Oxidation: Don't do what I did

I've been brewing for about a year now and I've finally ruined a batch of beer. Ten gallons. Ruined. I'll try to type through my tears.

I brewed a Blvd Pale Ale clone (all grain) that called for dry hopping. I read somewhere that excess CO2 in your beer will drive out some of the hop aroma, so I shook my beer after about 3 weeks in the primary to get some of the CO2 out of it, and then I dry hopped it with Cascade pellets. Before stirring things up, my beer was nice and quiet, with the yeast cake sitting nicely on the bottom. After shaking it, it took off again. I mean bubbles everywhere, krausen on top, the works. I thought that was weird, but didn't know how to explain it since my gravity was 1.008 before I started messing with things.

I went ahead and kegged the beer after 8 days of dry hopping and close to 30 days in the primary. It smelled funny, but I thought it might calm down after spending some time on the gas. Ten days later, and it still tasted awful. I bottled some of it and took it into my LHBS. He took one sip and told me it was oxidized. Bad. He said behind the metallic cardboard taste it seemed like I had a good beer, but that it was basically undrinkable.

Looking back on it, I feel really stupid. I stirred up my beer thinking I'd be improving it, when really I didn't need to and I just ended up ruining it. I think sometimes I try to get too cute with my process when I really should just obey the basics. Siphon gently, transfer your beer only as often as you really need to, and quit messing with it and just leave it the F alone.

In short, don't do what I did.

 

Another Krausen? Shaking it?

Not only was your beer oxidized, there's a pretty good chance that you had some wild little critters in there to eat the rest of your sugars up!

Oxidation doesn't cause metallic taste-- wild yeasts + bacteria do that.

Oxidation causes cardboardy flavors-- kind of like wet paper.

 

This sounds like a good argument to use hop tea, or dry hop in the keg.

 

or a good argument not to shake your fermenter

 

Ya theres nothing wrong with dryhopping right in the fermenter. just "dont do what he did"

 

Yeah, don't do what I did. Dry hopping in the primary is just fine. Just don't shake your beer to get CO2 out of it.

And I'm quite sure it's oxidized. My LHBS guy has been brewing for about 20 years and that was his diagnosis. It tastes like metallic cardboard, if there is such a thing.

Gentle agitation early in fermentation isn't such a bad idea. Agitation toward the end of a long primary is just plain stupid. Now I know better.

 

Take a Gravity reading, and if it's less than 1.008, you got some critters!

 

I actually was reading through some older posts where people said they have gotten activity in the fermenter after adding dry hops even after checking for a stable FG.

 

Yeah, I think that's the best answer to the question of why things got moving again. I think the yeast, WLP001, just went crazy on anything in the fermenter, fueled by the influx of oxygen.

 

Disturbing the beer can cause CO2 to be released, which some people could easily mistake as yeast activity.

 

thats usually just the hops providing lots of nucleation sites for the CO2 to be released.

 

Ummm, no it doesn't.

_

 

Adding dry hops, especially pellets, can create a bunch of little nucleation points for the CO2 causing it to foam up. It is like the mentos in a coke bottle thing.

Shaking it is basically doing the same thing that winemakers do when they degas. Although you are almost certainly getting O2 in there if you had just opened the fermenter up.

 

I had a perry in a 5 gal carboy that I kept dipping my wine thief (aka turkey baster) to retrieve samples. After doing this in a carboy with little head space I eventually introduce enough O2 into the carboy to oxidize the perry.

Needless to say "Dont do what I did either"

 

I can vouch for that. I had a batch of an oatmeal stout that I ended up dumping because I didn't know how to use my refractometer and my hydrometer was broken. Took an FG reading and it was saying it was still 1.025... I didn't know that alcohol screwed up the refractometer reading.

I racked into a bottling bucket, drained it back into my fermenter with a siphon sprayer tip and then aerated the hell out of it and pitched some new yeast. Keep in mind this was on top of scorching my specialty grain bag on the bottom of my pot (electric range).

The end result tasted something like a cardboard box that had been burned and then soaked in water and pennies. It was totally undrinkable.

 

I severely oxidized my Pliny clone while trying to syphon from the fermenter to my bottling bucket while filtering through pantyhose. (First and last time I tried it). Couldnt keep the auto syphon going due to the dry hop volume and got some air bubbles in the tube. Lots of pumping and air bubbles resulted in the stale metallic flavors of oxidization. Lessons are learned through experience - at least you know what not to do next time.

 

I just hosed a Pliny clone as well.. I've brewed it multiple times with no issue but I decided to get cute and swirl the secondary a bit to try to keep the dry hops roused... tastes terrible. I never felt I was aerating it, just gently swirling but I've brewed this beer a few times and it's always been great... this time, disaster

I have a really hard time describing the smell/taste... skunked is the best way I can describe it.

 

It's incredibly easy to cause oxidation. I've had two batches one pitchable upon first sip and one that materialized after a month or so. It's most definitely a metallic taste.

 

I've never had it happen to me before, never even had a bad batch, not great recipes sure, but always at least drinkable. This is wretched, oh well, live and learn.. still pisses you off.

 

Here is what I have done using a baster. Before inserting evacuate all the air by squeezing the bulb. Insert, suck, evacuate, repeat. No air should be introduced at all this way.

 

Go to brewing network and listin to the episode about Dry hoping it will give you all the info you need about it . And shaking you carboy when dry hope is fine it wont hurt you beer in anyway.