Heavily aerated when racking to secondary... Drink fast?

Alright, so I'm an idiot. This is my first batch. I was racking to the secondary and the hose was transferring the wort and dropping in down into the secondary in a one foot drop waterfall. Now I am sure this aerated and introduced oxygen in the wort. Will the tiny bit of fermentation that has yet to occur consume the introduced oxygen? Should I add more fermentables to the secondary to get the yeast going again? Or should I just accept it and given that it takes a few months for oxygen to ruin beer, should I just drink it fast in the next couple months? Any stories of past batches would be appreciated. Thanks

Chemical reactions are affected by temperature. For every increase of 10*C, chemical reactions happen about 2x as fast. So the best thing you can do is bottle it soon, carb it up, chill it, and keep it cold.

Why and when did you move it to the secondary?

What type of brew is this?

Moving beer to the secondary by a homebrewer is done for three reasons.
1) To age high gravity beers.
2) To add flavor agents post fermentation.
3) To free the primary fermenter.

The practice of moving every beer to a secondary is an old one that mimics commercial processes. In large scale systems, the weight of many barrels of beer stresses the yeast cake. This can lead to autolysis and serious off flavors.

Like the others have alluded to, there is no way to know what damage has been done until it gets to the point where you taste it after being carbed and ready to drink, but that being the case it's probably a beer you will want to consume a bit earlier rather than later if a lot of oxidation did occur.

And to the second point, moving to a secondary is just a good excuse to screw up a beer. Like beerkrump pointed out, unless there is a very specific reason to do so you're really just adding one more step in your process that can potentially do more harm than good, as you've discovered.

It's just a low grav Amber Ale. Yea I'm thinking the consensus is that I should have left in in the primary and not transferred it. Live and learn. I guess I'll bottle it pretty soon and hope for the best.

Live, learn, and use the old secondaries for apfelwein. I'd carb quick, chill quick, drink quick but put a few bottles in the sunlight for a few months. Gotta have something to offer unwanted guests.

Dome555 said:

Live, learn, and use the old secondaries for apfelwein. I'd carb quick, chill quick, drink quick but put a few bottles in the sunlight for a few months. Gotta have something to offer unwanted guests.

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Haha, words of wisdom. Yea I'm thinking that at least in the bottles the yeast will be converting some of the oxygen to CO2 so that will rid some of it from there.

i usually rack to secondary, no real reason, no problems yet, and it has splashed pretty good. i think i do it just to be doing something with it, plus it does help to clear it up. you should be ok, by the time the off flavors of oxidation show up, you will be on your last bottles anyway. good luck.

donjr721 said:

i usually rack to secondary, no real reason, no problems yet, and it has splashed pretty good. i think i do it just to be doing something with it, plus it does help to clear it up. you should be ok, by the time the off flavors of oxidation show up, you will be on your last bottles anyway. good luck.

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Thanks. Yea I am gonna go ahead and bottle it. I have some grainy looking sediment or bacteria on top that is making me nervous. Doesn't look like any yeast I have ever seen

Bottle, drink young.

When it tastes like wet cardboard, you will know that the splashing has indeed affected the taste. Heck, I've had "oxidation" marked on competition brews, even when I was very careful.

Hang Glider said:

Bottle, drink young.

When it tastes like wet cardboard, you will know that the splashing has indeed affected the taste. Heck, I've had "oxidation" marked on competition brews, even when I was very careful.

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So you are thinking that its probably pretty much ruined? I'm just gonna dump it and try again.

jtmann2006 said:

So you are thinking that its probably pretty much ruined? I'm just gonna dump it and try again.

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NO! Don't dump any beer until you've tasted it. Go ahead and bottle.