Quick question on air

Hey all.. noob here.

Sorry for the dumb question. I just finished topping the bottles of my first batch and I am really anxious to see how I did. I have taken plenty of notes, and I want to be able to replicate great beers and figure out what went wrong in not so great beers. I am following two brew guides and both continually remind me to watch out for air contact because it can change/contaminate the beer. I was incredibly careful, but I think I may have been two anal. I rushed to cover everything as soon as a step was done. It seemed to take away from enjoying the process because I was too concerned with air contamination and rushed to cap every top and seal every possible air entrance on the carboy, bucket, et. Am I being too anal or is this normal?

Prolly a little too anal there. You need to sanitize before bottling really good, but the bottling process takes time, and I don't think an hour or so of open beer would matter. Keep in mind some processes (Mr. Beer) are never really sealed and still very rarely have infections. Make sure you relax and have fun. Without that, what's the point?

I think sometimes the sanitation issue gets blown out of proportion. Cleaning is one thing, but acting like you work in a lab is probably a bit extreme. But I understand where you are coming from because I did about the same exact thing when I bottled. Just keeping counters wiped, utensils clean, and things loosely covered is about where you need to be. When I bottle I'll fill a dozen or so, set the cap on each one as I go, and crimp only when the full dozen are full.

Don't sweat it. And remember, more than likely, even if you think something is wrong with your beer, if it looks a bit off, speaks a foreign language, or even has an odd smell, someone on this forum is just going to tell you to "let it mellow out some more", and chances are in a couple of months you'll be writing back telling us how it was the best beer you've ever had.

Actually when I do bottle a batch, I just fill them and place a cap on each bottle as I fill. As I'm filling the rest of the bottles, I can hear the light popping of the loose caps on the bottles letting me know that the co2 produced is driving out the air in the headspace. When all bottles are filled I seal them starting with the first one I filled.

Oxidation is one of those "monsters under the bed" things. Everybody knows about it, but no one has seen it. Oxidation takes a long time to develop and since you have yeast in your bottles, the yeast will consume the O2 anyway. This is much more of a problem in commercial beers that filter out the yeast and don't get stored properly.

Don't splash excessively and don't leave your beer in a warm spot for a year.

Thanks everyone. I definitely needed that sanity check. The books make it seem more drastic than it really is.

david_42 said:

Oxidation is one of those "monsters under the bed" things. Everybody knows about it, but no one has seen it. Oxidation takes a long time to develop and since you have yeast in your bottles, the yeast will consume the O2 anyway. This is much more of a problem in commercial beers that filter out the yeast and don't get stored properly.

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Thanks, David, that goes a long way towards de-mystifying another homebrew myth.

I usually fill two cases completely and then begin capping. Can be a total of 45 minutes until the last one is capped.

Remember, the beer is still creating trace amounts of CO2 and as the bottle sits waiting to be capped, that CO2 is forming a protective blanket over the brew.

I think the time to be concerend with moving fast would be if you are in an environment where there is lots of "junk" in the air (fish frying in the kitchen, spring day with lots of pollen, excessive flatulance on your part).

Then I would be quicker about protecting the beer from these flavor "enhancers".

Not an expert but...
I don't have the space for bottling more than 8 or so at a time. As it is I just fill the eight and then cap them one by one and move on to the next eight. Don't want to have a domino effect and spill a lot of good beer. Lots of potential energy in bottles standing straight up on a counter.

Of course this was only my second bottling on Friday.

GTTailgater said:

Thanks everyone. I definitely needed that sanity check. The books make it seem more drastic than it really is.

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The feeling I've gotten in my short HB career that if beer is going to get messed up-it's going to be due to unsanitary conditions or airborn infections...that doesn't mean that it's this delicate liquid that will spoil if it touches air-it's just that it's better to be anal about it than lazy.

The day after I brewed my 1st batch, I had cracked open a cold one (commercial brew) and was relaxing on the couch...I had been so caught up in keeping things covered earlier that day that it freaked me out to see the open bottle that I was drinking out of!