Splashing While Racking to Second

Hey All,

Today i transferred my Nut Brown Ale to my secondary 5 gallon carboy and the end of the siphon hose was about 1-1 1/2 feet above the bottom of the carboy. I didn't think anything of it, but by the time i finished it ended up oxygenating the heck out of my beer. When i filled it up to the top, i had tons of oxygen bubbles on the surface. I even had some pretty decent airlock activity in the secondary for the 1st hour after the transfer. About a bubble every 10 seconds.

Is this splashing bad for my baby? If so, why?

Also, how the heck do you get that last bit of beer out of the primary? I had about a 1 1/2 inch layer that i didn't want to lose. So i put it through a crude filter directly into a Grolsch bottle with some sugary syrup (boiled water/table sugar). The results weren't pretty as of yet. I want to see if the sludge carbonates.

yep that sludge will carb.....how much sugar did you add? You don't want to mess with bottle bombs...

Normaly I just let that last bit be....I don't know I figure I've got like 4.89 Gallons or something why worry?

take it easy

EDIT: Oh I should add.....I made a cider about 6months ago and did about the same thing ....I thought I'd screwed it up but 6 months later and it's pretty tasty

Just RDWAHAHB (hehe first time i've used that one!!)

efreem01 said:

Hey All,

Today i transferred my Nut Brown Ale to my secondary 5 gallon carboy and the end of the siphon hose was about 1-1 1/2 feet above the bottom of the carboy. I didn't think anything of it, but by the time i finished it ended up oxygenating the heck out of my beer. When i filled it up to the top, i had tons of oxygen bubbles on the surface. I even had some pretty decent airlock activity in the secondary for the 1st hour after the transfer. About a bubble every 10 seconds.

Is this splashing bad for my baby? If so, why?

Click to expand...

Probably what you were seeing is released CO2 and not oxygen...Yeah, you don't want to splash your beer for sure. Those bubbles you were seeing were released Co2 not oxygen. Also the bubble every 10 seconds was mostly likely due to your yeast activating from getting stirred up and not from the oxygen. Oxydative reactions show up later in off tastes.

Splashing is bad 'cause it oxydizes the goodies in your baby. Think potato chips left out for a couple days or leaving your hammer out in the rain for a week or two. Oxygen is potent stuff and combines with stuff in your beer. That's why it is bad. But don't think your baby is ruined yet. A little splashing is not a disaster. Just try to do things more quietly next time. Be the beer...

efreem01 said:

how the heck do you get that last bit of beer out of the primary?

Click to expand...

The racking cane goes in a corner. Then you tilt the carboy to get all the liquid into that corner.


If you don't have an autosiphon, get one. It's less than ten bucks and you will wonder how you ever got by without one...

I basically added a teaspoon of table sugar, and made a syrup with about two teaspoons of boiled water. When it cooled i put it in the bottle and siphoned sludge into it. Lol.