What I do is fill my destination keg w/ Star-San. I then connect the CO2 and purge the headspace a few times. Then I purge the keg by pushing the Star-San out to either another keg or a 5-gallon bucket. That leaves the keg full of CO2.
Then I run a line from the fermenter to the OUT post of the keg. I hook up a QD to the IN side, and run that line to the top of the fermenter. That means as beer goes into the keg, the displaced CO2 goes back into the fermenter. I'm not drawing air into the fermenter, so it's as closed-loop as i can manage.
I wonder the same thing. If you are noticing oxidation what are you noticing and how far after carbing does it show up?Are you actually having problems with oxidation or have you just been reading too many threads here?
Generally, if the beer isn't great immediately after kegging, it probably isn't an O2 issue. Obviously you do want to limit O2, but if that isn't your problem, you are spending time fixing something that isn't broken. If you post more about your process and recipes, you might get some better advice about how to get to "stellar."
I do double batches every brew.At 10 day transfer to keg my IPAS are better/fresher than at 3/4 weeks... My smithwicks clone is smoother at 3/4 weeks than at 10 day transfer...IMO it's the style that dictates the timeframeThat would be an interesting exbeeriment to do, i.e., two identical batches, keg one after 2 weeks, the other after 4 weeks, then compare.
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I haven't had any issues with what I might consider oxidation, but I try to follow a philosophy of continuous quality improvement. Each time I brew I try to do something better. Thus the focus on eliminating oxygen from the post-fermentation process as much as I can.
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