2 replies to this topic

[davelew]

Yes, the yeast absorbs some of the oxygen in the headspace of the bottle.Typically, bottle conditioned beers have a longer shelf life than kegged beer. This is due both to the live yeast (which scavenges some oxygen and protects the beer from the rest of it by expressing enzymes to guard against free oxygen radicals), and the fact that the one-time seal on the bottle cap is more effective than the re-usable seals on a keg.

First off, I started kegging after my third batch of homebrew...that was a long time ago. I hate bottling and always have.However there is something about a bottle conditioned beer that is refreshing,maybe its the waiting 2-3 weeks for carbonation or something.Anyways, the last time I bottled a brew was for my wedding last year (may), so its been a while, as I said I love to keg. It seems to me that when you bottle beer there is just no way around some how exposing the beer to oxygen. I was having all kinds of issues, I guess I'm not really set up to bottle very efficiently. My theory is, if yeast absorbs oxygen in order to ferment, would the yeast absorb any oxygen exposed to the beer (to some extent) during the bottling process? It is not a true primary fermentaion but it is fermentaion none the less and the yeast still require some level of oxygen, therefore it will still absorb ANY available oxygen dissolved accidently into the brew. Is my thought process correct on this? Any thoughts anybody?edit: for the record it is a scottish wee heavy w/ an 7.8% ABV. I would think that some oxidation is acceptable to a "storing" beer like this.

[Thirsty]

I will agree that perhaps the yeast may consume some oxygen, but not to the levels that they require during their 1st phase of fermentation during the lag, where they are reproducing, not so much consuming. Spalshing beer during the bottling process, may introduce permanent oxidative flavors quicker then any scrubbing can remove. I sometimes bottle a large amount by using my keg as a bottling bucket. Mix priming sugar and beer, purge the headspace, now it can be well shaken and mixed thoroughly, then beergun a case or so for natural carb to the bottles, then let the remanining beer in the keg ferment out, then balance with CO2. It is a great method for closed system purged bottling for natural carb.