Did I screw up while kegging?

[Green and Dumb]

So, I kegged my first batch last month...went straight from primary to keg, putting the hose all the way to the bottom of the corny and filling it up. It worked great and the beer tasted great on tap, but there was a ton of sediment in the keg that lasted until almost the last beer poured.

So, this time, I wanted to avoid all the sediment in the keg by filtering out the trub from the primary, so I put my funnel in the mouth of the corny, with the screen in place, and siphoned the beer into the funnel. The screen stopped all of the trub, but I have just realized that I probably intorduced a lot of oxygen to the beer by letting it splash down to the bottom of the corny. Is there something I should do to prevent oxidation/premature staling of the beer?

I hit it with 15psi and released pressure a few times to clear any O2 off the top and then I dropped it to ~5-6psi and left it hooked up in the kegerator @~40F. Is there anything else I should do? This batch tasted great this morning and I'd hate to do something to ruin it!

Thanks!

 

[rdwj]

Ya, don't filter it like that again - you're get oxidation for sure. There are filters that you can get for your siphon hose, but really, you should just be more careful when you siphon. Don't let the hose sit on the bottom of the fermenter. Keep it above the turb.

 

[Green and Dumb]

So...am I just screwed? How long will the keg last before it goes bad? And what will happen when it goes bad? Will it develop off flavors but still be drinkable?

 

[rdwj]

You're not screwed, but it will develop off tasted quicker than normal. If you make quick work of the keg, you shouldn't have a problem

 

[MriswitH]

To go along with this, would it work if you just put a piece of cheese cloth or similar material on the end of your siphon hose while siphoning between your primary/secondary to other?

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

Why not rack to secondary for a week or two to let the beer clear? This will allow clear beers from the keg right from pint one.

 

[Ol' Grog]

I haven't actually kegged yet, but that is my plan. Rack to secondary. In your case to clear up the oxygen problem either shot the bottom of the keg with CO2 for a few seconds before filling to displace the 02, or attach a hose from the bottom of your funnel to the bottom of the keg. I'm afraid inline hose filters would clog up quickly. Are you using the little black "cap" that goes on the bottom of the racking cane? That worked pretty good for me.

 

[Evan!]

Ol' Grog beat me to the punch---I've noticed marked improvement with sediment since I started using the redirection cap on my racking cane.

 

[Green and Dumb]

Why not rack to secondary for a week or two? : 1) My secondary has a Winter Warmer in it and my other carboy has a Brown Ale I brewed last night, & 2) I just finished the last of my previous keg and I am thirsty and impatient!

I was using the cap on the racking cane, but I still had some trouble with some sediment and some stuff that was floating still (probably irish moss). Also, I may have stirred it up a bit trying to get the bung out of the neck.

I switched over to using the auto-siphon on the batch in question here and, ironically, I pulled zero sediment until the very end when I tipped the bucket to get the last remaining beer. If I would have known how well the auto-siphon was going to work, I would have skipped the funnel & screen altogether.

I'm thinking that, on the next batch, I'll either not use the screen or perhaps try to make a funnel/screen combo with the right length of hose attached to it for filling cornies. That might be my best bet. Anyone have any suggestions on how to build one of those?

 

[Green and Dumb]

Oh...I forgot to mention that, prior to racking into the corny, I had cleaned it and then run a gallon of BLC solution out of it through my beer lines, followed by 3 gallons of water. Once that was finished, I opened the corny and filled it so, technically, it should have been filled with CO2, correct?

Here’s the kicker….there was still a bit of water in the bottom of the corny, so I quickly inverted the keg and dumped the water into the sink….probably dumping the CO2 and replacing it with O2, correct? 

 

[dougjones31]

If you rack from the primary to the keg you should cut about 1 inch off of the pickup tube. This will allow the trub to settle and the short tube will pick up only beer.

1 week in the secondary should fix your trub problem though.

 

[Ol' Grog]

I'm sure you dumped the CO2 out.

 

[kornkob]

You might have 'dumped' some out but, frankly all you really need is a layer of CO2 on top of the beer as you fill the corney.

CO2 is heavier than air and will displace it. Thus if you have an inch thick CO2 layer at the bottom of your keg, you're covered. The beer, quietly being siphoned into the bottom of the keg will push the Co2 up, which displaces the o2 and once you've finished siphoning, between the layer you already have and the co2 degassing from the beer the keg will have negligible amounts of oxy in it.


Besides, if I recall correctly, oxydation takes a fair amount of time before it has a noticible effect on your brew. If you're drinking shortly after kegging you're probably not keeping it around long enough to have an appreciable impact on the quality. If, on the otehr hand, you're keg conditioning for some months before consumption you're more likely to see an impact of oxidation.


Who was it that went to a 'problem beer tasting' where they tried different beers that were intentionally mishandled in specific fashions so they could tell the difference between different handling mishaps?