Houdini
Active Member
Ok, I was fermenting an extract brew that says to dry hop in a secondary after 2 weeks in the primary. I've never secondary fermented before and didn't have any 5 gallon carboys, so I decided to just rack to another 6.5 gallon bucket. The next day I noticed that I lost a gallon of brew due to a small leak in the spicket on the bucket I used.
So I re-racked to the original bucket that I had cleaned up the previous day. At this point I started to get real nervous about oxidation. Since I only racked to the secondary after fermentation was complete there shouldn't be any more CO2 being released that would buffer the beer against the oxygen, and after racking twice it's been exposed more-so than it should have been. At that point I decided to just add my dry hops then instead of waiting another week as it would have required popping the top and exposing it to even more oxygen. So now I'm going to just let it sit in the secondary for 2 weeks instead of 3 like I was originally planning, as I don't want the hops to start giving off odd flavors if left in too long.
Someone please tell me to RDWHAHB as I'm starting to go crazy wondering if my beer will be completely oxidized and taste off...
Update: BTW, I have decided from now on to simply dry-hop in the primary as the existing CO2 will buffer against the oxygen "let in" from opening the top...
- Houdini
So I re-racked to the original bucket that I had cleaned up the previous day. At this point I started to get real nervous about oxidation. Since I only racked to the secondary after fermentation was complete there shouldn't be any more CO2 being released that would buffer the beer against the oxygen, and after racking twice it's been exposed more-so than it should have been. At that point I decided to just add my dry hops then instead of waiting another week as it would have required popping the top and exposing it to even more oxygen. So now I'm going to just let it sit in the secondary for 2 weeks instead of 3 like I was originally planning, as I don't want the hops to start giving off odd flavors if left in too long.
Someone please tell me to RDWHAHB as I'm starting to go crazy wondering if my beer will be completely oxidized and taste off...
Update: BTW, I have decided from now on to simply dry-hop in the primary as the existing CO2 will buffer against the oxygen "let in" from opening the top...
- Houdini