I do the same thing but without all the extra hardware, just a bag. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jbj7IJ4uZU&t=3s
I kind of find it silly how far people will go to avoid oxygen on the packaging side (pushing from fermenter to keg with CO2 and then purging 9x etc) but are perfectly fine cold-crashing without feeding CO2. I think if I didnt have CO2 handy I wouldnt cold crash. The oxygen intake is significant and very obvious. A little extra trub in the keg or bottle is A OK.
This happened to me a month or so ago. One gallon sucked back into the fermenter full of a blonde. I thought I was doomed. Like one of the previous commenters mentioned it floats at the top I rack it off lost some beer and went on.
I too jumped on HBT and did some searches. If you search there is a thread on here that mentions an episode of Brew Strong on the Brewing Network with the owner of Five Star. He said he has drunk a whole glass of Starsan. Although I'd never do this, for an owner of a business to risk advertising such an act I trusted his word.
With all that being said what I learned was that it will affect the body, which it did. If you don't rack it off or from underneath it, you will essentially water down your beer. Other than that most everyone who sucked on that Keg (not knowing about the mishap) really enjoyed it.
Rack it off and chive on dude.
As far as suck back and preventing it:
I use PET carboys and when my black box starts to cold crash I pull the carboy hood disconnecting the blow off tube and I place some sanitized loose foil over the opening. Hope this helps.
Please keep us up to date on your decisions and outcome of the beer.
CHEERS!!:rockin:
I kind of find it silly how far people will go to avoid oxygen on the packaging side (pushing from fermenter to keg with CO2 and then purging 9x etc) but are perfectly fine cold-crashing without feeding CO2. I think if I didnt have CO2 handy I wouldnt cold crash. The oxygen intake is significant and very obvious. A little extra trub in the keg or bottle is A OK.
I just use a 3 piece airlock with vodka in it. If it gets sucked in, I don't care.
Been there, seen that, done that. Sucks.
Norcal Solutions sells these jar lids with nipples to make a CO2 reserve system. Off gassing CO2 fills these two 1/2 G Mason jars and traps the CO2 so it can be drawn back into the fermenter to prevent suck back when crashing. BTW....stepping down slowly will not work as you have seen. I did 5 degree steps and the first step I went down sucked back a whole bucket of Starsan. I shifted to the system pictured following that fiasco.
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