Bottling Woes -- Beer successfully oxidized!

I bottled my first batch last night and aside from actually getting the beer in the bottles and the caps on, not alot went right.

First off, I think I need to work on my sanitization process. I filled up the bottling bucket with my star-san mixture, placed it on the floor and then used that to sanitize the bottles, tubing, autosiphon, etc. I was trying to be cautious but still needed a mop after that process...

When I was siphoning the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket, about halfway through, the auto-siphon looked like it got an air leak or something. There was a constant stream of tiny bubbles coming from the gasket at the inlet all the way through the hose. Do I have a bad auto-siphon?

My other oxidation problem was that when I connected the empty tubing to the spigot on the bucket and opened the valve, there was a flow of large bubbles coming back into the beer from the spigot. The bubble stopped once the tube was full. I'm guessing this was caused by having the bottling wand on the end of the tubing and the air had no way to escape except back through the beer.

I don't think I could have oxidized the beer any better if I had put a fish tank bubbler in the bottom of the fermenter...

What is this going to do to my beer?

Nothing...You are just being a nervous noob.

I've had worse bottling issues before, once nearly using my autosiphon as a pump to move the beer.

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.

Before you get all "first time parent" on your beer and start to panic about every little thing, read this thread and see, that despite what bonehead things that we might do, it still come out as beer.

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

The first batch I brewed, I didn't get a tight seal between the bottling wand and the tubing. The result was a constant stream of little bubbles coming in as the beer flowed past the joint. The beer turned out fine--even over a year later.

You'll be fine! :rockin:

I'll just have to make sure this batch doesn't sit around too long... probably won't be a problem!!

Thanks guys!

Check where the auto siphon connects to your tube. I've had air leak there before. Fixed it with some Teflon tape.

Ruprect said:

First off, I think I need to work on my sanitization process. I filled up the bottling bucket with my star-san mixture, placed it on the floor and then used that to sanitize the bottles, tubing, autosiphon, etc. I was trying to be cautious but still needed a mop after that process...

Click to expand...

Try getting a spray bottle and filling that up with starsan solution. You can sanitize your bottling bucket, hoses, wand and all your bottles with just a few ounces rather than wasting that much starsan all at once. And it saves on the mess!

ChshreCat said:

Try getting a spray bottle and filling that up with starsan solution. You can sanitize your bottling bucket, hoses, wand and all your bottles with just a few ounces rather than wasting that much starsan all at once. And it saves on the mess!

Click to expand...

Damn... That is brilliant.

And to think all of this time, I thought I was being efficient just mixing up 2.5 gallon batches of star san (to dump afterwords)
:rockin::rockin::rockin: Thanks again

I noticed that when i use my bottling bucket that if i dont open the valve all the way, wide open, that air bubbles will form, so try to make sure it is cranked all the way open.