Oxygen at Bottling

AGbrewer

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So I just got done transferring from the primary to the bottling bucked with my anti-gravity pump. Unfortunately, the pump decided to inject a bunch of air for the first 30 seconds into the beer (Belgian Tripel).

Question is whether this will cause an issue in the beer. Thoughts?
 
You're bottling, there's air in the head space of the bottle.... Might but you'll never know if that's the cause of oxidation because there are now two sources of air in the beer.
 
You're bottling, there's air in the head space of the bottle.... Might but you'll never know if that's the cause of oxidation because there are now two sources of air in the beer.

I've only had oxidation a couple other times (at least to the level that I was able to identify and off flavor/aroma that was distinctly oxidation). It was in my first couple batches of beer when I had started brewing. During bottling, I stirred the priming sugar into the beer very vigorously. Just to make sure that it was incorporated into the beer properly, man was that a mistake. Tasted like liquid cardboard, had to dump the summer wheat batch as it was just unbearable.
 
The best way to avoid O2 during bottling transfer by any method is to establish full flow in the tube before you put the tube in the bucket. Get the bubble-free flow going into a bowl of measuring cup and then gently ease the tube into the bottom of the bucket. Purging the bucket with CO2 can help displace oxygen, too.
Unfortunately, if you had 30 seconds of aerated flow, it's likely to become oxidized.
 
I wouldn't give up. You have live yeast and sugar. The yeast will scavenge available oxygen while they are active. And with a higher gravity beer like the tripel, a bit of oxidation may not be as noticeable. Give it 3 or 4 weeks in the bottle and let us know.
 
The strange thing is that after the beer was fully transfered into the bottling bucket, i noticed that it was still somewhat bubbly until i filled the last bottle. I tasted a sample and found it to be mildly carbonated. I'm wondering if what i saw was carbonation release rather than oxygen.

Either way, I'm going to roll the dice like @Bubba Wade suggested and see how it tastes in a few weeks. Fingers crossed, i'll let y'all know what happens in October.
 
The strange thing is that after the beer was fully transfered into the bottling bucket, i noticed that it was still somewhat bubbly until i filled the last bottle. I tasted a sample and found it to be mildly carbonated. I'm wondering if what i saw was carbonation release rather than oxygen.
Beer in the fermenter definitely has some CO2 in suspension - cooler temp, more CO2. That's why there's a temp setting on the bottle-priming calculator...so you won't overcarbonate beer by adding to much to the CO2 that's already there. Usually beers finish fermenting at a pretty high temp - 68 or so and don't hold a lot of CO2 but if fermented pretty cool, they can hold quite a bit. If you were pushing CO2, there's nothing to worry about.
 
I'm really hoping it was CO2, but we will see...
 
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I can relate! I think your tripel will probably taste fine but may not store well. Recently, I brought some equipment I was upgrading to my friend’s to teach him how to brew, walked him though it, and told him that if he liked it he could keep everything he’d used that day. Returned two weeks later and the one thing I lifted a finger to help with - siphoning - was a disaster. My cracked plastic cane created a vortex of foam into the siphoning beer just as I turned to him to extoll the virtues of an oxygen-free transfer. (In the past I have down-played oxygenation as a risk in most beers if only because I personally hadn’t faced problems.) It’s four weeks after bottling the blonde ale now and miraculously the beer still tastes very clean (for now), and that foam flowed into the line for the whole 5 gallon transfer.
 

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