Reducing Oxidation

[JR]

A few of my beers in the NHC were showing signs of oxidation.  Some were just too old but some were not that old at all.  (all bottle conditioned)

 

1)   I remember reading somewhere that priming with malt extract as opposed to dextrose takes longer because maltose needs some dissolved oxygen to be fermented while dextrose doesn't and the yeast have to do something that takes time to work around the lack of oxygen and ferment the maltose.  Anyone else heard this or did my memory make it up?  And more importantly do you think priming with DME would help reduce oxidation in the bottle?

 

2) Has anyone used the oxygen absorbing bottle caps, did you notice much difference and where did you get them from?  I am going to be bottling some Scotch Ale sometime and will be keeping some of that for a fair while so I might do an experiment with fancy bottle caps vs regular ones.  Trouble is it will take ages to get the results.

 

I am thinking I will also start using 500ml bottles for anything I am going to keep for a while rather than the 330ml bottles I usually use for stronger beer and competitions to reduce the airspace to beer ratio.

 

any other things I can do to reduce oxidation?

[JoKing]

Yeah - if you stop brewing beer, you won't have any oxidation issues!

[Reviled]

Even the big boys get oxidisation mate, ive had an Epic Pale Ale that was totally oxidised in the bottle, no hops, and a sweet caramel malt flavour like candy almost!! Also look at the US IPA's that beerstore gets in, half of them are more often than not slightly oxidised, but the beer is still good!

I wouldnt worry about it too much personally, its just one of those things IMO - Also, with a scotch ale a bit of oxidisation IMO is desirable!! I brewed a Port Stout a while back and personally I didnt think it was awesome until it became slightly oxidised to give it more sherry like notes...

[Andrew]

Everyone gets problems with this at some point but all you can is to minimise it by doing things like reducing splashing when transferring or moving the beer in any way. Like when you bottling or kegging, I think its best to have a sterlie pipe right down to the base of the container, that way you only get O2 pickup at the start of filling, then once the tip of the pipe is submerged there is no possibililty of picking up O2.
With 1 exception, yeast needs oxygen to have a good ferment. So like we did in the micro I used to work in, we would do all we could not to disturb the wort during production apart from going into FV. We used open top FV's and dropped the wort in from about 5ft up to get loads of splashing, foaming and thus O2 into the wort. Its not an ideal process but unless you buy a sterlie O2 bottle and dose it into your fermeter on pitching its the best you can do.
As for O2 absorbing caps, I,m not so sure. Get the basics right first like reducing transfers/splashing etc and you will make way better improvements than relying on a cap to fix a problem.

[Reviled]

"As for O2 absorbing caps, I,m not so sure"

Im not so sure either, ive tried some Rogue and Sierra Nevada beers with the O2 absorbing caps and they have been oxidised, yet ive had a Stone beer that didnt have the O2 absorbing caps and that was delicious!! So I dont reckon it would make much, if any difference??

[Andrew]

I've seen the research and they do remove some oxygen but its very, very minimal. So if your beer tastes oxidised after 8-12 weeks, a cap is like pissing in the wind. Like I said, get the basics right first. Even commercial beers from the 'Big Bad Men" get oxidised after 4-6 months so I wouldn't be too hard on yourself.

[vdog]

What's your bottling technique? If you bottle with a racking cane and a minimum of splashing that'll help, as will leaving the bottles open for a few minutes before you cap them. Some dissolved co2 will be released and take up the headspace in the bottle, displacing the regular old air in there - so less chance of oxidation.

[JR]

I go to bottling bucket, bulk prime and bottle via tap with bottling tube thing on it.

That leaving the bottles open for a bit tip might help. They get capped pretty quick at present.

Also I think I would need to let the beer come back up to room temp before bottling to help some c02 come out of solution. Recently I have been bottling beer straight out of cold conditioning which would prevent much co2 coming out.

[Andrew]

Personally I don't bother with the bottling bucket step. I use a tube straight from the bottom of the FV into the bottle. Chances are you'll get sediment anyway so I just fine and bulk prime the FV and go straight to bottle.Another step = another chance for o2 pick up and another chance of infection. But then I am a bit lazy too....depends how much cold conditioning you want to do as well I suppose.

[Reviled]

Surely its time for a kegging set up JR??

[denimglen]

"As for O2 absorbing caps, I,m not so sure"

The main problem with crown caps is they're a pretty shitty seal.

Wax the bottles after capping them will help reduce oxidation I believe.

With bottle conditioning you've still got live yeast in there and they'll suck up the O2 pretty quick. That's the school of thought anyway. But I doubt the yeast can eat all the O2 in the headspace.

"Chances are you'll get sediment anyway"

Like the Moa in the other thread? ;-)

Way back I used to bottle like that and only had max sediment in the first and last bottles but I went to the bottling bucket because I hated those HDPE fermenters and bulk priming was heaps easier than putting like 1.2213g of sugar into each bottle.

"Surely its time for a kegging set up JR??"

Fuck I still got few come back from NHC with oxidation haha, but that's my bottling from the keg I reckon.

But with a kegging set up you've got CO2 on hand so you can purge everything - oxidation gone!

[JR]

Kegs are gonna be my little reward when I finally get enough work done be be a registered surveyor. Should be April or October (though I said that last year too..)

I do kinda like having the beer frridge full of a bunch of different beer options. Once I'm kegging I cant see that I could have more than a copule of beers on and cold at once.

Do you guys still bottle condition your big beers that you plan to age for a while or do you bottle them from the kegs (or just keep it in a keg?)

[denimglen]

"I do kinda like having the beer frridge full of a bunch of different beer options."

Buy lots of kegs ;-)

"I do kinda like having the beer frridge full of a bunch of different beer options. Once I'm kegging I cant see that I could have more than a copule of beers on and cold at once."

No reason you can bottle from the keg half way through or still bottle some batches.

"Do you guys still bottle condition your big beers that you plan to age for a while or do you bottle them from the kegs (or just keep it in a keg?)"

Yup, have a barley wine, Flander's red and soon a Flander's brown in bottles. It would take me waaaaay to long to get through a keg of anything high gravity.