Danger of oxidisation?
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Finneptitude
Danger of oxidisation?
I have aboout 20 litres of amber ale in my primary fermenter and was thinking about transfering it over into another fermenting bucket for a secondary fermentation. The problem is that the other fermenting bucket can hold almost 30 litres. Is there a danger of the beer becoming oxidised with so much room left in the fermenter?
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philbyford
Re: Danger of oxidisation?
I'm by no means an expert, and I know the jury's out on the whole secondary camp, but my first thoughts are how long it has had in primary and for what reason you wish to transfer? If it is for clarity and it's not been in primary for more than 3 weeks, I would just let it be. By transferring you are just rousing yeast again.
With regards to the head space issue, you can face problems at the latter stages of fermentation. Because you have very little activity and are not producing much CO2 to fill that head space contamination risks are greater. I wouldn't have thought that any oxidisation would occur from having more head space, but more likely to occur from transfer itself.
My advice would be to let it sit in primary at fermentation temp for 3 weeks, then if clarity is still an issue, cold crash for 24 hours and then rack off to bottling bucket or keg.
With regards to the head space issue, you can face problems at the latter stages of fermentation. Because you have very little activity and are not producing much CO2 to fill that head space contamination risks are greater. I wouldn't have thought that any oxidisation would occur from having more head space, but more likely to occur from transfer itself.
My advice would be to let it sit in primary at fermentation temp for 3 weeks, then if clarity is still an issue, cold crash for 24 hours and then rack off to bottling bucket or keg.