aeration oops, I spose I messed it up

[dale-]

hope my first batch isn’t a bust.....
when transferring to the secondary (a carboy) I used a funnel & screen to filter out the unwanted’s, causing lots of splashing in the bottom of my carboy under the funnel.
did the splashing wreck the beer?
I also had more brew then carboy space so I split the batch between two carboys, this leaves a lot of open space within each carboy, about 8 inches from beer to top of neck.
is that too much air?
should I just through it out & start over?
some airlock activity is still happening but not much. It’s a lager kit, don’t know if it makes a difference, seems to require a longer secondary fermenting (lagering) time 3-4 weeks.
I’ve read I should have siphoned from primary to secondary to avoid aeration but how do you keep out the gunk? The beers to dark to see where the end of a hose would be in my primary pail.

Guess I’m asking for a better technique or more info on the -how to’s-

 

[smorris]

If it tastes like cardboard in a couple days, you know it went south on you from aeration.BTDT

 

[OBX]

In the future I would suggest a racking transfer rather than pouring. I use the auto siphon which just couldn't be easier. My 1st batch was a crash and burn but the next three have been great. I have found that it is somewhat forgiving so you might be just fine. I have seen that the beer after 10 days is not very impressive and after 21 days it is noticable better, so give it 3 weeks in the bottle before you trash it.

 

[Kephren]

Well, since this is your first batch, you have a couple of things going for you. First, you'll be likely to bottle and drink it as fast as possible (as we all did with our first batch) and second, you probably haven't experienced several "good" batches of homebrew. This is good because you are less likely to notice off flavors caused by oxidation.

As far as siphoning, don't worry about picking up a little bit of the trub from the primary. It will settle out in the secondary. Also, since you did over-aerate this batch, I would get it bottled as soon as possible. It will be cloudier, but the carbonation will help drive off the O2 you introduced into the beer. Then have a few buddies over in a couple of weeks and drink as much as possible - they'll be impressed even if it did taste like cardboard. In the meantime, get a new batch going and try not to splash around too much this time

I make mistakes every time I brew, but I learn from them - that just makes susequent batches increasingly better.

 

[dale-]

Thanks, I’ll get it bottled tomorrow night then and hope for the best.

Dale-