Oxidation from secondary - how quick?

Hoping to get opinions views on this to help settle what appears to be quite a differing view amongst alot of people on oxidation, and how quickly it can take hold (not to mention that everyone seems to describe oxidation in a different way...)

American IPA, basic grain profile, ~6% crystal, dry hopped in a secondary. Lets say 6.5 gallon carboy, 4.5 gallons in the secondary carboy (so a good amount of headspace). Secondary was not flushed with CO2 after the dry hop. How quickly would oxidation begin to take its toll?

If said beer were to be oxidized, how would you describe it? Wet cardboard, muted hops, overly sweet, musty?

I never flush secondary/primary/keg/anything with CO2 (99% of brewers don't), and have no issues with oxidation.

The residual CO2 off-gassing from secondary would put a new CO2 layer between any oxygen and the beer in less than 24 hours. The O2 has to literally be dissolved in the beer to start the oxidation process, so just transferring doesn't really introduce an appreciable amount of O2 into the solution if you are even 1/2 way careful when racking.

Even IF you did dissolve a good amount of O2 into your beer, it takes a good 3-4 weeks for the symptoms of oxidation to show up.

All in all, it is HIGHLY unlikely that you could oxidize your beer in secondary, even if you tried. You'd almost have to literally pick the thing up and shake it for a few minutes to dissolve enough oxygen to START the process.

If you have an off flavor, it's likely from something else, most likely during primary fermentation. If you suspect an off-flavor in this batch, describe the off flavor and describe your fermentation process and temps.

While oxidation is indeed a real issue and something that you need to be careful with it is a issue with long term storage not beers consumed with in a few months.

I had a little mini keg that I had filled and was pushing the bung plug in and shoved it clean through and into the keg. I had to pour the beer out into another bucket and then back into the keg. I had foam everywhere from that deal and 2 months later the beer was great.

Biggest issue I see with headspace in a secondary is infection. Just seems to me in every thread asking if it is infected there seems to be a large amount of headspace.

While I agree mostly with what’s been said, oxidation is a problem with a lot of beers, especially in competitions. I think that’s because they’ve spent time travelling, that’s a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.

Recently I had some beers that were used in a tasting experiment and they ended up being loaded and un loaded four times over a two week period and probably rode about a hundred miles in the city. The leftover beers began getting noticeably oxidized about a week after I got them home.

They weren’t terrible, just a little stale, with diminished hop flavor and the malt was getting a little dull. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at first except that I had been critically evaluating them for a while. When they changed I noticed.

So I drank ‘em quick and they continued to deteriorate in the few weeks it took to finish the batches. Again not horrible, just not wonderful. I didn’t get the classic ‘wet cardboard’ taste, they just aged very rapidly.

Oxidized- Stale papery cardboard. Check for oxygen being introduced into beer post-fermentation. Don’t splash when racking/ bottling. Check caps and or keg seals for a good fit. Purge bottles/kegs with CO2 prior to filling. Store beer cold. Drink beer when fresh.

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http://www.bjcp.org/faults.php

I think oxidation is very common, it just seldom gets to be huge. Oxygen is the enemy of beer, and remember getting away with it doesn’t excuse sub-optimal technique.

Wayne, I have to disagree with you. Beer that's been bottled properly doesn't contain any oxygen, ergo, they can't be oxidized.

Also, hop flavor diminishes with time, not oxigenation. Malt flavor also diminishes with time, but in any beer of appreciable ABV (4%+) will maintain it's malt character for quite some time.

A beer that's properly bottled where oxygen is purged will not get oxidated at all, hop flavor and aroma will always naturally diminish after about 6-8 weeks from brewday, and malt character will stay consistent for a good 6-8 months, more for higher ABV beers, no matter how much you shake it.

Also, even if you bottle with oxygen in the headspace, you'll find that one inch of oxygen is not enough to appreciably oxidize a beer, again, no matter how much you shake it. Most sites I've seen put the dissolved PPM for "oxidized" beer at 40+ppm, and you just can't get 40+ppm from the headspace in a bottle, it's physically impossible.

Also, there are several experiments that show that the results of oxygenation don't even show up in packaged beer for 3-12 months (in lagers on the short end, higher ABV beers on the longer end), so even if you DO oxidize a beer, you won't know it for 3-12 months after brewday! I don't think the average beer you were tasting in your experiment above were 3+ months from brewday.

The adverse results of oxigenation is NOT very common. You really have to make a glaring mistake in your brew process to introduce enough oxygen to appreciably oxidize a beer.

Interesting post, TopherM. I’d like to know where you got the 40 ppm number. I’ve never seen anything like that before.

You seem to be saying that oxidation of a bottled beer is ‘physically impossible’ or insignificant, and besides, it takes forever. Which is it?

Unless the flavor we call ‘oxidation’ is actually caused by something else, I’m guessing that you’re off by a couple of orders of magnitude.