Potential Oxidation Problems

[mgohring]

HELP!

I need some opinions of others on this topic. It’s kind of strange and definitely not how I would’ve planned for things to work out. Here goes...

Last night (9.20.11), a friend and I racked our cold crashed beer into corny kegs. We had two different batches of beer, about 12 gallons of each. We racked the first batch into two corny’s, leaving us with 2 gallons left over in which we hoped to bottle this Sunday (9.25.11). We racked the remaining 2 gallons into a cooler we used to use for a hot liquor tank, the idea being that we could bring the beer back up to temp to bottle on Sunday.

We only had one other corny left for the second batch (got some bad kegs online and they’re SUPER dirty on the inside and didn’t have time to properly clean them last night). We decided to fill the last clean corny keg, then rack the remaining 7 gallons into one of our fermenting Sanke kegs, again wanting to bring it back to room temp to bottle.

Now, I’m really worrying about the amount of headspace in each vessel and the fact that we didn’t purge with CO2 prior to racking the beer into the vessels. How quickly will this beer oxidize? The cooler has about 3 gallons of head space and the Sanke has about 8.5 gallons of head space. I’m really hoping those kegs will be clean enough to rack into them tonight so I can at least purge the air out.

Thoughts?

 

[MalFet]

Meh. If you were reasonable in your handling and didn't do much to agitate the wort after it was in the sanke, I wouldn't worry about it too much. In a still environment, surface gas exchange is slower than you'd think.

 

[day_trippr]

Why the perceived need to let the brew warm up before bottling?

Cheers!

 

[mgohring]

Other than having to carry the keg and cooler downstairs, there was no agitation of the beer during the racking. It's the massive amounts of head space in each container that have me worried.

 

[mgohring]

I figured the wort would need to be back to room temp for the yeast to wake up. Is that something that doesn't need to happen? Can you bottle 40 degree beer and still achieve good carbonation? Or would you need to pitch a little more yeast?

 

[day_trippr]

I figured the wort would need to be back to room temp for the yeast to wake up. Is that something that doesn't need to happen? Can you bottle 40 degree beer and still achieve good carbonation? Or would you need to pitch a little more yeast?

I don't see what the functional difference is between bottling cold and then allowing the bottles to warm up, verses waiting for the brew to warm up and then bottling...

Cheers!

 

[Pappers_]

+ 1

 

[mgohring]

My thinking was that by cold crashing and settling much of the suspended yeast out, that I might come up short when trying to bottle condition. Perhaps there is enough residual yeast in the wort, as I've read a couple of places. I guess I was trying to avoid having uncarbonated bottles of beer due to lack of yeast in the beer. It's much easier to get a little yeast in your wort when racking 70 degree beer than 40 degree beer. I do see what you're saying though, as there should be the same amount of yeast in the beer post cold crash transfer, whether into bottles or a keg to warm up. If I let it warm up in a keg, I could always add a little bit of additional yeast for bottling.

So, am I to believe that I can bottle 40 degree beer without adding more yeast and they'll carb up just fine?

 

[mgohring]

Did some more reading around and it seems the overwhelming consensus is cold botting is perfectly ok, as has been stated already.

My main purpose of the post was to address the oxidation of the remaining beer. I'm going to side with MalFet on this one and let it be until I have time to bottle. The other option would be to transfer to (hopefully) fully cleaned cornys and purge the air out with CO2, then transfer to bottling bucket on Sunday and bottle them.

 

[MalFet]

So, am I to believe that I can bottle 40 degree beer without adding more yeast and they'll carb up just fine?

In my experience, unless the beer has been very cold for ages and ages, you'll have no trouble carbing up. I don't cold crash much anymore, but I used to regularly. In all that time, I think I only had one batch out of dozens that didn't carb up right (and who's to say that one was even a result of cold crashing?). Of course, YMMV.

 

[mgohring]

I'm definitely going to go that route from now on. Thanks for all the help everyone!