Oxidation while transfering to a bottling bucket.

We take all this care the whole time after fermentation to ensure beer is not in contact with oxygen, but then we put it in a bottling bucket with the top exposed to a bunch of air. Is the surface beer that comes in contact with oxygen in a bucket insignificant? Does anyone else have a method for ensuring zero oxygen contact? I read a thrread on this site about people transfering their beer from primary to sceondary carboys using carboy caps, and purge with CO2 before tranfser. Then, instead of blowing into the cap, they push it through with C02. What are some of your opinions about using a better bottle (for the spigot), purging it as stated above during transfer, then using it as a bottling bucket. Is this overboard?

with the time it has contact with o2 it doesnt matter and i wouldnt worry about it.

I had this same thought on my first batch. The fact that so many people use the buckets, and I've never seen any "How do you cover your bottling bucket?" threads here led me to the conclusion that if all these other homebrewers are doing it, it's probably okay.

IMO O2 is bad at anytime and pushing with CO2 the way to go.

When you siphon to another vessel make sure the tube opening is on the bottom so that the beer doesn't splash. As the volume is transferred it will empty below the surface so only the small amount of surface will have contact with air.

While there are ways of transferring with no air contact I would guess that 95%+ of homebrewers don't and don't worry about it.

The only way to avoid this is to keg, then fill bottles with a counter pressure filler. The oxygen exposure won't be an issue unless you are trying to store bottles of a low ABV lighter ale for more than a year. You drink them much faster than that. For the beers that need some aging, you have some leeway with the residual C02 that gets released when you rack.

post fermentation there's usually still some co2 dissolved in the beer. when you transfer, it comes out of solution and forms a protective layer on top of the beer.

also remember that only the very top layer of beer is exposed and that by itself it represents a tiny fraction of the total batch. this is why people say it's best to avoid stirring or otherwise disturbing the bucket once the priming sugar is mixed.

there are techniques using co2 of eliminating almost all exposure to oxygen, but most homebrewers don't seem to find them necessary. low level oxidation often takes awhile to manifest as a discernable flavor and some styles like barleywine are even considered to benefit from slight oxidized flavors.

Remember the beer is covered in a cushion of co2 the whole time, even when racking, and if you are careful then you aren't introducing an O2 that way...and it is still producing co2 as it is in the bucket...it's only in the bucket for a short time.

People have been using bottling buckets for decades and it hasn't been an issue for any of us that I have ever heard..It wouldn't be recommended in basic books like Papazian and Palmer, or brewing for dummies, if there was an issue involved.

It takes a lot of O2 to really damage your beer, I remember a podcast that said that it would really take like pumping an entire red bottle of o2 into your beer to set up the conditions for oxydation, most things we normally do, and even most of the mistakes we make, are really not enough to do so, and besides, oxydation isn't an immediate issue for most of us...it appears months down the road, most of us have peed out our homebrews months before oxydation would rear it's ugly head...

If you feel the need to pay the extra bucks for the dookickeys for a closed system for the better bottle go ahead...Have fun...but it isn't necessary...If you are careful you'll be fine...

I have some tips for bottling if you are interested...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/revvys-tips-bottler-first-time-otherwise-94812/

llazy_llama said:

I had this same thought on my first batch. The fact that so many people use the buckets, and I've never seen any "How do you cover your bottling bucket?" threads here led me to the conclusion that if all these other homebrewers are doing it, it's probably okay.

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I had the same thoughts as well. There wasn't anything on here about covering the bottling bucket, so I figured it was ok.

covering the bottling bucket makes filling the bottles take forever IMHO i would forgo a cover. for the three I have made so far I have never had a problem.

Ok, Kind of what I figured, I am probably going overboard worrying about the small amount of time its in contact with Oxygen. Thanks for the replies!

DownRightAft said:

Ok, Kind of what I figured, I am probably going overboard worrying about the small amount of time its in contact with Oxygen. Thanks for the replies!

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You're not probably going overboard...you are

It's fairy common...you have noobitus, the tendency to worry too much about this stuff, forgetting that your beer is much hardier than new brewers give it credit, and forgetting the biggest lesson...we're not in charge, the yeasts are. They have been doing it for over 2,000 years, and doing a pretty good job at it..or else beer would have gone the way of Pepsi Clear, or New Coke....Our job is to simply provide them with a clean (sanitized) factory (the fermenter and later the bottle) plenty of food and fuel (the sugars) and leave them alone for awhile....

To put it in perspective, read this thread...you'll get the idea why RDWHAHB is the motto of homebrewing.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

Two batches ago, I was racking to the bottling bucket and got a bunch of air into the mix. There was a gap where the tube met the cane and it sucked air in the solution until I got it fixed. Believe me, there was bubbles all over the bottling bucket.
I thought I was screwed however I bottled anyway and the batch turned out fine. The beer Gods smiled on me that day.

Since you are talking bottling bucket than I have to assume bottle conditioning as well. If this is the case then the priming sugar and the mini ferment that it instigates will consume and scrub the tiny amount of oxygen that is introduced in the transfer from carboy to bottle.

I've had beers last years with no discernible decline in quality from oxidation. I've never covered the bottling bucket or tried to create a closed system.

I've found so many other ways to worry needlessly about my beer that I guess I never got around to this one.