TrojanAnteater
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2008
- Messages
- 85
- Reaction score
- 2
The cold crash suckback has always bothered me and I've never accepted the recommendations not to worry about the air that comes back into the fermenter. It absolutely is an oxidation risk and as you've seen, the liquid in either airlocks or blowoff containers will get into the beer if you're not careful.
This EXACTLY. I just got back into brewing after a little hiatus, first 2 batches were fantastic, the second two, TERRIBLE. Major oxidation. What did I do differently? I cold crashed. Lots of suckback, of course. Granted, my batches were 3 gallons in a 6 gallon carboy, so there was A LOT of headspace. This probably made it worse, but those two batches were so stale and undrinkable about 2-3 weeks into bottle conditioning/carbonating. I'm 99% sure it was due to trying to cold crash, especially in a carboy with too much headspace.