Oxidation

Brewing beer at home can be extremely rewarding. There’s no greater satisfaction than reaching a level of proficiency when you can comfortably say “I would pay to drink this in a pub”. However, with certain styles of beer and on a homebrew scale and budget, reaching that level (consistently) can be difficult.

Oxidation is without a doubt one of the biggest banes of my existence (and a lot of other homebrewers out there). It can completely ruin a beer, and you’ll usually only know after brewing, fermenting and spending a huge amount of time and effort. When you reach that final stage and see that you’re beer is darkened in colour, lacks flavour and aroma, and tastes like wet cardboard, the only option is usually to dump it down the drain.

For future reference, I’m going to briefly run through the process for a closed transfer, both pressurised and un-pressurised. The goal of this method is to reduce oxidation/oxygen contact on fermented beer. Oxidation can hugely impact the flavour and appearance of a beer, giving it off-flavours or causing hop flavour and aroma to dissipate. Therefore, it is important to reduce oxygen contact when transferring finished beer, especially heavily hopped beer. These methods will be suited for the SS Brewtech Brew Bucket or other stainless fermenters that are pressure rated to at least 1-2psi.