Cold crashing oops....

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kmiller4u

Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2013
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Question.... A few days back I started cold crashing a pale batch but realized I forgot to remove the 3 pc airlock hence the vacuum sucked some of the h2o back into the batch... Is the batch ruined due to being oxidized? Should I keg it up and roll the dice?
 
I don't think oxidation is really your concern....infection is a remote possibility. Was it really plain water or was it starsan? If starsan then likely no worries. If water then also likely no worries but odds go up of an infection.
Nothing you can do at this point but keg and consume at your earliest convenience
 
I don't think oxidation is really your concern....infection is a remote possibility. Was it really plain water or was it starsan? If starsan then likely no worries. If water then also likely no worries but odds go up of an infection.
Nothing you can do at this point but keg and consume at your earliest convenience


It was bottled spring water. Just going to keg it and see how it goes... Thanks.
 
Seems to me that if fermentation is already complete then the environment is pretty inhospitable to most of the airborne bacteria you'd worry about, and since the water has been bubbled through with a ton of CO2 it's probably pretty darn acidic itself. Very low risk of infection, I'd say. Next time use vodka. :)
 
No problem. Your fine. There is maybe 1-2oz of liquid in an S-shaped airlock. It going into your (1-5.5 gallons of beer in the vessel will have minimal impact if any)

Easy to avoid this minor wrinkle. Fill airlocks with Starsan or some folks use cheap vodka

When cold crashing beer. Airlock is not needed.

Cold Crashed Beer.jpg


Coldcrash.jpg


Stc.jpg
 
No problem. Your fine. There is maybe 1-2oz of liquid in an S-shaped airlock. It going into your (1-5.5 gallons of beer in the vessel will have minimal impact if any)

Easy to avoid this minor wrinkle. Fill airlocks with Starsan or some folks use cheap vodka

When cold crashing beer. Airlock is not needed.

Even better :mug: avoid sucking that air in

2015-08-06 19.32.42.jpg


2015-08-13 20.38.53.jpg
 
Thanks to everyone that posted ideas. Have not cold crashed a beer yet due to fear of how to prevent the suck. So it is ok to cap completely?
 
[...]So it is ok to cap completely?

Glass, or plastic?

I'd be nudgy about the glass just on GPs, but if you actually managed to seal up a plastic fermenter with significant head space, I expect it'd collapse to some degree.

If you don't want to go commando with a rubber-banded foil cap, the cure to suck back is an S-lock.
Three piece air locks are a black spot on home brewing technology...

Cheers! ;)
 
All plastic here. The current batch is in a big mouth bubbler using a three piece.
 
I use a solid rubber bung that I loosely fit at first, then pull/burp and tighten after a couple of days. But I've also used a foil cap. Love the balloon idea, though.
 
When I cold-crash (and I don't always), I'll either replace the bung and airlock with some sanitized foil and a rubber band, or just keg it first and chill it in the keg, connected to CO2, so any vacuum created as the air (CO2) in the keg's headspace contracts is simply filled with more CO2 from the tank.

I use this latter method when I'm really concerned about oxidation.
 
Back
Top