. Somehow that got stuck in my head and became my plan.

My logic is that I wanted to dry hop for 3 days, not 6. I have read where people have stated that they get best results when dry hopping for three days (or 3 to 5 days).

I'm going to use nylons to dry hop pellets so that the beer stays relatively clear. I just cleared my beer, I don't want to mess it up with hop debris.

I suppose I could use fishing line attached to dry hop warm for three days, then pull up the hop bags. Then cold crash.

I would just use a piece of foil for cold crashing...saran wrap as well.

I've read that a one piece airlock is good for cold crashing. Is this correct?

threeporks said:

I've read that a one piece airlock is good for cold crashing. Is this correct?

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I dont think it matters I use a 3 piece air lock during cold crashing

zentr said:

That's a fair response. I might change the order of operations next time.

I think I read somewhere about someone else doing it in that order. I read a lot of beer books, magazines, and websites so I don't recall. May have heard it on a podcast. Somehow that got stuck in my head and became my plan.

My logic is that I wanted to dry hop for 3 days, not 6. I have read where people have stated that they get best results when dry hopping for three days (or 3 to 5 days).

I'm going to use nylons to dry hop pellets so that the beer stays relatively clear. I just cleared my beer, I don't want to mess it up with hop debris.

I suppose I could use fishing line attached to dry hop warm for three days, then pull up the hop bags. Then cold crash.

Click to expand...

I did a new procedure for my hopping and cold crash for this current batch. What I did was clean/sanitize my keg. Racked from primary into the keg. Used nylon to hold the hops i tied one end to the keg handle so the hops would be easier to remove. Sealed the keg dry hopped for 5 days. When it was time to cold crash I popped the top took out the hops, chilled, carbed it. It turned out to be easier with out needing to dirty up another carboy for the dry hop stage.

wilserbrewer: I think I may end up using sanitized foil next. Maybe even a rubber band due to the sucking in and the air blowing in my incubator.

threeporks: My concern with airlocks is the sucking in. Many have mentioned that the sanitized water or vodka gets sucked down. If all of it were to get sucked down, oxygen could get in. (Though RandomBeerGuy did state that he uses an airlock).

RandomBeerGuy: That sounds like a good process. The only thing I would be concerned with is any yeast sediment. Isn't the cold crash good for dropping things out and settling to the bottom? I would think one would want to do this before the keg.

I dry hopped three ounces of hops yesterday. I used nylons for the first time. Easy to use. I boiled the heck out of them Saturday and I soaked them in StarSan before using.

Tomorrow night I'll take a gravity reading and taste it. I'll also keg the beer.

I've done a lot of new things with this beer as part of my ongoing drive to improve the beer--water chemistry, yeast nutrients, mashing technique, cold crashing, dry hopping, I'll even be kegging for the first time--so there is room for improvement, but also room for errors. (You can see my brewday notes here for my Free IPA if you want.)

I like the foil/rubberband idea, im gonna try that in a couple days.

zentr said:

I think I read somewhere about someone else doing it in that order. I read a lot of beer books, magazines, and websites so I don't recall. May have heard it on a podcast. Somehow that got stuck in my head and became my plan.

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If I remember right I think Vinny C. from Russian River said that's how they dry hop. The less yeast in suspension, the better the result from dry hopping, or so the story goes.

This isn't my original inspiration for cold crashing and dry hopping, but I was just listening to the Can You Brew It podcast on the Brewing Network. It is the Kern River Citra IPA cloning episode (4-23-12). At around 3 minutes from the end Tasty says that he "dropped the yeast" which I assume he means cold crash (?). Then he dry hopped. He says something along the lines of putting "dry hop on top of yeast is like throwing it away." That's validating.

I doubt that you contaminated your beer. At the end of the primary the alcohol is mostly all present and should kill most if not all of the bacteria. I brewed my biggest beer to date this weekend (my "Rochefort 13") and made some serious mistakes at the start of the primary fermentation since I was in a big hurry (finished 15 min before start of a big party I was having). I put ~13 gallons of OG 1.119 wort into my 14gal fermenter with a blow-off tube submerged in a 5gal bucket filled with 3gal of sanitizer. I pitched two 2L starters of WLP500 and within hours it started making a giant mess. Apparently I stuck the blow-off tube below the surface of the wort because the 3gal bucket of sanitizer now had more than 4gal of brown liquid in it and the bucket was at high krausen!! It must have pressurized the fermenter enough to push the beer into the bucket and siphon a gallon or so of wort into the bucket. I peeked in the fermenter and was glad to see that it was still fermenting away like crazy. After 14 days in the primary, I will pitch 2 vials of WLP530 (probably with a 3L starter) to make sure I got most of the sugar before bottling this beast.

Bottom line is that I am not worried about it since the alcohol will be so high and any bacteria will not survive those conditions. And I may drink the bucket of fermenting sanitizer solution....great science projects and I learned a lot!

Primary: "Rochefort 13"; Blow-off bucket: "Rochefort 3" open-top fermentation; Secondary: Bier de Garde; Kegs: I think we drank them all Saturday;