Uggg. Cold crash sucked up my sanitizer

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thereverendmaynard

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I dropped temp in my temp chamber for a cold crash for a session rye ipa. Set for 34f.

Hit my set point, but when i looked into the chamber - there was only an ice crust in the container i put the sanitizer in (starsan). Looks like it got sucked into the fermentor. Looks about 1qt of sanitizer got sucked in.

10 gallon batch.... Is my batch ruined? So bummed :-(
 
Why would you have a blowoff on anything past primary?

Anyway, you might see the sanitizer layer on the top of the beer. Siphon it off and you'll be fine. If it doesn't layer, a quart will probably be enough to flavour your beer.....too bad, that blows.
 
I agree with the siphon idea; the starsan should separate out enough for you to suck out most of it.

Next time swap out the airlock for a sanitized piece of aluminum foil and problem solved!
 
1 QUART? Did you leave the blow off tube on it for all of the fermenting and the cold crash?
 
If it was StarSan (normal dilution), you might be OK with 1 qt in 10 gal. I recently forgot to dump about 8 - 10 oz out of my 3 gal keg before filling with beer. Can't tell it's there (of course it is a dark, flavorful beer.)

Brew on :mug:
 
Konadog said:
.......... or just fill your blow off tube with sanitizer and let it drain into your collection container, then you know you won't have enough to suck into your beer.
Click to expand...

Ah... The simplest solutions are always just fingertips away.
30 years of using blowoff tubes and this has never crossed my mind....brilliant
 
I am still working on my process... and didnt even think to remove it. I was just leaving it alone until i kegged. Going forward I will be removing it once primary is done. I like the idea of using only enough to fill the blowoff... will do this going forward.

Will look to keg on thursday - so will take a peek and see if its a separate layer. I hate learning things the hard way :-(
 
I just did something similar last night. Second batch now using conicals, Left the blowoff connected while draining into kegs, boom vacuum pulled a good 16oz of starsan solution in. Of course happened to be a mild session beer too. Hopefully it isn't too noticeable. Pissed with myself over it.
 
I sanitize plastic wrap and rubber band it to the top of the carboy when old crashing. Nothing gets in that way.
 
A very similar situation happened/is happening to me right now, I brewed a Baltic Porter, fermented in the low 50's [used 34/70 and needed a blow off], hit the Drest once I hit 1.025 gravity and let the beer finish out [finished at 1.010], then dropped the temp to 34 for lagering, this is when everything went bad. I received a call from work [I travel all over the world] and was informed that I needed to be packed and ready to travel to Malaysia the next morning so I dropped what I was doing and got things done, fast forward 6 weeks, I get home to find that while I was gone about 1/2 gallon of starsan was sucked back into the fermenter and my ferm chamber somehow became unplugged. From looking at other posts about this on here I know the starsan usually separates from the beer and can be siphoned off, however, in my case it seems to have mixed in with the beer and there is no definitive line where the starsan stops and the beer starts. I am going to be pulling it out of the ferm chamber tonight or tomorrow to pull a gravity sample and taste it. Any thoughts or suggestions would be great. Hopefully this beer isn't ruined.
 
I keep about 1L of starsan in all my kegs to swirl around and push out my dip tube before filling. I once forgot it was in there and racked an entire saison on top of it. Guess whether I could tell the difference
 
m00ps said:
I keep about 1L of starsan in all my kegs to swirl around and push out my dip tube before filling. I once forgot it was in there and racked an entire saison on top of it. Guess whether I could tell the difference
Click to expand...

Saisons are gross already, so it wouldnt have changed anything.
 
You're either going to suck sanitizer or air in during cold crashing (neither are good in my opinion). I have read about people filling a balloon with co2 and attaching it to the fermenter, but I would be worried about breakage or oxygen getting through the balloon. Why not just hook a co2 tank to your blowoff set to 1 psi? I have been kicking around the idea of filling a Tedlar bag with co2 and attaching that to the blow off. That's a much better option than a balloon. I just need to figure out the details.
 
you could always cold crash in a keg pumped with CO2, assuming that you dont have hops in the trub you shouldnt clog the dip tube. Or even better, buy an extra dip tube, cut it to account for the trub and then you have a keg setup for bottling.
 
iijakii said:
I just did something similar last night. Second batch now using conicals, Left the blowoff connected while draining into kegs, boom vacuum pulled a good 16oz of starsan solution in. Of course happened to be a mild session beer too. Hopefully it isn't too noticeable. Pissed with myself over it.
Click to expand...

Reporting back that my English Mild turned out amazing despite the sanitizer. No offtaste. Lunchbeer™
 
I've switched to using S type airlocks, but have worried about the air issue.
I installed a gas post on the solid cap of my spiedel. Wonder if I could just put 2-3 psi on it at the start of the crash...

Glad the mild was good.
 
I am so glad that I am not the only effing idiot who's done this recently. I ended up just sucking water plus autolyzed yeast into my beer and I could swear there's a off flavor in the beer sometimes. (But not all the time.) The only way to know if it is ruined is to taste it.

I use cheap vodka in my airlock after I'm done with the blow off. A couple teaspoons won't hurt a thing. By the way, FermCapS is your friend, if you can not forget it like I usually do, and then you can just stick with an airlock.
 
Jwin said:
Wonder if I could just put 2-3 psi on it at the start of the crash...
Click to expand...

That's is exactly what I said above. You don't need that much pressure, though. You only need as little as possible so gas will flow as pressure in the fermenter goes down as it cools. You could even leave the gas connected, but with the valve closed, and monitor the fermenter as it cools. When you see the sides suck it, give it a little shot of gas.
 
I got so tired of sucking sanitizer into my stainless steel fermenters from a 2 liter coke bottle I went and bought the small blow off do-dads guys use on carboys and now there is never enough sanitizer to get sucked in.

This would happen to me without temp change, it seemed after fermentation there became negative pressure after 2-3 weeks in conical and that's when it would happen, never understood why with no temp change.

And as to the concern sucking air in, well fermenters are filled with fermented beer natural c02 so any air in the top of fermenter will be isolated from the beer due to the c02 is heavier than air.

I think this is the best way rather than introducing sanitizer into my brew
 
Greatbreweh said:
...

And as to the concern sucking air in, well fermenters are filled with fermented beer natural c02 so any air in the top of fermenter will be isolated from the beer due to the c02 is heavier than air.

...
Click to expand...
Wrong. Watch the video. NO2 is a little heavier than CO2 (molecular wt of 46 vs. 44), and bromine is much heavier than CO2. Time for Br2 to completely mix with air is about 30 minutes. CO2 will mix much faster.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oLPBnhOCjM[/ame]

A CO2 blanket is a very short lived phenomenon.

Brew on :mug:
 
A CO2 blanket is a very short lived phenomenon.

Brew on :mug:[/QUOTE]


Dam it that's all I can say, as soon as you think your on top of the curve in this hobby your slapped back down to the ground, 3 fermenters running 11 gal each now at risk who can sleep now.
 
1 piece air locks will not pull in the liquid that is in them if filled up to the proper line. I will leave a blowoff tube in until its time to cold crash just for ease but then I will always put on a 1 piece air lock before cold crashing. And I use vodka in it just in case I overfill it and there is a possibility of a little liquid getting in.
 
Well, I siphoned off a bit, and kegged only 5 gallons out of the 10 gallon batch. It looked like there was clear(er) liquid at the top of the fermentor - but that could be my wishful thinking.

Force carbing now, and will give it a go in a couple days. In the mean time I brewed another 10 gallon session ipa to replace the lost one... so worst case I have an extra 5 gallons and a lesson learned.
 
I stopped cold crashing due to back sucking and oxygenation. Between that and purging kegs by filling with water and pushing out with CO2, my beers have never tasted fresher.
 
So I probably shouldn't be too worried about my carboy sucking up maybe as much as a tablespoon while finishing cooling it for yeast pitching?
 
I use something like a bong when cold crashing. It filters incoming air through StarSan. I can show pictures when I get back home Saturday if interested. Very cheap to build.
 
doug293cz said:
Wrong. Watch the video. NO2 is a little heavier than CO2 (molecular wt of 46 vs. 44), and bromine is much heavier than CO2. Time for Br2 to completely mix with air is about 30 minutes. CO2 will mix much faster.
Click to expand...

I had to reread this to make sure you weren't confusing NO2 with air... o_O
 
kevink said:
Okay, now that is interesting. Is there a certain inlet pressure these need?
Click to expand...

Probably anything from 1 to 10 psi is fine. You still need a primary regulator on the CO2 tank.

I have a colder CPC disconnect on one end to hook up to my utility CO2 line and a hose barb on the other. I haven't got around to using it yet, though.

If you like English ales, the regulator can also be used as a breather for dispensing out of a pin or cask and preventing oxidation.
 
Well, I force carbonated the 1 keg I salvaged from the fermentor (siphoned off the top and then kegged from the bottom- discarding the volume over 5g) and tonight had my first pour.

Beer has no perceptible off flavors. Its a session ipa - nice hop aroma and flavor, and is quite drinkable. I brewed another 10 gallon batch - and will be adding a new step prior to cold crashing :)

Brew on!
 
orangehero said:
Probably anything from 1 to 10 psi is fine. You still need a primary regulator on the CO2 tank.

I have a colder CPC disconnect on one end to hook up to my utility CO2 line and a hose barb on the other. I haven't got around to using it yet, though.

If you like English ales, the regulator can also be used as a breather for dispensing out of a pin or cask and preventing oxidation.
Click to expand...

I bought a low pressure regulator similar to the one you linked to above and started a cold crash today. I set 4psi on the tanks regulator and it's working like a charm. I had planned on getting an adjustable low pressure regulator, just using the CO2 tank's regulator, a Tedlar bag full of CO2, and a few other ideas, but I can't see any of them being as easy and working as well as this. All for $11.00. I actually spent more money on the three fittings I needed to hook it up. I plumbed it with some 1/4" teflon tubing I had lying around which was really easy to route through the fridge. This is also awesome for dumping trub. I dumped a little tonight and I could hear the regulator supplying sweet CO2 to make up for the lost volume. Thanks for the idea!

20151216_160255_zpsu5lql3tc.jpg
 
Nice set up! I can't tell, but does yours have a plastic housing? The one I got is aluminum. Can you link to the one you purchased?
 
orangehero said:
Nice set up! I can't tell, but does yours have a plastic housing? The one I got is aluminum. Can you link to the one you purchased?
Click to expand...

Sure-

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KTS20JM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages01

http://www.raymurray.com/PDFs/RMI_Catalog/Edition_11_pgs_11-12.pdf

It's actually coated aluminum, which is one reason I chose it. You can take this one apart, which you can't say about most of the ones I looked at! That also helped the decision making process.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I use champagne bottle to hold my sanitizer for my blow off setup. The bottle is lower than the top of my fermenter, So there is never a chance the fermenter pushing out krausen liquid or what not will ever flow up for a cold crash. Gravity Wins! I make the blow off long enough to go around one loop too. (picture included shows where I used a large cup.)

blow off.jpg
 
Your setup looks great due to the length etc, but just because the fermenter is higher does not mean it can't suck back. Partial vacuums and what not.
 

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