purging secondary with CO2

I have a 6.5 gallon carboy I just bought to use as a primary (my bucket is scratched so I've been using the carboy that came with my kit as a primary), but I have a batch of the Zombie Dust clone in primary right now I need to rack and start dryhopping this week.

I don't keg, but I have a thing called a sodastream which is for making soda or carbonated water. Would it be a good idea to hook my siphon hose up to that and purge the air from the carboy (it has a CO2 tank and a nozzle my siphon hose would fit on)? And do you do that before racking, after racking, or both?

 

Some people will say its no big deal to not purge if your carefully to not splash the beer around during the transfer to help prevent oxidation. For the few cents it costs me in co2 to purge the vessel and not risk oxidation, why take a risk.

 

This is one of the beauties of using the Better-Bottle system. You can set them up so that the CO2 produced during primary fermentation is used to purge the secondary. Then when you are ready to rack to the secondary, it's oxygen free! Best thing since sliced bread!

 

Why transfer? Harvesting yeast? If not, just dry hop in primary.

Really the beer is mostly saturated with CO2 right after primary is done, so you are in effect purging the system when you rack it over. Just rack quietly, then when its in give it a swirl to purge out air.

I do use fermentor CO2 to purge my kegs for transfer from the conical, then transfer with pressure so the beer never sees air at all. Sweet.

 

Mostly thinking about secondary just because that's what the recipe said and seems to be the done thing. THe last time I dryhopped I just dumped it in the primary, but it was only 1 oz, not 3, and it was a wheat beer so I wasn't worried about clarity so much.

Maybe I'll just dump it in then see about starting a second batch. Be nice to have some hoppy wheat.

 

A lot of kit instructions say to transfer to secondary but theres a large contingent of brewers that don't use a secondary for ales unless they are big beers. All a secondary is doing is giving a beer more time to clear and this happens on the cake too. There are no off-flavors coming from beer sitting on a cake for three weeks. The worst thing you can do to a beer is transfer before the yeast is done cleaning up after itself. Even when its dropped out I think the cake is still working for awhile.

Hoppy wheats are pretty popular these days. I guess hoppy anything is popular though.

 

Hmm.... I'm leaning towards just sanitizing the packets and dumping them in tonight then. I still see some bubbles in the airlock, not really activity but some foam on top like it's not completely done. Although I always thought that you were supposed to move to secondary just before it finished so you'd get a little activity in secondary.

The hoppy wheat is my favorite summer beer style. Think subtle, something around 5-5.5% ABV and maybe 25 IBU. Not as alcoholic as Li'l Sumpin' and not quite as hoppy as Gumballhead, but more aroma than Oberon, and more body than Boulevard Wheat...

 

Stumbled upon this thread. Have you ever used this BB system? Looks pretty cool!

 

Yes, I have 6 Better Bottles. Three 6 gal primaries and three 5 gal secondaries, with all of the fittings. I use this transfer system whenever I brew a beer that I feel requires a secondary. Most beers don't require a secondary, but no beer will suffer from using one. Well, except for maybe a Hefe, or any beer meant to be consumed young.