Bottling directly from the fermenter (Fear of Oxidation by Iron Maiden)

[worlddivides]

Some may have seen my leaky spigot/fermenter thread, but in short, on brew day, when I added StarSan solution to my main fermenter, it leaked from the spigot, so I transferred the StarSan to my backup fermenter, but it leaked too. I tried tons of things and none of them worked, and I had finally cooled the wort down to around 70F, so I felt I should transfer and pitch. The only other container I had was my bottling bucket, which I had never used for anything other than bottling from (i.e. add priming sugar to bottling bucket, then rack beer on top, then bottle from that), so I drilled a hole in the lid (since, considering I had zero intention to ferment inside it, the lid had no hole in it), then stuck a rubber stopper in there with a temperature well and airlock.

Now, in the entire time I've been brewing, I have never had no airlock activity. Ever. Until this batch. My only guess is that the lid is not secure. My main fermenters are also buckets, but the lids snap on very very tight and take some effort to get off. The bottling bucket lid isn't going to just casually come off, but it doesn't snap tightly on like the usual ones. But even if the lid is leaking, I can't understand why I'm not getting any airlock activity at all. My main fermenters are opaque, so I can't see inside, but the bottling bucket's lid is semi-transparent/semi-opaque, so if I put a light up to it, I can see massive krausen inside with tons of bubbles coming off of it and I can smell yeast, so it's actively fermenting, and I'd guess mostly finished by now (4 days since pitching yeast).

The "common wisdom" of 15 years ago would be "CO2 has created a blanket to protect the wort/beer," but that's not quite true. I'm well aware that, although CO2 is heavier than oxygen, it's not this lead balloon that's permanently going to stay below other lighter gases like homebrewers often seem to visualize. But once fermentation stops, as long as I don't open the lid, I imagine oxygen isn't going to seep inside. Right now, even if fermentation ended, the krausen would theoretically protect the beer from oxygen. But what about once the krausen sinks back down? What about if I cold crash and the temperature differential causes more suckback than one could prepare for if only keeping the airlock in mind?

Although the easiest solution would just be to do a direct closed transfer from the bottling bucket to my keg (I only have one, though I'm considering buying a second one), I want to use the keg for a different beer and have been planning to bottle this. To avoid any oxidation, I'm thinking of bottling directly from the fermenter and just dosing each individual bottle with priming sugar instead of my typical "transfer beer from fermenter to bottling bucket, racking on top of priming sugar." Part of it is that this is a very hoppy American Pale Ale (and one that also includes some flaked oats), so it is a lot more susceptible to oxidation than, say, a brown ale or stout.

I've seen tons of threads in the past where people would just say "leaky lids are common!" or "you're worrying too much!" but I've NEVER not had airlock activity before. After more than 1,000 liters of beer brewed, this is a rather uncomfortable thing to see. Maybe I am worrying too much about this, but even in my very first beers, I always had tons of airlock activity and generally only exposed the beer to oxygen when transferring to the bottling bucket.

 

[Indian_villager]

Depending on your timing, you can always transfer your beer and priming sugar into your one and only keg and bottle out of there using a disconnect, tubing and a bottling wand.

 

[BrewZer]

The Mr Beer 6 gallon fermenter had a spigot that remained in place throughout fermentation, and a hole (sans grommet) in the lid for an air lock. The entire premise was that you'd run a bottling wand into the spigot, remove the air lock, and bottle directly out of the fermenter. Oxygenation was never a concern, since even though you'd be pulling a small column of air into the fermenter as the volume ran out, it wouldn't be agitated enough to facilitate transfer into the beer.

Even without bubbling, I'm guessing you had positive pressure in the bucket from the yeast outgassing.

I say put a hose on your spigot, mate it to your bottling wand, and bottle quickly and quietly. You can measure sugar or use carb drops to get a dose in each bottle.

 

[worlddivides]

Depending on your timing, you can always transfer your beer and priming sugar into your one and only keg and bottle out of there using a disconnect, tubing and a bottling wand.

That's a really interesting idea that I hadn't considered. Theoretically it could work pretty well. I guess it would mainly just be connecting the bottling wand to the disconnect and tubing that I normally use for closed transfers after having finished transferring the beer to the keg (and making sure to flush out any potential oxygen and replacing it with CO2).

My keg still has some amount of beer in it, so I probably won't do it this time, but using a keg as a bottling bucket is a much better way of avoiding oxidation, so I'm definitely going to keep that in mind.

 

[Indian_villager]

That's a really interesting idea that I hadn't considered. Theoretically it could work pretty well. I guess it would mainly just be connecting the bottling wand to the disconnect and tubing that I normally use for closed transfers after having finished transferring the beer to the keg.

My keg still has some amount of beer in it, so I probably won't do it this time, but using a keg as a bottling bucket is a much better way of avoiding oxidation, so I'm definitely going to keep that in mind.

Yep, got rid of my bottling bucket years ago as I rarely bottle anymore, but the few times I do I do this keg method.

You will also be just fine adding your sugar solution to your bottling bucket/fermenter and giving it a gentle swirl, waiting 10 mins, and then bottling

 

[worlddivides]

The Mr Beer 6 gallon fermenter had a spigot that remained in place throughout fermentation, and a hole (sans grommet) in the lid for an air lock. The entire premise was that you'd run a bottling wand into the spigot, remove the air lock, and bottle directly out of the fermenter. Oxygenation was never a concern, since even though you'd be pulling a small column of air into the fermenter as the volume ran out, it wouldn't be agitated enough to facilitate transfer into the beer.

Even without bubbling, I'm guessing you had positive pressure in the bucket from the yeast outgassing.

I say put a hose on your spigot, mate it to your bottling wand, and bottle quickly and quietly. You can measure sugar or use carb drops to get a dose in each bottle.

Yes, I'm certain there's positive pressure in the bucket from the outgassing.

On the one hand, cold crashing the bucket (or "soft" cold crashing it) could improve the clarity of the beer going into the bottles, but I wonder if it would be worth risking the potential of oxygen being pulled in through wherever the CO2 is escaping instead of the airlock.

 

[worlddivides]

Yep, got rid of my bottling bucket years ago as I rarely bottle anymore, but the few times I do I do this keg method.

You will also be just fine adding your sugar solution to your bottling bucket/fermenter and giving it a gentle swirl, waiting 10 mins, and then bottling

My initial idea was adding the sugar to the bucket and then bottling from it, but the main drawback (besides potentially introducing oxygen) would be that, even with a gentle swirl, some of the trub that had settled to the bottom would get mixed back in. Granted, it would just settle again to the bottom of each bottle, but I would imagine it'd just result in more dregs in each bottle than there normally would be. I have a Sour IPA I bottled a few months ago that has virtually no sediment at all in each bottle, despite carbing in the bottles to about 2.5-2.6 CO2 levels. Not sure how I managed it, but it's nice to have less in there.

 

[Indian_villager]

My initial idea was adding the sugar to the bucket and then bottling from it, but the main drawback (besides potentially introducing oxygen) would be that, even with a gentle swirl, some of the trub that had settled to the bottom would get mixed back in. Granted, it would just settle again to the bottom of each bottle, but I would imagine it'd just result in more dregs in each bottle than there normally would be. I have a Sour IPA I bottled a few months ago that has virtually no sediment at all in each bottle, despite carbing in the bottles to about 2.5-2.6 CO2 levels. Not sure how I managed it, but it's nice to have less in there.

Really depends on your yeast and how good it is at sticking together once flocculated.

 

[worlddivides]

Really depends on your yeast and how good it is at sticking together once flocculated.

To be honest, that's the easiest solution, though it does seem like it had the highest risk of introducing oxygen, albeit probably no more than transferring to a bottling bucket.

The three options I see are:
1. Add 85 grams of sugar to 100-200ml of water, then add that directly to the fermenter, stir it in, wait 10 minutes, then bottle
2. Add 70 grams of sugar to 100-200ml of water, then add that to keg, purge keg of oxygen, then closed transfer beer to keg, and then bottle from there
3. Add 75 grams of sugar to 100ml of water, then use pipettes to add 8ml of sugar water to each bottle (this seems the most difficult)

I'm leaning towards option 1, though option 2 would probably be the best at avoiding oxidation. It's just that I still have a few liters of beer in my one and only keg.

 

[Halfakneecap]

I keg 99% of my beers now, but the ones i bottle, i do from the fermenter, and dose each bottle. I don't do it often, so it's no big deal. It's worked fine the last 20 years, so i don't see a reason to modify. I don't use an airlock either, ever. Kill me now i guess haha

 

[Zadkiel]

I thought cold-crashing was a no-no if you were bottling with sugar, anyway? I'm a newbie here but I've not cold-crashed any of my beers specifically for that reason.

 

[worlddivides]

I keg 99% of my beers now, but the ones i bottle, i do from the fermenter, and dose each bottle. I don't do it often, so it's no big deal. It's worked fine the last 20 years, so i don't see a reason to modify. I don't use an airlock either, ever. Kill me now i guess haha

I've never not used an airlock, but I know a ton of people use blowoff tubes or something similar. If you mean that you don't use anything like an airlock or blowoff tube, then what do you use?

I'm interested in how you dose each bottle. Do you do like my #3 idea? Mixing sugar in water, then using a pipette to measure out a specific amount for each bottle?

 

[worlddivides]

I thought cold-crashing was a no-no if you were bottling with sugar, anyway? I'm a newbie here but I've not cold-crashed any of my beers specifically for that reason.

Why would it be a no-no? The purpose of cold-crashing is clarifying the beer. In the case of bottling, cold-crashing means you'll have less sediment in your bottles. I've cold-crashed every beer I've bottled or kegged for a long time now. I'd argue it has more of an impact on bottling since with kegging, you're kind of cold-crashing in the keg itself and the first time you pour beer from the keg, all of the sediment on the bottom will be pushed out (ideally, if you've cold-crashed before that, there will be little to no sediment in there, but I also clarify with gelatin, so at the very least, the gelatin gets pushed out the first time I use the keg).

 

[Halfakneecap]

I've never not used an airlock, but I know a ton of people use blowoff tubes or something similar. If you mean that you don't use anything like an airlock or blowoff tube, then what do you use?

I'm interested in how you dose each bottle. Do you do like my #3 idea? Mixing sugar in water, then using a pipette to measure out a specific amount for each bottle?

I use the SS lid of my fermenter ( KL Bucket Buddy ) and just clamp it down without the rubber seal. I used to use cling wrap and an O ring on my old plastic fermenters. At one point for British ales i used a rectangle storage tub with no lid at all after the first 24hrs. Hoping for more pronounced esters, but i don't think it did too much different, and thought it was a little risky.

I have a sugar measure. Its a 3 sized scoop which does 330ml, 500ml, and 750ml. For saison, which goes into bottles, i use a lot more, about 7g for a 750ml champagne bottle. I use my super accurate drug dealer scales ( i'm not a drug dealer though ) , which go to .1 of a gram. It's a pain, but i am happy to put up with it for highly carbed saison.

 

[Zadkiel]

Why would it be a no-no? The purpose of cold-crashing is clarifying the beer.

Which it does by dropping all the particles out of the beer, which includes the yeast. And what little yeast does remain in suspension is chilled so low that it will deactivate. Bottle conditioning works by the yeast remaining in the beer consuming the bottling sugar. if you remove/deactivate all the yeast, you just end up with flat sugary beer.

 

[worlddivides]

Which it does by dropping all the particles out of the beer, which includes the yeast. And what little yeast does remain in suspension is chilled so low that it will deactivate. Bottle conditioning works by the yeast remaining in the beer consuming the bottling sugar. if you remove/deactivate all the yeast, you just end up with flat sugary beer.

Huh. I just end up with flat sugary beer... Then why has that never happened to me before? What's been carbonating my cold-crashed bottled beers?! Pixies?!

 

[worlddivides]

I use the SS lid of my fermenter ( KL Bucket Buddy ) and just clamp it down without the rubber seal. I used to use cling wrap and an O ring on my old plastic fermenters. At one point for British ales i used a rectangle storage tub with no lid at all after the first 24hrs. Hoping for more pronounced esters, but i don't think it did too much different, and thought it was a little risky.

I have a sugar measure. Its a 3 sized scoop which does 330ml, 500ml, and 750ml. For saison, which goes into bottles, i use a lot more, about 7g for a 750ml champagne bottle. I use my super accurate drug dealer scales ( i'm not a drug dealer though ) , which go to .1 of a gram. It's a pain, but i am happy to put up with it for highly carbed saison.

So does that mean you pour in the sugar directly each time? That's an option I did consider, but it just seemed like a bit too much work measuring out the exact mount each time for each bottle.

 

[Zadkiel]

Having re-checked my sources on this (as I said, I hadn't cold crashed myself because this is what I had read, so I have no personal experience) I now see opinions on this is very divided. When I researched it originally I ended up at an article that absolutely said do not do this. And annoyingly that also seems to be the same source that google's AI answer uses as it's source.

But I also now see there are plenty of other places that say it's not an issue.

That's annoying!

 

[Halfakneecap]

So does that mean you pour in the sugar directly each time? That's an option I did consider, but it just seemed like a bit too much work measuring out the exact mount each time for each bottle.

Yeah. About 20 bottles, but i don't mind

 

[Halfakneecap]

Having re-checked my sources on this (as I said, I hadn't cold crashed myself because this is what I had read, so I have no personal experience) I now see opinions on this is very divided. When I researched it originally I ended up at an article that absolutely said do not do this. And annoyingly that also seems to be the same source that google's AI answer uses as it's source.

View attachment 880809

But I also now see there are plenty of other places that say it's not an issue.

That's annoying!

It's homebrewing, opinion is divided on just about every step of every process haha. Lots of things work

 

[Zadkiel]

It's homebrewing, opinion is divided on just about every step of every process haha. Lots of things work

You're kind to say so, because it seems I was mislead and the opinion is very much one-sided in this case, and google is wrong. I hate misinformation and I hate it even more when it makes me look stupid.

 

[mashdar]

Have you taken samples and confirmed FG is reached? I'd

• san + prime bottles
• remove airlock to make up lost volume (will draw in air, but alternative is stalling out as vacuum builds.)
• Fill bottles

I agree bulk priming on trub is a very bad idea.

Re cold crashing, IMO if you don't have a method to prevent suckback, a bit of muck in the bottle is preferable to the O2 exposure.

edit: PS I've primed individual bottles before. You'll want a DRY funnel (or make one with foil, not paper). It's work but not too terrible if you do a bunch at once. Granulated sugar is probably easier than the really fine dextrose powder.

 

[mashdar]

Re the cold crash discussion. There may be theoretical concerns about yeast count/viability after crash, but I can say empirically that you can do almost anything to beer and it'll eventually prime, unless it's a >8% ABV or has sat for months on end. There might be a few strains (3724?) that are a bit more finicky, but even those wake up eventually.

It might take a month or two instead of a week, but there's a reason other drinks use sorbate.

 

[worlddivides]

You're kind to say so, because it seems I was mislead and the opinion is very much one-sided in this case, and google is wrong. I hate misinformation and I hate it even more when it makes me look stupid.

No prob. I just thought it was funny that you were telling someone who had cold-crashed and primed in bottles tons of times before that their beers wouldn't carbonate and would just result in "flat sugary beer." If that were the case, obviously I would have stopped after the first time it didn't work.

I guess the main takeaway is that AI is very very very very unreliable and shouldn't be accepted as fact.

The longer point is that cold crashing will reduce the amount of yeast in suspension, but there will still be WAY more than enough to carbonate. Otherwise, Louis Pasteur wouldn't have come up with a heating method of pasteurization and would have just said "lower the temperature a bit."

 

[worlddivides]

Have you taken samples and confirmed FG is reached? I'd

• san + prime bottles
• remove airlock to make up lost volume (will draw in air, but alternative is stalling out as vacuum builds.)
• Fill bottles

I agree bulk priming on trub is a very bad idea.

Re cold crashing, IMO if you don't have a method to prevent suckback, a bit of muck in the bottle is preferable to the O2 exposure.

edit: PS I've primed individual bottles before. You'll want a DRY funnel (or make one with foil, not paper). It's work but not too terrible if you do a bunch at once. Granulated sugar is probably easier than the really fine dextrose powder.

I haven't taken any samples yet. I'm planning to take my first gravity reading in about 3-4 days, and maybe one more gravity reading 2-3 days after that, and if it's the same or close enough, bottling.

Other than the three options I mentioned before, I'm thinking of buying carbonation tablets and trying them out for the first time. I've never used them before, but this does seem like a situation where it might be a good idea. Then again, I'll probably go through this batch relatively quickly, so maybe just adding a priming solution directly to the fermenter 10 minutes before bottling might be good enough.

 

[mac_1103]

But even if the lid is leaking, I can't understand why I'm not getting any airlock activity at all.

I can. Path of least resistance and all that.

What about if I cold crash and the temperature differential causes more suckback than one could prepare for if only keeping the airlock in mind?

If the lid doesn't seal tight you will suck back air around the lid no matter how well you prepared for suckback through the air lock.

 

[mashdar]

The tabs work if you can get your desired volumes from them. I sometimes think about keeping a bag on hand.

 

[worlddivides]

The tabs work if you can get your desired volumes from them. I sometimes think about keeping a bag on hand.

I've thought they might be a good idea for when I transfer beer to a keg and there's maybe 1-2 bottles worth of beer left that won't fit in the keg, but I've never used them before. This might be a good time to use them. I do really like the idea of transferring to a keg (assuming it kicks before I decide to bottle) and then bottling from there, and the idea of just adding priming sugar solution to the fermenter, then bottling from there also sounds okay, but carbonation tablets sound like they might have the lowest risk of oxidation after closed-transfer kegging,

 

[worlddivides]

I can. Path of least resistance and all that.

The idea that the edges of the lid have less resistance than an airlock is kind of a terrifying idea and it makes me want to bottle as soon as possible. It also makes me think that I'll need to make sure I never have to ferment in a bottling bucket ever again. I have thought from the very beginning that the massive hell-like aggressive brutal heat of Japanese summer would be a problem, especially compounded indoors going up several floors, but I never imagined it might make my fermenters leak, so it's definitely made me think of ways to prevent similar issues from happening in the future (or at the very least to confirm them before starting a brew in July or August).

 

[worlddivides]

edit: PS I've primed individual bottles before. You'll want a DRY funnel (or make one with foil, not paper). It's work but not too terrible if you do a bunch at once. Granulated sugar is probably easier than the really fine dextrose powder.

Thinking about it, caster sugar might be even better since it should dissolve basically instantaneously. Although this method does seem like it could be a bit of a hassle, if I use my precision scale that I use for brewing salt measurements, this could actually work really well.