Quickly Oxidization Due to Over Aerating before Pitching Yeast?

[Miles_1111]

I found my beers are easily and quickly oxidizated. For example, for IPA or Pale Ale I drink 2 weeks after bottling is fine, but from the third week the beer turn bad quickly. I think they are badly oxidizated from my taste.. Normally two weeks after bottling I put the beer in the fridge to keep them.

Is there any chance I over aerating the wort and then too much O2 in the beer which makes the beer oxidizated later?

Thanks.

 

[khannon]

Unless you are running an air stone or something for a long time, I would take a look at aeration after fermentation first. Dry hopping? Transfer to bottling system? Adding carbonation sugars? Making sure bottles are filling from the bottom and there are no leaks in bottling tubing?

Generally speaking, as long as you are pitching healthy yeast, it should take care of any O2 pretty quickly. Also, and I'm not trying to question your taste or experience, but are you sure it is oxidation that you are tasting? 3 weeks seems awfully quick to go from tasting good to tasting (badly)oxidized. Does this happen with other styles of beer? Is there someone sneaking into your fridge after you go to sleep, uncapping the bottles, then re-capping them before you wake up?

Kevin

 

[VirginiaHops1]

I don't even know if it's possible to over-aerate your wort to the point it'll cause post fermentation oxidation. I would look at your cold side practices. The oxidation is almost definitely occurring there. I dealt with a decent amount of oxidation/flavor degradation when I bottled my heavily hopped beers. Sometimes by the 3 week mark. If I ever bottle my IPAs again I'll purge with CO2 like crazy after dry hopping and use a counter pressure filler to bottle. My IPAs have improved considerably since I began kegging.

 

[kh54s10]

i agree, it would be almost impossible to over oxygenate before pitching the yeast that would follow through to the finished beer. Something is happening post fermentation.

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

It's happening post fermentation the O2 in there pre fermentation will be consumed by the yeast to reproduce.

 

[eric19312]

I found my beers are easily and quickly oxidizated. For example, for IPA or Pale Ale I drink 2 weeks after bottling is fine, but from the third week the beer turn bad quickly. I think they are badly oxidizated from my taste.. Normally two weeks after bottling I put the beer in the fridge to keep them.

Is there any chance I over aerating the wort and then too much O2 in the beer which makes the beer oxidizated later?

Thanks.

I'll venture to guess you have been reading about LODO and especially impact on NEIPA beers. It alls sounds pretty scary but you should realize that many homebrewers were making very good beers for years giving only slight concern to hot side aeration and using all sorts of crazy oxygenation systems including pumping air into the wort for hours with aquarium pump through a HEPA filter.

As others have pointed out oxidation is much bigger concern post fermentation and even then three weeks for beer to go from good to bad is too fast. Before I started doing closed transfers I got up to 6 weeks out of open transferred IPA kegs with the beer progressing from great to still good and amazingly clear at the end of the keg. When hop aroma started to decline I might add a half ounce of pellets into the keg to liven them back up.

Now those were not NEIPAs which I understand may be especially sensitive to oxidation post fermentation but plenty of hoppy APAs, IPAs and DIPAs.

I'm not questioning that you are tasting an off flavor that may be oxidation but contamination would seem a likely factor to lead to such a rapid decline.

 

[tegman]

I had this same issue with my hoppy beers in the past. For bottling I really focused on bottle sanitization and racking to the priming bucket gently. Solved my problem.

 

[Bovronius]

The O2 from the initial oxidization would be gone.. Only times you're going to add oxygen is if you're splashing too much when doing 2ndary fermentation or bottling.

Once they're bottled and in the fridge not too much can go wrong with them.. If you're not gentle when transferring from fermentor to bottle and get oxygen mixed in and then are adding bottling sugar you could potentially be creating an environment for funky flavors.

 

[Miles_1111]

Unless you are running an air stone or something for a long time, I would take a look at aeration after fermentation first. Dry hopping? Transfer to bottling system? Adding carbonation sugars? Making sure bottles are filling from the bottom and there are no leaks in bottling tubing?

Generally speaking, as long as you are pitching healthy yeast, it should take care of any O2 pretty quickly. Also, and I'm not trying to question your taste or experience, but are you sure it is oxidation that you are tasting? 3 weeks seems awfully quick to go from tasting good to tasting (badly)oxidized. Does this happen with other styles of beer? Is there someone sneaking into your fridge after you go to sleep, uncapping the bottles, then re-capping them before you wake up?

Kevin

yes, I do use a small aeration inflator to aerate my 10L wort for about 10mins before pitching the yeast. But like you said if the fermataiton went well it should not be no problem. I do dry hopping and add carbonation sugars. I fill the bottle by sticking tube to the bottom, firstly the wort rush into the bottle fiercely with some splash, then when the bottle is full and I take out the tube, this leaves much space in the bottle neck, so I fill 2/3 of the space left by leaking the wort from tube to fill it. Is this is big cause for oxidization?

I will double check if oxidation is the main problem, but I am pretty sure no one sneak into my fridge at midnight. Thanks cheers!

 

[Miles_1111]

I don't even know if it's possible to over-aerate your wort to the point it'll cause post fermentation oxidation. I would look at your cold side practices. The oxidation is almost definitely occurring there. I dealt with a decent amount of oxidation/flavor degradation when I bottled my heavily hopped beers. Sometimes by the 3 week mark. If I ever bottle my IPAs again I'll purge with CO2 like crazy after dry hopping and use a counter pressure filler to bottle. My IPAs have improved considerably since I began kegging.

Kegging seems the safter way to do it. After dry hopping for around 7 days, I bring down the tempeture down to around 5 degrees celsius for making the beer clear, then racking and bottlling. Is there any chance the cold tempeture making the yeast to settle so O2 dominate it which makesit beer easier to oxidation?

 

[GoeHaarden]

I bring down the tempeture down to around 5 degrees celsius for making the beer clear, then racking and bottlling.

Cold crashing will cause negative pressure inside the vessel to suck O2 in through the airlock...

As far as the yeast settling theory, I'd say no, as the headspace will be completely CO2 after fermentation

Also, you don't have to keg to make a good IPA. I've never brewed a NEIPA, so I can't attest to the difficulties there, but if you tighten up your bottling process you should have some success. Use a tube on your racking cane long enough to coil flat in the bottom of your bottling bucket, only bottle a few at a time before capping, ensure no O2 is being drawn in at the connection point of the cane and tubing (use a clamp). Oh, and don't use secondaries...

 

[Miles_1111]

I had this same issue with my hoppy beers in the past. For bottling I really focused on bottle sanitization and racking to the priming bucket gently. Solved my problem.

How can you control the speed of the flow when racking? especially when the beer first touch the bottom of the priming bucket when will cause splash.

 

[Miles_1111]

The O2 from the initial oxidization would be gone.. Only times you're going to add oxygen is if you're splashing too much when doing 2ndary fermentation or bottling.

Once they're bottled and in the fridge not too much can go wrong with them.. If you're not gentle when transferring from fermentor to bottle and get oxygen mixed in and then are adding bottling sugar you could potentially be creating an environment for funky flavors.

But the bottling sugar need a little oxygen to be fermented at this stage, right?

 

[VirginiaHops1]

But the bottling sugar need a little oxygen to be fermented at this stage, right?

No, I think yeast mainly need oxygen at the beginning when they're multiplying and getting ready to ferment. At the end they can easily eat up that sugar and carbonate your bottles.

 

[RPh_Guy]

To summarize:
Too much aeration pre-fermentation will never cause oxidation flavors.

Oxygen introduced after fermentation will cause oxidation unless it's immediately removed. Definitely do not intentionally introduce oxygen after fermention.

Things that introduce oxygen:

• Plastic bucket fermenters. They simply don't seal very well.
• Silicone gaskets or airlocks. They are very oxygen-permeable.
• Accidentally dry airlock or any other leaks.
• Leaving beer in primary for too long. Oxygen slowly diffuses through the airlock.
• Opening the fermenter for any reason (e.g. dry hopping, tasting, taking gravity samples). If you open, purging with CO2 helps.
• Secondary fermenter. Totally unnecessary in most cases, and causes aeration plus oxygen in the headspace.
• Cold crashing. Thermal contraction pulls in air through the airlock unless you have a good system in place to only pull in CO2.
• Racking to bottling bucket. This should be done as gently as possible to minimize splashing. A tube from the racking cane or fermenter spigot should reach the bottom of the bottling bucket. You could also consider bottling directly from primary.
• Long bottling process. Bottle as quickly as reasonably possible. A physical or CO2 barrier on top of the beer during bottling is helpful.
• Filling bottles. Use a proper bottling wand to minimize aeration during filling.
• Too much headspace in bottles. Fill bottles about 1/4 - 1/2" from the top.
• Hindering or removing yeast. Bottling closer to the finish of fermentation allows the yeast to be more active for removing oxygen after bottling. Cold crashing reduces their ability to rapidly remove oxygen.
• Caps. Use oxygen-absorbing caps and ideally activate them after or immediate before bottling (they activate when wet).
• Slow carbonation. Rouse the yeast several times daily for a few days. The bottles should carbonate in a few days, not a few weeks.
• Warm storage. After bottle carbonation completes, storing cold will prolong the lifespan, slowing down oxidation reactions.
• Small bottles. Large bottles have lower amounts of oxygen seeping in through the cap per the amount of beer, compared to smaller bottles.

Cheers

 

[tegman]

How can you control the speed of the flow when racking? especially when the beer first touch the bottom of the priming bucket when will cause splash.

As rph stated make sure your tubing reaches the bottom of your priming bucket. Pour your priming sugar in first so it mixes as the bucket fills. This way you don’t need to stir afterwards. I always purchased the oxygen scavenging caps. They might not do much but anything can help.

 

[Ninoid]

Se this experiment.

High splash pour to keg and after 100 days is same as normal pouring system.
Maybe post fermentation oxygenation is not that big problem.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Maybe post fermentation oxygenation is not that big problem.

Or more likely his normal process is inadequate.

I've noticed a huge improvement since tightening up oxygen exposure in my post-fermentation process.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

He oxidized both beers in that brulosophy experiment. I wouldn't take much away from the results. The supposedly "good" transfer was done to a non-purged keg.

I've also noticed big improvements in my beers since I started kegging and doing completely closed transfers to water purged kegs.

 

[day_trippr]

^that^
I read the other day here that the perpetrator acknowledged the terribly flawed methodology...

 

[Ninoid]

I don't know.
My beer can not survive more of 30 days after bottling (all drinked).
My opinion is that beer can not turn so quickly bad due to oxidation. The aroma may weaken and change something, but not to be so bad.