Sorry for the long post. I like clear beer, but recently a couple of my beers from an independent competition came back with comments about oxidation. The beer was definitely oxidized and maybe 3 months old and served directly from a keg. I limit the oxygen exposure post fermentation (so I tell myself) with careful racking and purging of kegs with CO2. However, I fined these beers with gelatin, and prior to that there was no noticeable oxidation.
My gelatin method is to add 1/4-1/2 teaspoon to cold water, let it sit. Then heat it to 160 degrees to dissolved it and pour it hot into the keg (usually precarbonated) then shut the hatch quick. Mix, then wait.
Since there was probably a large amount of dissolved oxygen in the gelatin water, could this have oxidized my beer? Has anyone else had this experience? Obviously it is hard to comment since nobody knows my whole brewing process but I’m just throwing it out there. I haven’t noticed any oxidation from things I’ve bottle carb’d.
I do the same thing as you with the following exceptions: I use beer off the same tap that I am going to fine instead of water and I don’t mix after adding the gelatin.
I usually purge it afterwards as Jeff said above.
I wonder how you bottle for competitions. Perhaps the O2 is getting in at that point of the process.
This is IMO the best way to gelatin fine with minimal O2 exposure. Better results come from starting with very cold beer, of course.
1/ Boil a cup of water (or a little over) in a small pan long enough to reduce to around 2/3 cup - the amount I used back then.
2/ Cool the mixture in an ice water bath to around 160F and stir in gelatin.
3/ Vent the keg and set regulator to 1-2 psi.
4/ Unscrew and remove the PRV, and use a syringe to add the gel mixture through the open PRV hole. I placed a dish towel around the hole as I injected because the positive CO2 pressure can cause a little splattering. The positive pressure also greatly reduces any potential O2 concerns.
5/ Replace the PRV and gently rock the keg a few times.
Having said all this, I no longer use gelatin. I’ve switched my kegs over to the Clear Beer Draft Systems, which draw from the top not the bottom. With this system, a couple days of crashing (strain dependent) leaves clear beer with no oxidation and stripping of flavor concerns. Spunding also helps greatly with cold side/kegging oxidation, among other things. Just $0.02 .
Thanks guys, I burp the keg about 3 times after adding the gelatin but I fear the damage is done due to the 1 cup of water/gelatin mixture I add to the beer which has dissolved oxygen in it. I mostly make lagers, and am also familiar with the lodo method and it breaks my heart but I can’t do the lodo thing with my setup.
I have bottled from my keg in the past and noticed oxidation and loss of carbonation using a growler filler @ 2 psi without purging with C02 first. Those last about 3 weeks before tasting bad to me. These competition beers though were not from the bottle. That makes me really wonder about the oxygen from the gelatin solution or something else.
That is a nice trick with preboiling the gelatin water. Does the beer clear up just as well without letting the gelatin bloom at a colder temps?
I would try and get some additional opinions before you conclude that your beer is oxidized; the judges could be wrong or misidentifying a flavor or aroma in your beer. At some point you have to decide if you like the beer and be OK with comments from judges that you may not agree with.
Based on the discussion thus far, you or a judge should be able to taste the oxidation right out of your keg. Perhaps a side-by-side tasting of the same beer fresh from the tap and from a bottle might tell you something as well.
The more I judge, the more I find oxidation, unfortunately - not always, mind you, but frequently enough. I am pretty hard on myself when I sample my own beers and I have concluded that for lighter beers that I enter in future competitions, I probably will be bottle conditioning right after fermentation, rather than bottling off the keg. It can be done with low/no oxygen pickup, but I don’t trust myself to get all of the entered samples bottled without some oxygen pickup. Bottle conditioning allows the yeast to scavenge and convert much of the O2…now storage and handling is another thing, as is a shaken bottle conditioned entry that clouds a bit with roused sediment.
Don’t forget your 7ppb per day of oxygen ingress though the cap of the bottles. Maximum limit before accelerated staling is 150ppb. So. Even if you bottle condition absolutely perfectly. 150ppb/7 is ~21 days. Drink fast. [emoji12]
Pardon me if it’s been stated elsewhere, but what’s the oxygen ingress on commercial cans? (I’m assuming home-brew bottles and commercial bottles are close enough as to be negligible in difference…)