Airlock beer

So, my ale is in the secondary, I've got a highly floculent yeast, and I've been giving it a good shake every now and then. Well last time, a little bit of beer bubbled up into the airlock. Normally I would just chang it out and be done with it, but I'm curious what youguys think, danger of infection real?

Off to work.

Why are you shaking your beer in the secondary?

There is always some risk of infection when you mess with your beer but if you are working in a clean environment and pay attention to sanitization the risk is minimal. I would go ahead and remove the airlock, clean it and replace it.

Got Trub? said:

Why are you shaking your beer in the secondary?

There is always some risk of infection when you mess with your beer but if you are working in a clean environment and pay attention to sanitization the risk is minimal. I would go ahead and remove the airlock, clean it and replace it.

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I agree, why even haf it in a secondary if you're going to be mixing it back up?

Are you dry hopping the beer? Why even use a secondary?

The whole point of secondary is to let things settle, away from the trub and yeast cake. This way there are less yeast and protein bits in the bottle/keg and so on. The only time you shoud be shaking is right as the yeast has been added. This give them oxygen to start.

By the end, they need to be working in an oxygen free environment (in fact, there's probably ONLY CO2 in the headspace of secondary, so shaking is really doing nothing at all.

If beer went OUT the airlock, you're fine. Next time let it sit, settle, and move to the bottling bucket or keg.

kvh

Secondary fermentors are like babies, meaning DONT Shake them! You run the serious risk of aerating your beer if a CO2 layer hasn't filled the head space and also you want everything to settle out like that.

Cheers

all that shaking not only defeats the purpose of a secondary...it also introduces oxygen into the beer if indeed you are 'shaking' and not just 'gently swirling and avoiding any splashing action'.

oxygen in beer = oxidized beer....stale off-flavors.

Ouch, Ok so it's apparent that I don't really no what I'm doing here. This brew went to sec. early. and I've heard that WY1272 benefitsfrom a little stirring up early on. I won't do it again, I promise.

I always sec. for clarity, dry-hopping, or just to get my beer away from the trub as I often don't have time to deal with it for a mo. or more. Thanks for all your sage advise though.

if they say it benefits from stirring, they do mean gently. its possible to just tip the carboy at a slight angle, using one hand on the neck and one on the base, and very lightly swirl it. go soft and it won't splash but will stir itself a bit.

other option is the end of a sanitized spoon since it'll fit down a carboy neck. again, no splash, just gentle stirring slowly til it builds up a little momentum.