Discouraging First Keg Experience

[Brüverine]

I'm coming back from a brewing hiatus with ~2/5 batches being drinkable/decent one was a Founders KBS clone recipe from BYO and the other was a relatively simple raspberry wheat beer.

In my return to brewing, I built a keezer. Brewed an amber ale. Tasted PERFECT after fermentation was over.

Soaked the keg for a few hours upright, then the same upside down in PBW. Rinsed. the keg had already been cleaned prior to purchase. I also removed the lid/posts and dropped them in the solution. I DID NOT remove the o-rings and poppets, however.

Mixed 5 gallon batch of star san and filled the keg. Shook vigorously. Let sit upright and upside down for ~20 mins each. Sanitized posts, dip tube, etc as well.

Used C02 to push the starsan our of the keg into a bucket for sanitizing other items. Burped the keg a few times.

I then racked to the keg, pressurized and burped about 5 times, then set to 12 psi to condition. I snuck a taste from the tap after a few days, and the beer had a metallic/harsh taste. Thought it was carbonic bite and released all pressure. Recarbonated and same thing.

Now it tastes like solvent/jet fuel and I'm pretty sure it got infected and is a dumper.

I have already purchased another keg and a 4-way manifold, but am extremely discouraged by this experience. I have a witbier brewing right now that should be ready in ~1.5 weeks, but now I am afraid it will suffer the same fate.

Ultimately, I would be really ashamed if the beer got infected because of something that I neglected to clean/sanitize sufficiently. Key suspects are the liquid dip tube which I did not use a brush on, o-rings which I soaked but did not remove, or my actual racking siphon itself which received a quick clean and sanitize but may have benefitted from more attention.

Any advice/input? Really down after this one.

 

[TheMadKing]

Your cleaning sounds totally fine to me. Based on what you have said here, I don't think your keg is the culprit. There's a chance you don't have an infection at all.

Carbonic bite can take over a week to disappear completely, so releasing pressure and recarbonating doesn't help, you just need time for that. The solvent taste is commonly produced by yeast, especially when fermented too warm. What was your fermentation temp?

Was your keg sitting warm while you had it conditioning at 12PSI?

Next question, you mentioned that you liquid purged the keg and then racked to the keg. Did you do this under pressure? Or were you open transferring? Oxidation can also cause solventy flavors.

final question, is all your plastic food grade? The wrong kind of plastic can leach that type of flavor into your beer as well.

 

[Brüverine]

That's what I was thinking. I am not trying to stand on a pedestal, but I KNOW that there are others that hop into kegging for the first time and don't put half as much consideration into clean/san - to great success!

I am in Texas so I was mindful of the warm temps. Yeast was Wyeast California Ale. Plastic food grade brewing bucket was submerged in a tote of water. The water was kept between 68-72 degrees consistently. I understand that is a little warm, but that yeast should be able to handle it - plus the beer tasted excellent and just as expected at the time of transfer. I snuck a sample off of what was left in the siphon hose at the end of the transfer.

Now, to be fair, this was my first time using liquid yeast. I may have pitched the yeast a little warm (80F), I did not create a starter, and I did not oxygenate the wort. But I feel like those steps would have yielded the off flavor before transfer if they were the root cause.

Keg/beer was room temp at the time of transfer, and immediately once the keg was pressurized, I set it in the keezer at 12psi. Keezer was set to 36F.

I was using a siphoning cane to transfer the beer directly from the fermentation bucket into the keg, which I had just purged the star san solution out of. There should have been a nice layer of CO2 and I gave reasonable effort to ensure that the hose was touching the bottom of the keg. I will say, at the beginning of transfer there was a bit of air where the hose met the racking cane for a solid few seconds. In my next attempt I will be sure to use a hose clamp at this area.

As stated earlier, once the clear liquid was siphoned off, I tasted what was left in the hose and it was magnificent. I then pressurized the keg and "burped" it 4-5 times.

There was probably a more coherent way to answer your questions, but those are the highlights. Thank you for helping me troubleshoot...as it helps me to identify weak points in my process so I don't mess up this Wit as well!

 

[TheMadKing]

That's what I was thinking. I am not trying to stand on a pedestal, but I KNOW that there are others that hop into kegging for the first time and don't put half as much consideration into clean/san - to great success!

I am in Texas so I was mindful of the warm temps. Yeast was Wyeast California Ale. Plastic food grade brewing bucket was submerged in a tote of water. The water was kept between 68-72 degrees consistently. I understand that is a little warm, but that yeast should be able to handle it - plus the beer tasted excellent and just as expected at the time of transfer. I snuck a sample off of what was left in the siphon hose at the end of the transfer.

Now, to be fair, this was my first time using liquid yeast. I may have pitched the yeast a little warm (80F), I did not create a starter, and I did not oxygenate the wort. But I feel like those steps would have yielded the off flavor before transfer if they were the root cause.

Keg/beer was room temp at the time of transfer, and immediately once the keg was pressurized, I set it in the keezer at 12psi. Keezer was set to 36F.

I was using a siphoning cane to transfer the beer directly from the fermentation bucket into the keg, which I had just purged the star san solution out of. There should have been a nice layer of CO2 and I gave reasonable effort to ensure that the hose was touching the bottom of the keg. I will say, at the beginning of transfer there was a bit of air where the hose met the racking cane for a solid few seconds. In my next attempt I will be sure to use a hose clamp at this area.

As stated earlier, once the clear liquid was siphoned off, I tasted what was left in the hose and it was magnificent. I then pressurized the keg and "burped" it 4-5 times.

There was probably a more coherent way to answer your questions, but those are the highlights. Thank you for helping me troubleshoot...as it helps me to identify weak points in my process so I don't mess up this Wit as well!

Well the fact that your keg was cold the whole time after transfer pretty much rules out an infection. So either you picked up a chemical off flavor in your keg, or you missed the off flavor in your sample...

It's possible that the solvent flavor was there at transfer and you didn't pick it up until a little more sediment dropped out. That's a pretty warm fermentation temp even for California ale. and if that was your water temp, the actual temp of the beer was probably a few degrees higher because fermentation adds heat.

As for the transfer, if you can switch to a closed transfer it will protect your beer from oxidation better than your current process. Meaning that you would transfer into the keg liquid post with a little pressure while venting the co2 out the gas post. You'd do this without ever opening your keg. If you search the forum for the myth of the CO2 blanket you'll find lots of good info and that your beer was exposed to more oxygen than you think it was.

 

[Brüverine]

Thank you for all of your help troubleshooting. Yeah there was basically no lag time from transfer to refrigeration. Minutes.

I'm now fermenting my wit at 65-68, so I will be mindful to add a few degrees to my readings. I am now using a thermometer submerged in the water as well as an adhesive temp sticker on the outside of the fermentation bucket. I will also make sure to do a double rinse after the kegs next PBW session, and do a sniff test to ensure there are no chemical smells or other indicators that the keg is responsible.

That's good info on closed transfers. I won't be able to do that for this next batch as I believe I would need a different fermentation vessel, but definitely something to look into once I get a palatable beer under my belt.

I've heard another solution would be to naturally carb the keg using priming sugar as the yeast will consume the majority of oxygen the beer may encounter through that process. I will most likely not try that this time since I would like to isolate process issues wherever possible.

I

 

[hout17]

I always change out gaskets in purchased used kegs (whether previously cleaned or not) and completely disassemble and put in as hot as water as I can with PBW and let soak for 24 hours and then rinse real well. This seems to do the trick for me.

I do this to make sure the keg is not the culprit if my beer is off.

Brew on!

 

[shoengine]

What infections cause a metallic or solvent taste?

 

[Brüverine]

What infections cause a metallic or solvent taste?

As this thread went on, I am much more confident that it was not an infection.

I am also hesitant to think that oxidation is the issue. As I read more, the problem seems to be more in line with the fact that I:

1. Likely underpitched as this was my first time using liquid yeast and I did not create a starter.
2. Pitched at a pretty warm temperature (80F or likely a few degrees higher)
3. Fermented on the warmer side for sure
4. Did not oxygenate the wort at all prior to pitching

This may have been an issue that could have aged out, but the beer has already been dumped.

 

[Toxxyc]

Metallic can be a sensation as well, purely because you might expect it from a keg. Solvent (hot, burning, jet fuel) is typical of a sad yeast, so the warm pitch might have caused it. Warmer pitch is typically OK if you oxygenate the wort, because the yeast will consume the oxygen in the wort for the first stage while the beer cools down, before it starts to tackle the sugars and actually ferment. If you pitch warm without O2, you're tossing your yeast directly into it's anaerobic phase - which differs from the aerobic phase. Without oxygen, the conversion of sugar can differ and it can even create lactic acid and other flavours that you might not want, so keep that in mind.

When I pitch warm, I like to either use a yeast that doesn't mind it (like Kveiks), or I like to pitch a much higher colony (like a complete old yeast cake). I do this because, strictly speaking, yeast cannot multiply in the absence of oxygen, and a lower cell count here will also stress the yeast during fermentation and that will, in turn, also cause solvent-like flavours.

I'm not saying that you did anything wrong, but underpitching into a non-oxygenated wort on the warm side definitely didn't help your case, I would say.

 

[TheMadKing]

What infections cause a metallic or solvent taste?

Pediococcus can throw ethyl acetate

 

[Vale71]

I am in Texas so I was mindful of the warm temps. Yeast was Wyeast California Ale. Plastic food grade brewing bucket was submerged in a tote of water. The water was kept between 68-72 degrees consistently. I understand that is a little warm, but that yeast should be able to handle it - plus the beer tasted excellent and just as expected at the time of transfer. I snuck a sample off of what was left in the siphon hose at the end of the transfer.

Now, to be fair, this was my first time using liquid yeast. I may have pitched the yeast a little warm (80F), I did not create a starter, and I did not oxygenate the wort. But I feel like those steps would have yielded the off flavor before transfer if they were the root cause.

Extremely solventy (jet fuel would be an apt description) is exactly what I would expect if you ferment with California Ale at such high temperature and with an even higher pitching temperature. Keep in mind that if you have a vigorous fermentation actual fermenting wort temperature will be several degrees higher than ambient (or in your case, than that of the water bath) making things even worse.

Green-beer taste can easily cover up lots of off-flavours that will then quickly become apparent as the beer starts to age.

P.S. Unfortunately these are issues that just won't age out but will probably become even worse as the beer starts to oxidize.

 

[Brüverine]

P.S. Unfortunately these are issues that just won't age out but will probably become even worse as the beer starts to oxidize.

This makes me feel less bad about dumping. Didn't even consider that a green beer could mask off flavors that develop as a beer matures. Thanks for weighing in!

 

[seilenos]

It doesn't sound like you are using a floating dip tube so the first pint or two from a keg after resting for a few days is going to be very yeasty. How much beer have you dispensed from the keg so far?

 

[Brüverine]

It doesn't sound like you are using a floating dip tube so the first pint or two from a keg after resting for a few days is going to be very yeasty. How much beer have you dispensed from the keg so far?

Enough to hopefully rule that out. I bent the dip tube ever so slightly so that it rides a little higher. Maybe 2 degrees. Nothing crazy.

I poured about 2 pints out a few different times. Beer came out overall pretty clear, but this could have partially contributed.

 

[Toxxyc]

Looks it's not nice to dump beer. It sucks. It's time and effort dumped. At least it's not very expensive, and each is a learning experience.

To make you feel even more better - I've also dumped a few beers. I've also distilled beers into whiskies, and they've always turned out mediocre, so yes dumping them is the best way. Next time you'll do better.

 

[tracer bullet]

... As I read more, the problem seems to be more in line with the fact that I:

1. Likely underpitched as this was my first time using liquid yeast and I did not create a starter.
2. Pitched at a pretty warm temperature (80F or likely a few degrees higher)
3. Fermented on the warmer side for sure
4. Did not oxygenate the wort at all prior to pitching

It's already been said, but - agree that these are 4 things to not do to most yeasts, especially the California lager yeast. Lots of that yeast fermented in the low 60's would give you a drastically different result.

Definitely things to look into changing. Or if the situation is such that those changes are tough, there are some alternative yeasts you could use. You'd probably want to change your recipe and expectations as well but you do have some warm fermenting options.

 

[Brüverine]

Update:

For the witbier I am brewing...

Did a 1L starter for liquid yeast the day prior to pitching.

Aerated wort extensively using cleaned and sanitized paint stirrer and drill.

Kept swamp cooler water between 65-68 the past couple of days, with strip on the side of plastic fermenter in agreement.

Since I no longer have a keg in my new keezer, I put the fermenter in, with my inkbird taped to the side of the bucket. Bucket is centered in the keezer so it is not near the coils on any given side. Temp controller is set to 66F with a 2 degree variance.

The first couple of days bubbled along happily and I'm hoping the yeast are much happier in this batch, despite potential overheating early on due to discrepancy between the fermenter and water readings. Going to let this sit for 2-3 weeks and then keg. Hoping to turn this into an underdog story!

 

[IdahoBrewing]

My first kegging experiences went pretty bad. New kegs definitely have an odd rubber or metal smell and taste to them. I was shocked at how long it took for this smell to dissipate. I have done better with refurbished kegs rather than new ones... and the cost is much nicer. I had odd tastes with my first few batches and almost killed the kegging idea entirely. I don't remember really strong metalic tastes but more a rubber smell. But now that I have the hang of it I really like the control with carbonation, saving time from bottling and storage is more efficient. Good luck!

 

[shoengine]

I believe that the majority of the flavor profile is established during the first few days of activity. I personally make sure that pitching is done at the low end of the temp range after activity starts to slow down I am less sensitive to temperatures.

 

[Golddiggie]

Never had any off flavors for my beers, either in bottle or keg. My cleaning process is use PBW to clean (couple of different models, but either a long soak or, more recently, via the bucket blaster). Perform a COMPLETE rinse of the keg. I use the sprayer in the kitchen sink to do a full rinse of the keg inside. I then put it back on the bucket blaster and make sure the dip tubes are fully rinsed inside. If needed, I change that water a couple of times. I sanitize (with Starsan) by adding a couple of quarts into the keg, moving it around for complete coverage. Then pushing more into the keg via both gas and liquid posts (easy with MFL QDs). I then extract the Starsan via the liquid post. Then purge the keg a few times to remove any lingering O2. The keg then gets set aside until a batch needs it.

I'm filling my kegs from conical (already carbonated beer) with the gas post fitting sent into a bucket/container of Starsan (acts as an airlock) closing the system. I stop when I either see beer foam, or a bit of beer comes out of the gas post. The ready beer goes into the keezer and onto serving pressure gas (either CO2 or nitro mix).

IMO, rinsing the cleaning solution completely (probably more than needed) is part of why there's never any flavor impact. Also having the beer completely ready to drink at transfer to keg time also helps. Not to mention it's minimal work on my part to get the beer carbonated this way. Plus I can then put the balance of the batches (I only keg a portion) into cans.

 

[marc1]

Then purge the keg a few times to remove any lingering O2.

It's better than nothing, but a few purges doesn't do that. @doug293cz has done the math and made a table of pressure and purge cycles for O2 removal. If your CO2 is pure, it's something like 13-15 purges at 30PSI. That's a lot of gas. Better to do it with a small headspace while the keg is full of StarSan, or purge with fermentation gas.

(actually I'm kind of curious about where we would max out purging gains if our gas is 99.9% pure CO2, with 0.1% air [which is about 20% O2, so 0.02% or 200PPM]...)

 

[Golddiggie]

It's better than nothing, but a few purges doesn't do that. @doug293cz has done the math and made a table of pressure and purge cycles for O2 removal. If your CO2 is pure, it's something like 13-15 purges at 30PSI. That's a lot of gas. Better to do it with a small headspace while the keg is full of StarSan, or purge with fermentation gas.

(actually I'm kind of curious about where we would max out purging gains if our gas is 99.9% pure CO2, with 0.1% air [which is about 20% O2, so 0.02% or 200PPM]...)

I purge post filling as well. With the way I transfer, there's not much oxygen getting into the keg. With only filling a three gallon keg, then canning the balance, I have less worries as well. For the canning, I get the line from the fermenter filled with beer, into a waste container, for the first bit. Then the rest goes into cans that get purged before filling. Filling from bottom (both kegs and cans) also pushes any gasses out as they fill. That contributes to the purge.

 

[doug293cz]

It's better than nothing, but a few purges doesn't do that. @doug293cz has done the math and made a table of pressure and purge cycles for O2 removal. If your CO2 is pure, it's something like 13-15 purges at 30PSI. That's a lot of gas. Better to do it with a small headspace while the keg is full of StarSan, or purge with fermentation gas.

(actually I'm kind of curious about where we would max out purging gains if our gas is 99.9% pure CO2, with 0.1% air [which is about 20% O2, so 0.02% or 200PPM]...)

Here's what the purge cycles vs. residual O2 looks like:

Purging with fermentation gas can get you down to single digit ppb (parts per billion) residual O2. The analysis is here.

The calculation for impure CO2 is more difficult, but I'll look at it to see what I can come up with. I can say that the residual O2 after multiple purges will asymptotically approach the O2 content of the CO2 source. Beverage grade CO2 is speced at a maximum 30 ppm O2 impurity, but usually runs much lower than that. I have seen data that it can be as low as 50 ppb, but didn't save the link, and haven't been able to find it since.

Brew on

 

[marc1]

Beverage grade CO2 is speced at a maximum 30 ppm O2 impurity, but usually runs much lower than that.

Interesting! I have never read that before.

Purging with fermentation gas is easy to do with my setup, so that has been my preferred method for a while now.

 

[tracer bullet]

I fill my kegs with a weak Star San solution, attach the CO2, purge the itty bitty headspace actually there (via the PRV), then proceed to close the PRV and empty the liquid with the CO2 coming in behind it. At that point it's about as full of "just" CO2 as possible. Is this not the standard way? Doesn't seem to be any need to purge yet again and use up more CO2.

I leave a little CO2 pressure to purge the transfer line as well, sort of blasts out of it when I attach it.

 

[crazyjake19]

As this thread went on, I am much more confident that it was not an infection.

I am also hesitant to think that oxidation is the issue. As I read more, the problem seems to be more in line with the fact that I:

1. Likely underpitched as this was my first time using liquid yeast and I did not create a starter.
2. Pitched at a pretty warm temperature (80F or likely a few degrees higher)
3. Fermented on the warmer side for sure
4. Did not oxygenate the wort at all prior to pitching

This may have been an issue that could have aged out, but the beer has already been dumped.

These all sound like pretty big culprits to me.

Nothing wrong with dumping a beer you don't want to drink. We're not garbage disposals, and life is too short to drink crappy beer and eat crappy food. Hell, I've dumped out a gallon or two of good beer here and there because I simply had too much on hand and needed to free up some kegs.

 

[Golddiggie]

@doug293cz Is that all from math or were O2 readings taken during the process? I've been fermenting under pressure since getting back into brewing (early last year). I cannot see it being cost effective to purge a keg the amount of times that chart says, at 15+ psi to get close to zero ppm of O2. Maybe for a brewery that's capturing the venting CO2 from fermenters it would be worth doing. Even then, I kind of doubt they're purging the kegs with that much CO2.

The "math" might call for that, but without actual O2 sensor readings to back it up, it's more theoretical to me.

 

[doug293cz]

@doug293cz Is that all from math or were O2 readings taken during the process? I've been fermenting under pressure since getting back into brewing (early last year). I cannot see it being cost effective to purge a keg the amount of times that chart says, at 15+ psi to get close to zero ppm of O2. Maybe for a brewery that's capturing the venting CO2 from fermenters it would be worth doing. Even then, I kind of doubt they're purging the kegs with that much CO2.

The "math" might call for that, but without actual O2 sensor readings to back it up, it's more theoretical to me.

For the purge count model, there is no experimental confirmation, but if you understand how gases mix, and the turbulence caused by adding CO2 from a tank to the keg, then you know that the model used for the math can't have significant error. If you doubt the results, feel free to spend $1000's on an O2 meter that will measure single digit ppb levels, and test for yourself.

For keg purging using fermentation CO2, the model has been confirmed with direct O2 measurements. (Don't ask to see the data, and no I can't tell you why.) The actual results are better than the model, which was expected because of the simplifications required to make the model tractable. The model in this case is a "worst case" model, which means reality is likely to be even better.

Brew on

 

[Brüverine]

These all sound like pretty big culprits to me.

Nothing wrong with dumping a beer you don't want to drink. We're not garbage disposals, and life is too short to drink crappy beer and eat crappy food. Hell, I've dumped out a gallon or two of good beer here and there because I simply had too much on hand and needed to free up some kegs.

Love your philosophy!

 

[TheMadKing]

Here's what the purge cycles vs. residual O2 looks like:

View attachment 741662View attachment 741664

Purging with fermentation gas can get you down to single digit ppb (parts per billion) residual O2. The analysis is here.

The calculation for impure CO2 is more difficult, but I'll look at it to see what I can come up with. I can say that the residual O2 after multiple purges will asymptotically approach the O2 content of the CO2 source. Beverage grade CO2 is speced at a maximum 30 ppm O2 impurity, but usually runs much lower than that. I have seen data that it can be as low as 50 ppb, but didn't save the link, and haven't been able to find it since.

Brew on

You must be tired of posting this by now .

 

[day_trippr]

I'm ok with it

 

[doug293cz]

You must be tired of posting this by now .

I have a few charts that I have posted double digit times. There are always more brewers to be educated.

Brew on

 

[marc1]

I fill my kegs with a weak Star San solution, attach the CO2, purge the itty bitty headspace actually there (via the PRV), then proceed to close the PRV and empty the liquid with the CO2 coming in behind it. At that point it's about as full of "just" CO2 as possible. Is this not the standard way? Doesn't seem to be any need to purge yet again and use up more CO2.

I leave a little CO2 pressure to purge the transfer line as well, sort of blasts out of it when I attach it.

When you add CO2 and then pull the PRV, you are not evacuating all of the gas. You'd need vacuum to do that. Think of it more like you've got a bucket partially filled with some water and strong dye to represent the O2 in it. Adding the CO2 is like adding more water to the dye; higher CO2 pressure would be equivalent to adding more water. Pulling the PRV to get back to atmospheric pressure is like then dumping out the solution back to your starting volume - you're still going to have plenty of dye in there, just less concentrated. Then you are repeating until the dye is not noticeable.

If you look at doug's chart it will tell you how much theoretical O2 you have in the headspace with one purge. Purging many times at high pressure in the tiny headspace is much more gas efficient that doing the whole keg.

Pushing out the StarSan then dilutes the O2 further. So, just for example, let's say you had 8oz of headspace, and you purged 1x at 10PSI. Your headspace would then theoretically have about 125,000 PPM of O2. Five gallons total volume is 640 oz, so the 8 oz is 1/80th of the volume. 125,000 PPM divided into 80 times more volume leaves a little over 1500 PPM O2 in the gas in your keg.

How much cold side O2 mitigation you find worthwhile is up to you, but if you're going to the trouble of doing closed transfers and purging your transfer line, doing a few more purges of the tiny headspace before pushing out the StarSan seems worthwhile.

@bracconiere could probably tell you down to the gram how much CO2 by weight you would use for a purge at a given volume and pressure

 

[bracconiere]

@bracconiere could probably tell you down to the gram how much CO2 by weight you would use for a purge at a given volume and pressure

@doug293cz made a chart, how many purges and what pressure it is at....i can tell you i purge at 40psi, and just blow about an ounce, i have no idea if that is a good enough purge or not. but it's all the co2 i want to use for it! ~1.28oz is 5 gallons...i'll try to do some searching and find the chart doug posts every once in a while (he did one custom for me that goes up to 50psi )

 

[bracconiere]

here's the thread, and the post

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...o2-cylinder-should-i-get.684880/#post-8976253

View attachment 699918View attachment 699919

You can't purge by weight. After the first few purge cycles, the weight change between cycles is infinitesimal.

You really don't need to wait, after pressurizing with CO2, before venting. The CO2 rushing into the keg will mix up the headspace almost instantly. If you wait on the fill cycle until the noise stops, then mixing will be complete, and you can vent immediately. Even if mixing isn't quite complete, you are more likely to have higher CO2 concentration(lower O2) in the lower portion of the headspace, and the upper portion, from which you vent, would have the higher O2 concentration.

Brew on

i would say the weight change is not that small, i bust a weepy with ever purge seeing my cyclinder lose 0.1-0.2ozs!

 

[marc1]

Update:

For the witbier I am brewing...

Did a 1L starter for liquid yeast the day prior to pitching.

Aerated wort extensively using cleaned and sanitized paint stirrer and drill.

Kept swamp cooler water between 65-68 the past couple of days, with strip on the side of plastic fermenter in agreement.

Since I no longer have a keg in my new keezer, I put the fermenter in, with my inkbird taped to the side of the bucket. Bucket is centered in the keezer so it is not near the coils on any given side. Temp controller is set to 66F with a 2 degree variance.

The first couple of days bubbled along happily and I'm hoping the yeast are much happier in this batch, despite potential overheating early on due to discrepancy between the fermenter and water readings. Going to let this sit for 2-3 weeks and then keg. Hoping to turn this into an underdog story!

Keep us posted on how this goes - happier yeast is a good move!

 

[Brüverine]

Sounds like I need to ditch my fermentation bucket and make the transition to closed transfers eventually.

Goal one is to make a good tasting beer, then I'll drop more money into it. I'm already pretty deep down the rabbit hole recently with the keezer build, yeast handling equipment, and whatnot.

 

[Golddiggie]

The rabbit hole is both wide and deep. It's akin to a black hole/singularity for many. Once you pass the event horizon, you'll exit to a different universe.

I will state that there are more options available these days to have a sealed system for fermenting in. I'm partial to stainless fermenters. I created my own kegmenters back in 2011 since I got tired of the plastic carboys. Plus being able to do a pressure transfer of the finished beer made things a lot easier.

 

[marc1]

Sounds like I need to ditch my fermentation bucket and make the transition to closed transfers eventually.

Goal one is to make a good tasting beer, then I'll drop more money into it. I'm already pretty deep down the rabbit hole recently with the keezer build, yeast handling equipment, and whatnot.

Sorry for veering the thread off into cold O2 mitigation discussions, it doesn't appear that was the likely culprit.

Making good beer should be attainable with some fixes. It looks like you are taking good steps to address the problem.

It's when you are chasing the best beer that all the other stuff down the rabbit hole comes into play (and for some people that's part of the fun)

 

[doug293cz]

here's the thread, and the post

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...o2-cylinder-should-i-get.684880/#post-8976253



i would say the weight change is not that small, i bust a weepy with ever purge seeing my cyclinder lose 0.1-0.2ozs!

The weight change on your CO2 cylinder is the same for every purge cycle. The weight change of the keg itself gets smaller with each successive purge cycle. It is the keg that needs to be monitored for purge effectiveness, not the CO2 cylinder.

Brew on