Open the lid, quickly pour, and close?
Wouldn’t the active yeast doing the secondary fermentation absorb any oxygen? It only takes seconds when using yeast and sugar to remove oxygen from strike water. Wouldn’t it be similar in this case?
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If doing closed transfer, it is all forced carbonation. I do natural carbonation for select beers, but open transfer. Apology for not making that more clear!
Thanks so much for the clarification!
thanks, i appreciate the pictures as im looking for practical stuff like that
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Hello, I spund as much as possible when 2 Plato left to go…I have already purged keg with CO2 using one of the various methods of starsan liquid transfer described. I also ferment in fermzillas, and can put a CO2 line on and avoid suckback of any oxygen into the fermenter when I cold crash. after the crash is done, I close transer to the above mentioned purged keg.
I also do treat my water before brewing (one of few lodo steps I do) with sodium metabisulfite. I boil the ro water briefly, then add a campden tablet, crushed, per each 5 gallons at 200 then chill to strike temp.
considering adding .3 g per 5gal at packaging as well to scrub additional oxygen, but have not yet.
I counterflow fill when packaging for contests with a bench capper, and cap on foam. It has been a long time since I have had a judge spot oxydation in my beer.
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Another alternative would be to dose thru the gas QD port
Based on the tests done around deoxygenated strike water, I really wouldn’t worry too much about adding priming solution by opening the keg lid. Diffusion from the headspace into the beer is minimal during that time without agitation, and any oxygen that is introduced should be consumed by the remaining yeast within minutes.
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What about oxygen taking effect within the first 25 minutes? Would the yeast scavenge that quickly? Plus bottle would need to be room temp for yeast and oxidation is slowed by colder temps
I cold crash to ~34 F and bottle that cold beer. The low temperature prevents the yeast from being active but also slows the oxidation reactions. I have wondered which would win as the temperature rises. Can the yeast become active and scavenge the oxygen before it causes unwanted reactions? I asked that question of Mr. Wizard in BYO magazine a few years ago. Although he printed my question he gave a typically long-winded answer that was devoid of any information that actually answered the question, so I still don’t know.
Valid questions. I put the filled bottles back into my ferm fridge. I can only hope they do their job quickly. Anecdotally, I can say since I began this method I’ve not received an oxidation comment in a competition.
The web page for CBC-1 states a pretty broad range for refermentation: 20 - 30°C (68 - 86°F). I take it your ferm fridge temp falls somewhere on the cooler end of that range or a little below?
My apologies to Mr. Wizard - he did answer the question. He said that oxidation reactions happen fast and “Yeast can prolong freshness, but the notion that yeast quickly consume oxygen is not true if the yeast is old and tired, especially if the cell density in the package is low.” The implication is that the yeast left over from fermentation will likely not be able to consume the oxygen before it reacts with the beer. Adding fresh, healthy yeast helps.
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I understand what he’s saying, but oxidation reactions depend on time and amount of oxygen. The deoxygenation experiments were tested with water saturated at room temperature with 6ppm O2. It’s unlikely you’d get anywhere near this level by opening the lid to add priming solution. Remember that wort (although of a higher gravity than finished beer) maxes out around 4ppm after 15 minutes of aggressive shaking.
If you want, you could definitely add bottling yeast along with priming sugar. I haven’t noticed any need to, although I am curious to see if it would cut down on carbonation time. Maybe I will try that next.
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Just racked my 1.039 El Dorado pale to keg. Dryhopped with 2 oz of El Dorado that I will leave until the keg is empty. Added priming solution and it splashed a little, racked beer over, did not purge keg ahead of time. Typical procedure. I even roll the keg around a bit to mix the priming solution and then vent.
Will condition for a week or so ( low 60s) vent and serve.
If oxygen was an issue I would know about it, low og beer that typically is on for at least 2 months or more
Sorry I don’t understand all the hoops that I have read about in this discussion some go through when kegging beer
To each their own
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Regarding oxidation occuring in the first 25 minutes, antioxidant chemicals not only consume oxygen but are more reactive and are sacrificially consumed first. While yeast is a little different, I found one study showing that some inactivated (dead) yeaat is actually more effective than potassium metabisulfite as a protectant in wine.
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What does old and tired yeast mean?
Yeast from a package is “young and fresh” but yeast from a fermenter is “ old and tired”?
I could see perhaps yeast from a DIPA or barleywine being stressed out but those would seem like exceptions. Still I would think if you racked actively fermenting beer over to keg then it would not be “old and tired”.
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It depends both on the gravity of the beer and the pitch rate. If you have underpitched then the yeast will go through all their sterol reserves by the time they have finished fermentation and will be unable to bud another generation (i.e. “old and tired”). If you have pitched enough or more than enough yeast then they will finish with some reserves left and not be as “old and tired”, but still may not have the reserves to begin a vigorous new fermentation. We were talking about bottling, where racking actively fermenting beer is definitely beneficial in terms of oxidation prevention but risks either under-carbonated beer or bottle bombs if your timing is off a bit or your FG estimate is wrong.
I have heating and cooling in the ferm fridge. I can control it at any temp.
Since I force carbonate all of my beers and I do not naturally carbonate beer in the keg, here is what I do to prevent O2 ingress into finished beer.
I have conical fermenters here and do not do any secondary fermentation. Everything happens in the conical. After primary fermentation is almost complete, I pressurize the fermenter with CO2 and “burp” the yeast out of the dump port. I use a tri-clover Tee on the top of the fermenter to pressurize it to about 2-3 PSI. If I am dry hopping the beer after burping out the yeast, I run about 1 PSI of CO2 into the tee, open the cap on the top, add a funnel to the top of the tee and pour in the hops (see photo). Then I re-cap the top of the tee and add about 2-3 PSI of CO2 and let it sit for three days. I then close transfer the beer through the racking port on the fermenter to a keg that has been purged with CO2 (after sanitizing it). The gas in tank plug has a line attached to it to bubble the CO2 being pushed out into a jar of sanitizer.
It is a bit more of a complex way to dry hop beer, but that is the way I roll and keeps the beer from potential exposure to O2.
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Old and tired is a phase, not necessarily a permanent quality. It means that they depleted all fermentable sugars and have entered the stationary phase, with some dying. However fermentable sugars will wake it up. If it’s yeast that you’d repitch, and if it will successfully carbonate your bottles, it should be happily scavenging that oxygen. If you made a very high gravity beer, you might want to use bottling yeast anyway.
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