Racking - Avoiding Oxidation

[Malintent]

I like using a secondary to ‘naturally’ clear my beer (I don’t want to filter). The downside to using a secondary is, as everyone has debated a thousand times already), risk of oxidation. That discussion is not the topic at hand…
How do you guys minimize the risk of oxidation without purging the O2? I had a crazy thought about this the other day.. and I want some opinions. What if one were to put some kind of vegetable oil (or mineral, or something food safe, of course – minimal flavor) in the bottom of your sanitized, ready to go, secondary fermentor… about an inch deep. Then, you rack UNDER the oil from primary. As the beer flows under the oil, the oil being lighter than the beer, will float on top of the beer as the level rises in the secondary, maintaining a barrier between the beer and the air in the fermentor. In this way the beer never touches any air. However, it now has a layer of oil sitting on top of it. When it is time to rack from secondary to wherever, you siphon from the bottom (above the flocculated yeast / trub) until just before the oil reaches your siphon.

Do you suppose this would ruin the beer by imparting flavor? Kill the head by mixing in even a little? Do you have an alternate, similar idea that does not involve investing in a CO2 delivery system to purge with? How retarded is this idea?

 

[mojotele]

Seems a bit excessive to me. From what I understand, it takes quite a bit of O2 to ruin the flavor of a beer. So long as you rack properly to a small container leaving little head space, there just isn't enough O2 to make a difference.

 

[Walker]

This would surely kill the head retention of the beer, and probably cause a bunch of other issues. Yes, the oil is lighter than the beer, but it's going to stick to the glass as the level in the carboy rises and you WILL end up with oil in your keg or bottles and siphon line when it comes time to move the beer out of the little Gulf of Mexico you created.

When you rack, it stirs up the beer a little and some of the CO2 that is in it will come out. That will form a bit of a protective blanket over the beer as you rack.

Having said that, I think you are worrying WAY too much here. I rack to secondaries without purging them with CO2 or doing anything fancy, and I have never noticed any ill effects.

 

[frazier]

I don't think you'll be able to keep all the oil out of your beer. For one thing, as your beer is racked in under the oil, the oil will rise, leaving a film all along the side of the carboy. The whole idea is giving me willies, or heeby-jeebies, whatever.

A better idea I've heard of, is to purge the air out of the carboy first, by venting some CO2 into it from your kegging setup. Alternatively, drop a few chips of dry ice in, and let them fill the space with CO2. But unless you are planning some extended aging, it's probably not necessary.

 

[BadgerBrewer]

Having said that, I think you are worrying WAY too much here. I rack to secondaries without purging them with CO2 or doing anything fancy, and I have never noticed any ill effects.

I agreee with Walker. I only had one batch ever have oxidation effects. That was my very first batch that I ever made, and it got oxidized by me pouring the boil pot into my fermentation bucket while it was still around 100 degrees. I didn't even bother to siphon, but hey I was a brand new brewer and I hadn't discovered this wonderful site yet to learn any better. I still drank the beer and it tasted okay...but I noticed the problem and the beer didn't age well at all.

I have since racked too many batches to count and never had the issue again. I just be gentle with the wort and avoid excessive splashing, pouring, stirring, and anything else that might introduce oxygen.

 

[Gman2]

I have also heard of people filling the bottom of carboys with sanatised marbles to fill the head space they would normally have. I have not tried this but if you are concerned with having too much haed space this might help.

 

[Revvy]

It's overkill. You don't have to go through all that. You just have to be careful. Millions of brewers rack the normal way and DON'T oxydize their beers. Why should you be any different? When new brewers try to go around a simple process because they are afraid of doing something, they often end up causing more problems for their beer then if they just went ahead and do it the "normal" way.

It takes a lot more oxygen exposure of our beer to cause any damage, than what we do in the normal course of our brewing AND in most of the boneheaded mistakes we make(including using our autosiphon like a hand pump if it gets stuck...in a basic brewing podcast years ago, one of the big wigs, John Palmer, or Chris Colby (the editor of BYO) said that the amount of oxygen to actually damage our beer, is actually far in excess of what we do in the normal course of brewing and even most of our accidents. And requires about the amount of oxygen that we could pump in by emptying one of our red oxygen bottles with an airstone into our bottling bucket....not the normal amount of motion we make if we are careful brewers.

Also the effects of oxydation are long term they affect the storage of beers...Unless you pumped an oxygen bottle into your finished beer, you will have consumed your two cases of beer long before any signs of oxydation would show up.

Our beer is hardier than most new brewers give credit. Read this and see.

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

Of course you can do a different option, and DON'T rack to secondary to "naturally clear your beer." You could do what tons of us do and leave your beer alone for a month in primary, many of us find our beer is CLEARER and tastes cleaner than when we secondaried.

 

[remilard]

I like using a secondary to ‘naturally’ clear my beer (I don’t want to filter). The downside to using a secondary is, as everyone has debated a thousand times already), risk of oxidation. That discussion is not the topic at hand…
How do you guys minimize the risk of oxidation without purging the O2? I had a crazy thought about this the other day.. and I want some opinions. What if one were to put some kind of vegetable oil (or mineral, or something food safe, of course – minimal flavor) in the bottom of your sanitized, ready to go, secondary fermentor… about an inch deep. Then, you rack UNDER the oil from primary. As the beer flows under the oil, the oil being lighter than the beer, will float on top of the beer as the level rises in the secondary, maintaining a barrier between the beer and the air in the fermentor. In this way the beer never touches any air. However, it now has a layer of oil sitting on top of it. When it is time to rack from secondary to wherever, you siphon from the bottom (above the flocculated yeast / trub) until just before the oil reaches your siphon.

Do you suppose this would ruin the beer by imparting flavor? Kill the head by mixing in even a little? Do you have an alternate, similar idea that does not involve investing in a CO2 delivery system to purge with? How retarded is this idea?

Purging with dry ice is a better idea than the oil thing.

 

[Scuba]

I agreee with Walker. I only had one batch ever have oxidation effects. That was my very first batch that I ever made, and it got oxidized by me pouring the boil pot into my fermentation bucket while it was still around 100 degrees.

This is an interesting point, but confuses me. I thought oxidation was not really possible at this stage because the yeast is pitched and that will purge all the oxygen. Plus, once the yeast is pitched I though one would want to introduce oxygen to help the little yeasties out? Am I missing something?

 

[Malintent]

Great points made about the oil sticking to the sides.. thank you all.

I'm not worried so much about oxidation, I just wondered if it was a good idea.. it clearly was not.

 

[jpsloan]

As has been said already, simply being cautious and deliberate in your racking procedure will suffice to stave off major flaws due to oxidation. When you rack, I recommend using an appropriate vinyl or silicone hose, and keep the end of the hose beneath the level of the beer as it rises. This keeps the flow gentle and helps keep air from churning into the beer.

Also be sure that the hose is a snug fit on the bottling spigot/autosiphon/racking cane/whatever hole the beer pours through. Little air bubbles like to creep in at loose hose joints. Again, the effect is pretty minimal, but it's a way to help keep O2 out of the beer.

If you're using a bottling wand, just be smooth and deliberate during bottling. If you're bottling in a manner that keeps the beer from splashing, churning, or spraying everywhere, you're likely to keep the oxidation to a minimum for the purposes of homebrewing.

Oxygen absorbing caps don't suck either!

 

[malkore]

This is an interesting point, but confuses me. I thought oxidation was not really possible at this stage because the yeast is pitched and that will purge all the oxygen. Plus, once the yeast is pitched I though one would want to introduce oxygen to help the little yeasties out? Am I missing something?

100F is not really hot enough for hot side aeration which doesn't really exist in the small scale homebrewery anyhow.

splash all you want prior to pitching the yeast.
avoid all splashing at all costs once activity starts.

the only oxidized batch i had was a partial keg that didn't seal right, and was then transported, warm, for 3 hours, on bumpy roads. since it didn't seal the headspace wasn't staying full of just CO2, and it shook itself to a wet paper aftertaste in a short time span afterwards.

secondary never gave me oxidation.