Went to secondary fermentation think I messed up maybe I should dump or is it ok?

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chasper

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Ok, so this is my second attempt at brewing beer. First time was about 10 years ago and the internet was not as up and going as it is now. And I made a huge mistake and had to dump my beer. Now I have read a bit and this is my second go at it. But here is where my problem lies.

So I have read a lot about pros and cons of secondary fermenting but I decided I would give it a go since time wasn't really a factor for me and I am pretty patient at this. I have a friend who has a keg shell and I was planning on using that as a secondary fermenter since it was stainless steel and could be plenty dark.

I had my beer in primary for about 3 weeks, longer than I wanted but things came up. Then I removed the stem from the keg shell, oxycleaned it over night then racked the beer from primary to my new secondary vessel. I put aluminum foil over the top and rubber banded the foil to seal it up. I have ran across a couple threads today, that said its a huge mistake using a secondary fermenter with a huge head space. Did I just make a big mistake, is it salvageable to just bottle tonight after 5 days of secondary?

Also, I have been very careful sanitizing everything, however, didn't sanitize keg shell just oxycleaned overnight. I know I am an idiot just realized that today. How do I know if beer is contaminated?

Any thoughts for this newbie would be great.

Thanks in advance.
 
The idea behind no headspace in a secondary is to reduce the chance of oxygenation. It isn't too big of a deal and by all means do NOT dump your beer. Bottle it up and it will be fine, I promise.
 
When you transfered it probably off gased a bit anyways so you should still have a blanket of CO2, just not as big of one.
 
Ok, phew....

Really thought I might have ruined it there.

Thanks for the quick response. Now I wont have to worry all day about my beer while at work.

Can I use the keg as a secondary from here on out or should I not use it since there is a headspace of oxygen. What does the oxygen headspace do to the beer? why is that a problem in secondary and not in primary?
 
For a long time I secondaried 5 gallon batches in a 6 gallon carboy, and never had an issue with oxidation. I kept 5 gallons of porter in the 6 gallon carboy for almost 2 months with no off flavors. Don't worry, if everything was clean and sanitized you should not have any problem. Beer is hardier and more stable than a lot of folks will give it credit for being. As Neonsilver points out, the beer will give off CO2, which - being heavier than air - will make a nice blanket on top of the beer.
 
chasper said:
Ok, phew....

Really thought I might have ruined it there.

Thanks for the quick response. Now I wont have to worry all day about my beer while at work.

Can I use the keg as a secondary from here on out or should I not use it since there is a headspace of oxygen. What does the oxygen headspace do to the beer? why is that a problem in secondary and not in primary?
Click to expand...

Do you have any co2? If you do, just purge the keg of oxygen and cover it with co2.

The reason oxygen in the secondary is a problem is because the beer is no longer producing copious amounts of co2. That makes it vulnerable to oxidation, which makes the beer taste oxidized. It would take on a "stale" flavor, like cardboard or even sherry.

Think about a commerical "party" keg. It's great when it's first tapped, but over the course of a day, pumping in air to dispense it changes the flavor and ruins the beer within about 48 hours. That's an example of what oxidation can do to beer.

In your case, you're not pumping air into it so it won't be nearly that bad! When you racked it, some co2 come out of solution, and helped to protect it. If it were me, though, I'd bottle that beer ASAP!
 
also if you used regular oxyclean and then racked your beer on top of it into the keg without rinsing first...which since you didnt sanitize it im assuming that is what you did then id say you have a good chance of having some off flavors...if you used oxyclean free maybe not so much but if you used regular oxyclean you may get some chlorine flavors in your beer
 
Ok, so last night I quickly bottle the beer. I think its ok. Not sure how to tell if its contaminated or not. Looks good, so far. So now I am going to bottle condition for 3 weeks and will let everyone know how it went.

Quick question though, how would I know if my beer was contaminated? When I siphoned into my bottling bucket, it looked like beer to me. I tried to get a good look at the beer in the sanke shell before I siphoned but couldn't really tell if there was a funny layer growing on it or not.

Thanks
 
chasper said:
Ok, so last night I quickly bottle the beer. I think its ok. Not sure how to tell if its contaminated or not. Looks good, so far. So now I am going to bottle condition for 3 weeks and will let everyone know how it went.

Quick question though, how would I know if my beer was contaminated? When I siphoned into my bottling bucket, it looked like beer to me. I tried to get a good look at the beer in the sanke shell before I siphoned but couldn't really tell if there was a funny layer growing on it or not.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I believe the contaminated taste has been successfully identified as licking Satan's taint
 
You should not have sealed your secondary fermenter. I don't know if foil and a rubber band kept air and co2 from escaping. You will know when you open it to bottle if it is carbonated or not yet. You want to use an airlock during secondary fermentation.
 
chasper said:
Ok, so last night I quickly bottle the beer. I think its ok. Not sure how to tell if its contaminated or not. Looks good, so far. So now I am going to bottle condition for 3 weeks and will let everyone know how it went.

Quick question though, how would I know if my beer was contaminated? When I siphoned into my bottling bucket, it looked like beer to me. I tried to get a good look at the beer in the sanke shell before I siphoned but couldn't really tell if there was a funny layer growing on it or not.

Thanks
Click to expand...
Your beer will be fine and good. Stop worrying so much about it, you'd be surprised what it can go through before you get an infection. To help keep your mind off of things why don't you brew up another batch?
 
Invest in a cornie keg and use it as a secondary. You can remove the pressure relief valve and install a rubber bung into the hole and attach an airlock to that. Or pick up a 5 gallon carboy. If you have co2 available, you might want to purge what ever vessel you use of O2, to avoid any concerns of oxidation.

Good Luck.

Salute! :mug:
 
50 batches later, when you're a top-flight all-grain brewer with a seriously educated palate, you might notice a difference in the taste of the beer due to a "mistake" like that. But I doubt it.

Never dump a beer unless it still tastes like crap 3 months after bottling.

Please let us know how it turns out.
 
We can't tell you if your beer is infected or if you should dump it. But what we can tell you is that if you DO dump it, then you will look like a fool!! (in a nice way) Never ever ever dump your beer unless the taste is still horrendous after a few months.
 
Actually the aluminum foil with a rubber band wrapped around did make the sanke keg pretty airtight. I guess you would need to check the foil thoroughly before hand.

I am in the process of purchasing a drilled stopper for the sanke keg fermenter and an airlock. I am going to get a #11 drilled stopper. Does anyone know if that is the correct stopper?
 
Ok, So after 3 weeks of bottle conditioning and then 48 hours in the fridge; I think the beer tasted quite good. Of course I am probably biased so I had the misses family try it out this weekend at easter. And overall everyone said it was good. By no means am I an expert and I am having a beer tasting party next weekend. So I will have a full report. Does anyone have a cool homebrew scoring sheet or anything like that? That I can pass out to everyone so they can score the beer?

So like everyone says, beer is very resilient and never dump. I bought a secondary glass ferementer yesterday and am going for a dry hopping kit next. Ferocious IPA from Northern Brewer to be exact.
 
chasper said:
Ok, So after 3 weeks of bottle conditioning and then 48 hours in the fridge; I think the beer tasted quite good. Of course I am probably biased so I had the misses family try it out this weekend at easter. And overall everyone said it was good. By no means am I an expert and I am having a beer tasting party next weekend. So I will have a full report. Does anyone have a cool homebrew scoring sheet or anything like that? That I can pass out to everyone so they can score the beer?

So like everyone says, beer is very resilient and never dump. I bought a secondary glass ferementer yesterday and am going for a dry hopping kit next. Ferocious IPA from Northern Brewer to be exact.
Click to expand...

Here's a beer scoresheet: http://www.bjcp.org/docs/SCP_BeerScoreSheet.pdf
A fun thing to do is to print out the style guidelines, too, to tell your judges what they're looking for!
 
glad to hear your batch turned out ok! I will be bottling my first batch ever tomorrow night. The anticipation is tearing me to pieces!
 

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