Hi Folks,
I have a question., I just tapped my IPA and after 2 days the aroma and bitterness fade away , well still there but not in the same level they were before it was tapped.
( before tapped I was using the normal cobra head-faucet)… and the aroma and bitternes were great!
Have you faced this condition before?
Beer Temp:41F / Pressure: 13 PSI / tube lenght -10ft
thanks !
Cheers
We need more information. Did you dry hop and if so when and how? Aroma is the first thing to fade. I dry hop in the keg and the aroma can change quite a bit in the first week, but it doesn’t fade away completely.
Something I have also noticed. Usually the first couple beers out of the keg are way hoppier because of stratification in the keg. After that the beer seems to come into better balance.
However, more information is definitely needed here to figure out what is going on.
Aroma fade is oxidation for sure.
That has been my experience as well.
Ok, thanks sharing your comments.
Here more info :
Dryhop scheduled: When fermentation was completed → 6 days ( Centennial in stainer) removed and Dryhopped with amarillo another 4 days (loosed).
Racked from my speidel fermentor to corny from the spigot to the corny port. I just removed the top part of the airlock (the cap) and placed a napkin with strasan. ( probably I got air into the beer here → oxidacion days later).
The corny was purged with CO2 (4 times before racking the beer) and another 4 times with beer in.
after 4 days of CO2 , I did taste the beer and the aroma and bitternes were great… I did plugg the corny to my kegerator and after one day the beer lose aroma and bitternes… I made some temp/pressure adjustement and yesterday it tasted better ( not as good as the 1st pours with my cobra hose, but a little better).
Probably as you said is OXIDATION and I will need to take more caution about it.
thanks again for your comments and help.
Cheers
It could be , please see my process in the comments above and give me your thoughts .
thanks
One improvement you could make is in your transfer to keg. You say you “purged” the keg but it sounds like you just cycled gas in and out. This does not purge the keg; a small amount of oxygen will be replaced by CO2, but because the gases mix, you will still have high levels of oxygen in the keg. There have been numerous threads on this on the forum.
The only way to truly purge the keg is to fill it with liquid, like your sanitizer, and push all of this out the liquid side by pushing CO2 in the gas side. When the liquid is all out, there is only CO2 in the keg.
It is good that you are racking from the Speidel spigot to the keg post. If you purge the keg with sanitizer as above, and rack to the liquid side, with a length of tubing attached to a disconnect on the gas post, you will push out CO2; this tube can go into a bucket of sanitizer like a kind of airlock. When beer starts to flow out the gas side, the keg is full. Quickly disconnect everything, and dispense a pint or so of beer from the keg (with a picnic tap or whatever) to create headspace.
This only leaves the air being drawn into your Speidel as a source of oxygen exposure. If you can devise a way to feed CO2 rather than air into the Speidel, you will have achieved a completely “closed” transfer with no oxygen pickup.
Addressing any or all of these points should help. Good luck.
I would say possibly, even likely. But “for sure”?
Thanks Denny.
cheers
thanks Rob… I will follow up your advices next time.
cheers!
While many debate hot side oxidation, I’ve come across very few if any that debate cold side oxidation. Robert’s recommendation above is probably one of the easiest ways to reduce cold side oxidation around because you already have to clean and sanitize the keg — simply fill it to the rim, close it and push the sanitizer out of it with CO2.
I would add with the CO2 connected and pressurizing the keg, you can invert the keg and pull the PRV to get the last bit of sanitizer out. Some prefer no foam sanitizer for this process.
Also, this is important: don’t leave while you’re pushing the sanitizer out of the keg. It’s a fairly quick process and can be a pretty good way to empty a CO2 tank if you’re not there to pull off the out post quick disconnect when complete. (Guess how I found this bit of information out).
Additionally, when draining beer from the fermenter drain port into the keg ‘out’ post, I like to return a line from the keg ‘in’ post to the fermenter air lock port in an effort to close the CO2 loop. Otherwise, air will displace beer in the fermenter as you drain the beer into the keg increasing odds of oxidation.
I’ve seen others connect the CO2 tank to the fermenter air lock port and push the beer into the keg using very low pressure while opening the keg PRV but that seems slightly risky to me especially if your fermenter is not rated for pressurization. I definitely wouldn’t do it with glass as a matter of principle.
Some will even catch the beer a few points prior to full attenuation, transfer it to a CO2 purged keg and spund to further reduce the possibility of oxygen. Spunding adds the benefit of carbonating the beer as well.
The problem comes from opening the oxygen purged keg to dry hop. I prefer whirlpool additions and hop stands in the kettle vs keg dry hop. …but then again I’m not really a ‘hop head’. I don’t know how to dry hop without opening the keg — maybe a Randal in-line to transfer from one keg to another or something… but it’s a non issue for me.
I have my gas dip tubes trimmed flush with the inside surface of the kegs and invert the keg and attach a gas QD to accomplish this. Either method, this is especially necessary if you also have trimmed your liquid spear tubes and would therefore leave a fair bit of sanitizer in the keg just pushing out the liquid side. Good catch.
thanks BrewBama… like you idea/process of “closed loop system”…
cheers
^^^^
An advantage to the closed loop system is that, as you rack by gravity, when beer flows out of the gas post when the keg is full, it will only rise in the gas return tube until the levels equalize. You don’t have to keep a wary eye out for the moment beer comes through. At one point I used this method, but currently use CO2 pressure to move the beer so I don’t have to lift the fermenter above the keg; but it is a completely closed system and a very elegant solution.
To BrewBama’s point about opening the fermenter to dry hop: there have been some discussions about ways around this on the forum, and I do recall hopfenundmalz (Jeff Rankert) has posted about using a Blichman Hop Rocket in the manner of Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo, “rocking” the beer back and forth between two kegs. A search of the forum should turn up any details he offered.
Yes, I have done it.
Use whole hops, up to 4 oz. Purge the Hoprocket and lines with CO2. Rack from keg to purged keg through the purged Hoprocket.Transfers take some time, and you may have to go back and forth several passes through the hops. The hop aroma is vibrant. I don’t do it all of the time, but I have been thinking about doing it again
+1 on the return line. I dry hop in the keg. I wait until the wort transfer is done. I open the hatch and throw in a bag of hops and purge the headspace 4 or 5+ times with CO2. Since only the headspace is has to be purged it is quick and easy to purge a bunch of times.