Thoughts on preventing oxidation during keg transport without CO2 tank.

[chexjc]

This is sort of an extension of some of my recent posts. Long story short, I oxidized the hell out of my bottled amber ale and I believe the culprit to have been a leaky bucket. I've since kegged my first beer and now I'm paranoid about oxidation. I fermented this one in a carboy and didn't open it until it was time to rack to the keg. The thing is, I have to drive my keg 10 miles before I can get it all set up in the kegerator. I brought along a little CO2 keg charger to purge and seal with. All merry, right?

The thing is, you don't get a ton of CO2 from those little cartridges. It may be in my head, but I feel like I'm starting to taste oxidation in my kegged beer too.

Here's what I'm proposing for future batches:

Purge and seal empty corny at my apartment. Drive to brew site, relieve pressure and rack into the liquid out post with the relief valve open. Purge and seal with CO2 keg charger.

This should hypothetically prevent nearly any and all oxygen from being present in the headspace before my drive, right?

Again, maybe it's in my head, but does this method further prevent the likelihood of oxidizing my recently racked beer during transport? Do you think this is overkill?

Thanks guys!

 

[doug293cz]

That should work, but properly purging a keg requires about 5 pressurize and vent cycles. It doesn't matter if the keg is empty or full. Each pressurize/vent cycle (@15psi) only gets rid of half the O2 in the keg. Five purge cycles gets out 97% of the original O2. But, properly purging O2 from an empty keg uses up a lot more CO2 than purging a full keg. You might be better off getting a portable CO2 tank & reg system that is somewhere between paint ball tank size and a 2.5 lb tank, and taking that with you to the racking site.

Brew on

 

[ol-hazza]

You can purge oxygen by filling with water and the running that out with co2. Reduces the amount of oxygen thats in there in the first place.

Then fill as you described. Thats going to be about as good as you get at home. I guess you could also fill a balloon with co2 and stick that over your airlock as you rack (if you have a valve in your fermenter for racking) to stop oxygen getting in but thats overkill for sure.

If you still get it just brew dark hopped beers which mask off flavours!

Nah you could also try some sodium metabisulphate (i think thats its name) which scavenges oxygen or doing a natural carbonation to get the remaining oxygen.

 

[madscientist451]

If you have to transport your beer 10 miles from the brewing/fermentation area to where you are going to serve it, you just need to invest in another 5 or 10 lb gas bottle and regulator, although I don't see why you just don't use the one you already have.
Also, if you are getting off flavors it may be from something other than being oxidized. Fermentation issues can be the cause of all kinds of problems, just my 2 cents, good luck and Cheers!

 

[vincentAlpha]

I'd just go with natural carbing, saves CO2 and reduces any oxidation like ol-hazza says.

 

[chexjc]

That should work, but properly purging a keg requires about 5 pressurize and vent cycles. It doesn't matter if the keg is empty or full. Each pressurize/vent cycle (@15psi) only gets rid of half the O2 in the keg. Five purge cycles gets out 97% of the original O2. But, properly purging O2 from an empty keg uses up a lot more CO2 than purging a full keg. You might be better off getting a portable CO2 tank & reg system that is somewhere between paint ball tank size and a 2.5 lb tank, and taking that with you to the racking site.

Brew on

Thanks for the advice. I think you're right about finding another tank-solution. By chance I found a guy selling some kegs and a tank/regulator about an hour away from me. If I can get a good price, I'm going to pick that up. What is a good price for a (say 5#) tank and single regulator off Craigslist anyway?

You can purge oxygen by filling with water and the running that out with co2. Reduces the amount of oxygen thats in there in the first place.

Then fill as you described. Thats going to be about as good as you get at home. I guess you could also fill a balloon with co2 and stick that over your airlock as you rack (if you have a valve in your fermenter for racking) to stop oxygen getting in but thats overkill for sure.

If you still get it just brew dark hopped beers which mask off flavours!

Nah you could also try some sodium metabisulphate (i think thats its name) which scavenges oxygen or doing a natural carbonation to get the remaining oxygen.

Haha thanks! Is that the same thing as campden tablets? I didn't know they scavenged oxygen. Funny thing is, this beer I think I'm getting more oxidation in is a hoppy porter. It may be just be the old extract flavor I'm confusing it with.

If you have to transport your beer 10 miles from the brewing/fermentation area to where you are going to serve it, you just need to invest in another 5 or 10 lb gas bottle and regulator, although I don't see why you just don't use the one you already have.
Also, if you are getting off flavors it may be from something other than being oxidized. Fermentation issues can be the cause of all kinds of problems, just my 2 cents, good luck and Cheers!

Yeah, I'm going to pursue this Craiglist guy with a tank/regulator and some additional cornies. The biggest issue I've run into with kegging thus far is that I don't have enough kegs haha. Regarding the tank I already have...I thought about that. Is there a convenient way to disconnect and reconnect a tank for a purpose like this? My tank is a single regulator that goes to a 2-way manifold (not mounted anywhere) and out check-valves to one corny and one commercial hookup (but I'm switching the commercial hookup to ball lock-sanke adapters for convenience shortly). Wait, I think I just answered my own thought. If all connections are ball-lock, then it wouldn't be a huge deal to bring it with me, because the stored kegs could hold pressure while I were borrowing the tank to seal at the brew site. Right?

I'd just go with natural carbing, saves CO2 and reduces any oxidation like ol-hazza says.

That's actually a pretty solid solution...the yeast would take care of any O2 that got into solution on the car ride, wouldn't they? The only real downside would be the added wait time, but that's not a deal-breaker for me.

 

[dyqik]

That's actually a pretty solid solution...the yeast would take care of any O2 that got into solution on the car ride, wouldn't they? The only real downside would be the added wait time, but that's not a deal-breaker for me.

I reckon that natural carbing in the keg takes about the same amount of time as set and forget force carbonation - about 2 weeks. The difference being that with set and forget you can try the beer before it's fully carbed.

 

[vincentAlpha]

@dyqik You can try the beer before it is fully carbed with natural carbing too. Depending on the yeast it might be a bit yeasty but I don't find it much like that, often a bit sweeter than when it finishes. @chexjc it ought to, probably won't get ALL of it but it should get plenty to keep your beer happy and oxygen free.

 

[chexjc]

@dyqik You can try the beer before it is fully carbed with natural carbing too. Depending on the yeast it might be a bit yeasty but I don't find it much like that, often a bit sweeter than when it finishes. @chexjc it ought to, probably won't get ALL of it but it should get plenty to keep your beer happy and oxygen free.

Hmm. I may end up going this route. Saves me money too, instead of spending more on new tanks and regulators. I set this last batch at 30psi for a day or so and then to serving pressure and I was drinking it 11 days after brewing. Granted, it took another week for carbonation to really smooth out and it also tasted a lot better at that point. So yeah, there's at least a week wait time, I think.

 

[chexjc]

Tasting this dark ale/Porter (I'm not exactly sure what it is) today, I don't think it was oxidation I tasted last night. Maybe it was just something I ate messing with my palate. Still something to think about when it comes to transporting uncarbed kegs. I really appreciate all the advice!

 

[ol-hazza]

Haha thanks! Is that the same thing as campden tablets? I didn't know they scavenged oxygen. Funny thing is, this beer I think I'm getting more oxidation in is a hoppy porter. It may be just be the old extract flavor I'm confusing it with.

Sure is, I just had to have a quick read as Campden tablets can be Sodium or Potassium to make sure both work.

Its not often used by home brewers on account of it not being able to scavenge a large amount of oxygen before affecting the beer, but I believe a lot of commercial breweries use it and don't need to state it on the label if its under 20ppm (I'm not from the US so that might not be the case, I heard that about Australian beer).

Oxidisation should also take a while to kick in with force so you may be mistaking it for another flavour/fault that may age out.

Alternatively you could be really sensitive to the effects of oxidisation.

Long story short we can't remove all the oxygen from our beers but there are plenty of ways to reduce it and the main ones have been covered here (careful racking, purging kegs, fermentation).

 

[Balloonknot]

I dont think Ive ever tasted oxidation before. What does it taste like in the beer? I feel like your more cautious then I am when I keg

 

[m00ps]

oxidation causes hop aroma to quickly fade and wet soggy cardboard flavors

 

[chexjc]

I dont think Ive ever tasted oxidation before. What does it taste like in the beer? I feel like your more cautious then I am when I keg

My circumstances are a little unique in that I have to brew and ferment 10 miles away and transport back to my apartment to condition and drink, so I have to be extra careful.

How does it taste? Like m00ps said, much like wet cardboard. It's a harsh flavor. It's horrible. I think you have to do something terribly wrong to oxidize a batch as I did my last bottled batch. The worst part is that you can taste behind the cardboard that there is a good beer, but it is ruined regardless .

 

[iijakii]

Curious what you did to oxidize the one batch so bad? I've done some... less than ideal things over the years and still never had noticeable oxidation.