I might of made an oopsie..?

[bcross]

Okay so today was the transfer day for my third batch of brew, I transferred it from the primary to secondary fermenter and added the fining solution! I had to stir it in but I forgot to stir gently and gave it a real good stir.. to the point where i got about 1 inch of froth at the head of the carboy... In your opinion do you think i might have messed up this batch? What could be the potential consequences for aerating a bat of beer during this stage of fermentation? Kinda worried do anyone know from experience?

 

[ajm163]

aerating post fermentation is not great but depending on the beer style may not be the end of the world. you may see the most negative effect in really hoppy beers IPA's NEIPA's pale ales as the hop flavors and aromas may fade out. If its a stout you may not be able to tell. ether way its still beer and it will still prob be pretty good although it may be a little lackluster if its an IPA

 

[bcross]

aerating post fermentation is not great but depending on the beer style may not be the end of the world. you may see the most negative effect in really hoppy beers IPA's NEIPA's pale ales as the hop flavors and aromas may fade out. If its a stout you may not be able to tell. ether way its still beer and it will still prob be pretty good although it may be a little lackluster if its an IPA

Just a Cooper's Pilsner DIY kit!

 

[bcross]

aerating post fermentation is not great but depending on the beer style may not be the end of the world. you may see the most negative effect in really hoppy beers IPA's NEIPA's pale ales as the hop flavors and aromas may fade out. If its a stout you may not be able to tell. ether way its still beer and it will still prob be pretty good although it may be a little lackluster if its an IPA

Also this time i noticed after siphoning to the carboy i already have a inch of sediment built up in the bottom! I put the cap on the end of the racking cane.. Do you think it would be okay to double carboy the brew and transfer it back into the bucket after a week and then back to the carboy for a couple days before bottling? thats alot of sediment any tips?

 

[RM-MN]

You made three mistakes. First one was siphoning your beer out of the fermenter to secondary. Unnecessary and can lead to oxidation or infection. Second was stirring the beer. Oxidation isn't usually an immediate problem but don't expect to keep this beer for too long. When you open a bottle and it tastes like wet cardboard, you will know how long you should have kept it. Your third mistake was siphoning up the trub. I'd consider this to be the least problematic. Given some time the trub will compact again and you can carefully siphon from just above it, leaving the trub behind this time.

 

[Dgallo]

Unfortunately Pilsners can be effected by oxidation. As stated above by @RM-MN no secondary. The kit companies specifically tell you to do this so that you empty a fermenter and you’ll be able to buy another of their kits sooner and brew again. It will certainly have some extent of an impact but you’ll still be able to drink it. On the bright side you are learning important process information early in you brewing.

 

[V-Fib]

Drink it all as fast as you can . Future batches you can skip the secondary. There are loads of discussions about it that you can search for on the forum. To help get the finished product more clear you can Irish moss or whirlfloc in the last 15 minutes of the boil and get your bottles or keg in the fridge for about a week or 2. Most of the time things will be crystal with time and cold if the style should be.

 

[bcross]

The guy at my local brew shop recommended that after primary fermentation is complete I add isinglass to carboy then siphon my beer to the carboy and stir gently then let it sit for a week before bottling!

Future batches you can skip the secondary.

So what should I do next time? Just wait for primary fermentation to finish then bottle directly from the primary fermenter? What about if I wanted to use some clarifying solution? Both of the clarifying solutions I get at my local brew shop include mixing in the carboy..

 

[V-Fib]

I would 100% skip anything that involves stirring after primary fermentation is complete. Oxygen is the thing most of us try really hard to avoid once the yeast is done working. If you have cloudy beer without oxygen it will still taste better than clear beer that has oxidized. One of the best things to do when you are 1st starting the hobby is to try to keep things as simple as possible then add a new steps as your confidence and practice grow. That way if something seems off after you add another step you can figure out where things went wrong.

When I was only able to bottle I used a bottling bucket that had a valve and a bottling wand. I would add my sugar solution 1st then siphon the beer into the bucket. The beer going in would swirl and mix in the sugar solution for the yeast to carb the beer then it went into the bottles right away. I'm not aware of a way to go right from the primary to bottles.

If you really want to add a clarifying solution it might be best to just drop it in the primary vessel. On a homebrew scale of 5 gallon batches the extra time on the yeast/trub is less of a risk then transferring multiple times. If you have the ability to drop the temperature of your primary vessel it will also help proteins and yeast drop to the bottom but it also drops the pressure in your vessel so it will suck in air.

 

[RM-MN]

The guy at my local brew shop recommended that after primary fermentation is complete I add isinglass to carboy then siphon my beer to the carboy and stir gently then let it sit for a week before bottling!


So what should I do next time? Just wait for primary fermentation to finish then bottle directly from the primary fermenter? What about if I wanted to use some clarifying solution? Both of the clarifying solutions I get at my local brew shop include mixing in the carboy..

I wait until fermentation is complete, then I wait some more because doing so lets more yeast and trub settle out and that trub to compact somewhat so I don't get much transferred to my bottling bucket. I make sure to keep the exposure to air a little as possible by laying the siphon hose on the bottom of the bucket with at least a partial turn so it doesn't splash (splashing is really good for getting oxygen into a liquid) but swirls around gently. This swirl helps to mix in the priming sugar.
You can add the isinglass to the primary fermenter but be very gentle if you stir it in. Leaving the beer longer in the fermenter will settle out the trub and you will find that the isinglass isn't very necessary. Since you have the carboy you will be tempted to use it. I suggest you use it to make wine or better yet, mead. That will keep your carboy full for quite some time so your desire to put beer in it will be quenched. While you are waiting for that wine or mead to finish, buy a couple more fermenters. I like fermenter buckets and they are not terribly expensive. With that you can brew more often and that brewing will take up some of your free time so the beer in the fermenter will have more time to complete fermentation and settle out. My beers usually stay in the fermenter for 3 to 4 weeks.
When I transfer to the bottling bucket, the beer often stays there for a short time as I prepare bottles and sanitize the caps. That lets any trub that the siphon may have sucked up to settle back out. If I try to get every last drop of beer bottled, that last bottle will have more trub.

 

[AirLock Sniffer]

Not sure your location or what the temperature is right now? Can get some beers to drop pretty bright, pretty good clarification with simply "cold crashing" alone, the fermentation vessel. Typically this time of year around these parts the basement is in the low 60F. range, about right for some Ales to ferment out, and the attached garage hovers just above freezing. Considerably less sediment in bottles.

 

[ajm163]

The guy at my local brew shop recommended that after primary fermentation is complete I add isinglass to carboy then siphon my beer to the carboy and stir gently then let it sit for a week before bottling!


So what should I do next time? Just wait for primary fermentation to finish then bottle directly from the primary fermenter? What about if I wanted to use some clarifying solution? Both of the clarifying solutions I get at my local brew shop include mixing in the carboy..

Ive learned to take what the "local home brew shop guy" says with a grain of salt. The one closest to me is pretty good but i have been to some others that have told me crazy things and I have overheard them tell beginning brewers things that are flat out wrong.

you 100% dont need to do a secondary unless you are adding flavors (fruit, wood, ect)
I would never do anything that involved stirring (even gently) after fermentation. if you really want clear beer (again not really necessary) try the irish moss or whirlfloc in the boil. also a highly floculant yeast strain will help with clear beer

 

[bcross]

Not sure your location or what the temperature is right now? Can get some beers to drop pretty bright, pretty good clarification with simply "cold crashing" alone, the fermentation vessel. Typically this time of year around these parts the basement is in the low 60F. range, about right for some Ales to ferment out, and the attached garage hovers just above freezing. Considerably less sediment in bottles.

I'm from Newfoundland, temperatures right now drop to freezing cold over night and my basement was around 4-5 degrees Celsius last time I checked! Is this okay for cold crashing?