Poured into secondary - is my beer toast?

[drink]

I'm a beginner brewer, and I recently brewed my first Double IPA. Instead of siphoning into the secondary, I poured it from my primary fermentation bucket into a glass carboy using a funnel. Should I cut my losses and toss the beer or is there any chance the beer will still taste ok?

 

[aiptasia]

Relax, and don't ever do it again. Hopefully it won't oxidize that fast.

 

[cfonnes]

Never toss your beer, until after it has aged for a long time.

It is possible that you oxygenated your beer but there is also a good chance that it will not be a problem.

Most people on this site skip the secondary and just leave it in the primary until it is time to bottle.

 

[woozy]

Seriously guy, just exactly what dangers do you think are going to occur that you feel that it might be necessary to dump what could be perfectly fine beer? Even if it's 90% likely to be bad, why would you dump it? Bad beer never hurt anyone. And it's not that beer is "bad"; it's just that some beer is not as good as others. If it turns out your beer isn't as good as you'd like... then you don't drink it. That's all. And just how sensitive and likely do you think it is to ruin beer at every step of the way. If making beer was that hard no-one would ever successfully do it and we'd all, but the most hard-core extremists, would give up after our second hideous batch.

I'm going to say this: *NOTHING* is guaranteed to ruin beer. Not burning it, not peeing in it, not mopping it off the floor and wringing it through a mop into a bottle. (Okay, maybe mopping it off the floor is guaranteed to ruin beer; but a rough transfer to a secondary is not.) There are things you can do to decrease chances that something will happen that will give your beer a negative aspect but nothing will guarentee those bad things will happen.

You should have been gentler and racking is gentler than pouring but it's all a gradient. Your chance of oxidation are higher (and oxidation makes for a nasty beer) but the chance of oxidation is a gradient; Dumping a whole fermenter from a height of six feet won't guarantee oxidation (But it'll be extremely likely) and racking won't guarantee it won't (but it'll be extremely unlikely). Anything in between is you doing the best you can.

Did you expect an answer like the following:

I suppose by some miracle your beer might possibly survive but I doubt it. I'd toss it because even if the beer is good the dangers of making a bad beer are just too severe and you never want to risk that. Dump it and bury it and salt the earth where you do so. To be safe, cut off your hands so you'll never make this mistake and endanger your neighborhood again.

​

 

[beergolf]

Not the best thing to do, but not the worst thing either.

Bottle it up and drink it fast.

 

[lgilmore]

Just plan on drinking this batch maybe ahead of others. Risk is there, certainty is not. There is a risk of oxidation, but not a certainty of one. Rather than let it set to find out, drink it first. Learn and next time do it the right way.

 

[mikescooling]

A wile back we came to the conclusion that putting a bunch of soap in your brew would wreck it. But this naa,,,, don't do it again.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Cold storage slows the oxidation, once carbed, get it in the fridge...you'll be more than fine.

British "Real Ale" incourages a little oxidation by tapping with a hand pump.

RDWHAHB!

 

[unionrdr]

Pouring like that would add a good amount of o2. So it is pretty likely that it will taste like musty damp carboard out of a dark corner of an old basement. I had the bell on my Red Baron wing capper get worn enough to where the bottles weren't staying sealed as co2 pressure built up in the head space of some bottles of my Hopped & Confused v2. They'd been in bottles 3 weeks plus. I was sitting at my lil table upstairs watchin movies with the wife,& cracked one. One slug & I wanted to gag. It's bad enough to remember what damp musty/moldy cardboard smells like. But to get a mouthfull...OMG that's really nasty. The carbing & conditioning process brings it out strongly for sure. One taste & you'll know for sure if they're bad or not. I had like 3 bottles out of the batch that did that. I now have the Super Agata bench capper. No more worries of bad sealing bottles.
Just use a racking tube next time & you won't have to worry about it.

 

[drink]

Thanks for everyone's response. Why would I dump it even if there is a low chance the beer survived? Well, I guess bottling and conditioning takes time and effort. If I knew there was a 90% chance the beer was going to be nasty, then I would probably cut my losses and use my bottles and time on a batch that has a better chance of being better. But maybe its worth bottling just to see what it tastes like and have the learning experience.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,sometimes luck is on your side & it all comes out ok. Sometimes not. Only one way to know for sure. But once you taste it,you won't want to make that mistake again. I sure learned that one first hand...

 

[mikescooling]

Your beer will taste like most new brewers beer and it will get better and better. Don't mind unionrdr he's a "the glass is half empty" kind of a guy.

 

[unionrdr]

Ha! lolz. I just had to play devil's advocate this time,given the circumstances. Pouring from that height through a funnel is begging for trouble. but who knows? The brewing gods may take pitty on him?!...& by the way,the glass is only 1/3 empty atm!

 

[woozy]

Sorry.

I was just being faciteous and snarky. I've been on these boards a few months and there's two type of posts that really honk my sneezebox: the "I made a tiny mistake; is my beer utterly ruined or should I do something incredibly complicated and weird in a vain hope against hope to save it" and the "I know you guys all say I need to do this that and the other with making beer but I don't really want to do that so my beer's going to be all right anyway, won't it? Well, don't bother answering cause I'm going to do it anyway and ... hey! My beer isn't any good! WTF is up with that?!?!?!?"

You'll probably be fine. There's no way to know till you are done. You'll always make mistakes the first few times and sometimes your beer won't be as good as you like for it. But they'll usually be drinkable and you'll just learn, you'll *always* be learning, as you go and your beers will be steadily improving.


Welcome to the club and hang in there.

 

[Surfanarchist]

I know this is an old thread but it fits my question so well. I had a process failure yesterday in siphoning a Weitzen bock from primary to secondary. I got maybe one gallon of five siphoned before my siphon failed. In a panic and in frustration I pulled out a funnel and poured the rest over. This beer is supposed to sit in secondary for two months before kegging. Considering that I probably just introduced a bunch of O2 to the beer should I just get it in the keg and put CO2 on it now or should I wait the two months, keg it, and see what happens?

Thanks all.

 

[BrewingTravisty]

I know this is an old thread but it fits my question so well. I had a process failure yesterday in siphoning a Weitzen bock from primary to secondary. I got maybe one gallon of five siphoned before my siphon failed. In a panic and in frustration I pulled out a funnel and poured the rest over. This beer is supposed to sit in secondary for two months before kegging. Considering that I probably just introduced a bunch of O2 to the beer should I just get it in the keg and put CO2 on it now or should I wait the two months, keg it, and see what happens?

Thanks all.

Just out of curiousity, what do you mean your siphon failed? Did it get clogged? Or break? Or just lose suction?

 

[Yooper]

I know this is an old thread but it fits my question so well. I had a process failure yesterday in siphoning a Weitzen bock from primary to secondary. I got maybe one gallon of five siphoned before my siphon failed. In a panic and in frustration I pulled out a funnel and poured the rest over. This beer is supposed to sit in secondary for two months before kegging. Considering that I probably just introduced a bunch of O2 to the beer should I just get it in the keg and put CO2 on it now or should I wait the two months, keg it, and see what happens?

Thanks all.

keg it now! Next time, just go right to the keg. It's a perfectly fine vessel for aging anyway, since it's stainless so no light can get to it, and it can age just fine in the keg if you have a beer that needs age.

 

[andrewmaixner]

keg it and add some priming sugar to naturally carbonate in the keg. This will result in the yeast removing dissolved oxygen from the solution as they re-propagate and metabolize the new sugar.

 

[m00ps]

agreed with kegging asap (although its now day 3 since the post)

If you have the ability to keg, I would just use the keg as the secondary instead of another fermentor. This way you can purge the headspace and do a transfer by jumping kegs without any O2 exposure at all

 

[kh54s10]

keg it and add some priming sugar to naturally carbonate in the keg. This will result in the yeast removing dissolved oxygen from the solution as they re-propagate and metabolize the new sugar.

This sound like a great idea to me.

It will allow you to get it in the keg for aging and should get rid of the excess oxygen. It would also allow you to monitor the progress by tasting it periodically. If it starts to go cardboard you might be able to drink it before it gets too bad.

If you leave it in secondary for 2 months you will most likely have a cardboard flavored mess.

 

[flars]

I would think after two years this beer was either enjoyed or dumped.

 

[theseeker4]

I would think after two years this beer was either enjoyed or dumped.

True, but someone bumped the thread with an additional question posted on the 8th.

 

[Surfanarchist]

Just out of curiousity, what do you mean your siphon failed? Did it get clogged? Or break? Or just lose suction?

Siphen did not fail, my process failed. In short i screwed up. I was using a siphon cane for the first time, had the wrong diameter hose, switched to the correct diameter but it was just a little two short, i was getteng wort all over the place. Just a frustrating mess. I since gotten the process and equipment straightened out.

 

[Surfanarchist]

keg it now! Next time, just go right to the keg. It's a perfectly fine vessel for aging anyway, since it's stainless so no light can get to it, and it can age just fine in the keg if you have a beer that needs age.

Thanks. I moved it to a keg today and purged it a few times with C02 and then added priming suger solution to it. It will be what it will be. Chalk this one up to the learning curve.

 

[Surfanarchist]

Well i tapped this yesterday and it was fine. Maybe it would have been better without the extra o2 or maybe i have no taste, either way im happy.

 

[Yooper]

Glad to hear it!

And thanks for the update so we know it turned out ok for you.