Limiting oxidation: effect of purging headspace O2 in a bottle conditioned IPA

[mac_1103]

If you drop the beer into the bottle quickly from a siphon tube/tap/spigot, it will splash on the bottom of the bottle or the surface of the beer and create large bubbles full of air.

I'm glad you found a way to get the small amount of CO2 in non-pressure fermented beer to foam up so you can cap on it, but why would anyone ever splash beer into bottles from a tap or spigot? Use a bottling wand or a piece of tubing and fill from the bottom up.

 

[agentgonzo]

but why would anyone ever splash beer into bottles from a tap or spigot?

You wouldn't. I was explaining why you don't want to splash (even though you get foam). Sorry if that wasn't clear

But I don't use a bottling wand. I fill direct from the tap, but without splashing. Any O2 pickup from the beer sliding down the glass gets used up by the yeast during bottle conditioning and/or is suitably small too not affect my beers. I don't brew heavily hopped beers either.

 

[VikeMan]

I'm glad you found a way to get the small amount of CO2 in non-pressure fermented beer to foam up so you can cap on it, but why would anyone ever splash beer into bottles from a tap or spigot?

You wouldn't. I was explaining why you don't want to splash (even though you get foam)

True story: Years ago, there was a guy on another homebrew forum who had "discovered" that the key to excluding O2 while bottling was to drop fill from a spigot, splashing vigorously, thus "driving off" all the air. Of course, that's nonsense. His work was a classic example of the following brewing process development methodology.

1) Think about a potential process change, applying a severely limited understanding of physics, biology, and/or chemistry, as needed.
2) Try it, but don't directly compare the result to the result of the old, tried and true, widely accepted process. Make no objective measurements (very important)! BTW, a single trial is plenty.
3) Taste the result, assess it to be "great," and report the new best practice. Bonus points for debuting it on Youtube or a Podcast, but a forum post will do nicely.
4) Defend the new best practice by calling challengers "haters," "luddites," and believers of "homebrew lore."
5) If necessary, find and cite an entirely out of context white paper whose title seems to support the argument.
6) If necessary, misquote a vague statement allegedly uttered by Charlie Bamforth. The statement should be now unverifiable and at least 20 years old.

Ok, that was too much fun. But I have unloaded a pet peeve, temporarily anyway.

(ETA: Number 6 above is not meant as a dig at Charlie Bamforth. He knows an awful lot about brewing.)

 

[agentgonzo]

6) If necessary, misquote a vague statement allegedly uttered by Charlie Bamforth

Love it. So many people on my other forum quote Charlie as if he were God without actually understanding what he's saying

 

[Broothru]

Love it. So many people on my other forum quote Charlie as if he were God

Well, he kinda’ really is. But as @VikeMan points out, you kinda’ have to have rudimentary knowledge of physics and other ‘sciency’ stuff to actually comprehend what ol’ Charlie is tryin’ to say.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

When reducing the O2 in the bottle, the "foam" isn't the important part - the important part is "what is the gas inside the bubbles in the foam"?

I saw this over in a recent "bottle from keg" topic

I've had success with this "quick shot of CO2" method:

• Fill a bottle to the desired level
• turn off the tap (always forget this at least once)
• lower the bottle so just the tip of the straw is in
• give a little shot of CO2 which empties the contents of the straw into the bottle, returning it to the desired level, and agitates enough to fill the bottle the rest of the way with foam.

so it looks like there's something new (to me anyway) to consider - as I have some wine preservative from previous failed attempts at using it.

---

Over the past six months, I'm starting to see that the idea of "fast carbonation" (bottles at 75F with fresh yeast for a week or two) is producing better results. I'll likely try some variations and alternatives over the next year (PET bottles with no headspace, 65F rather than 75F; different "cap on foam" techniques, maybe 75F without fresh yeast).

slightly aside: I'm separating "carbonation" from "conditioning". Assuming that carbonation occurs in a week (or so), hoppy styles are usually better fresher (less conditioning) and malty styles can often benefit from additional conditioning.

---

With my last couple of batches, I introduced some new (to me) techniques "up stream" - with the idea that beer will get to packaging in a "better" condition. No easy way to know for certain - as quantitative measurements appear to be too expensive.

 

[Pehlman17]

Great thread! Lots of good info here.

From reading through everything above, Im gathering that purging and/or limiting headspace oxygen seems to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to mitigation O2 when filling. Also, a lot of discussion around capping on foam when packaging already carbonated beer. But when it comes to more tradition bottle priming/conditioning I have another question. For those of you who have tried both, have you seen much of a difference (with regard to oxidation) between racking to a secondary vessel (ie, bottling bucket) onto a priming solution compared to dosing each individual bottle with priming sugar and filling directly from primary?