Discussion on brewing beer from malt extract, hops, and yeast.
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ashbyp
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by ashbyp » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:40 am
I just racked to secondary. First time I've done this and I did it only because the recipe recommended dry-hopping, and it just seems wrong to dry-hop in primary, but I don't know whether it actually matters..
The secondary is a 5 gallon better bottle, but I think it's only got between 4 and 4.5 gallons in there.
Is the headspace a problem, i've read that it could cause oxidisation. Too late now anyway

but just wondering...
Cheers.
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Duncndisorderly
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by Duncndisorderly » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:51 am
As its such a small space your talking about just put a squirt of co2 in there prior to resealing as this should displace any air which has sneaked in during transfer , at least thats the theory and its what ive done ever since i killed 4 gallons of wherry through oxygen poisoning

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Redbloke
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by Redbloke » Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:15 pm
Duncndisorderly wrote:just put a squirt of co2 in there prior to resealing
I also use the Co2 method. Just before racking into the secondary vessel I give it a blast and this leaves a nice blanket of gas protecting all that luverly beer
I've not always done this and in the past I've had a couple of oxidised beers but not since, not sure if it was down to not giving it a blast with Co2 but I'll carry on with this method just in case.
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ashbyp
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by ashbyp » Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:39 pm
i bottle not keg so don't have the C02. i shall relax etc. and see what happens.
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johnh
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by johnh » Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:47 pm
My weizenbock suffers from this. A definite 'sherry' flavour which is luckily quite pleasant in this particular style but not what you want in an ale. I usually aim to rack in time to get a nice cusion of CO2 but didn't do it soon enough.
As an aside, I've just been reading in an old winemaking book about how they deal (dealt?) with this problem. They call the gap above the must the 'ullage' (another nice old fashioned word) and too much is a definite no-no. To reduce oxygen take up the author recommends the addition of 0.5 to 1 Campden tablets/gallon of must at racking time (out of interest apparently in Medieval times sulphur candles were lit in wine vats to the same effect). He says that the sulphur strips oxygen from the liquid forming sulphur dioxide which evaporates off. These old books are renouned for dodgy practices but it seems reasonable enough. Why we don't do this with beer, I don't know.
BTW, my preferred method of dry-hopping is in primary for this reason.
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CyberPaddy66
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by CyberPaddy66 » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:44 pm
As I understand it if your brew is still fermenting a little bit the CO2 will drive off any O2 soon and shouldn't be a problem but then again I don't do 2ndary fermentation myself.
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Aleman
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by Aleman » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:59 pm
johnh wrote:He says that the sulphur strips oxygen from the liquid forming sulphur dioxide which evaporates off. These old books are renouned for dodgy practices but it seems reasonable enough. Why we don't do this with beer, I don't know.
Well dodgy chemistry aside it can be done with beer. I have been known to add a couple of campden tablets to the mash and to the boil kettle with very pale beers. The added sulphite acts as a preferential electron donor becoming oxidised itself rather than other chemicals in the mash, and preventing these chemicals from taking part in further oxidation/reduction changes during storage . .. . It does work and quite well, I've noticed a significant reduction in wort darkening using campden tablets in this way