Beer Forum

Ok i am fairly new to brewing with perhaps 20, 5 gallon batches made. I switched to kegging about 6 to 10 batches back but i am still hounded by a Taste defect in my beer. I can only describe the taste as a kind of flatness i perceive at the end of a drink of beer. I have assumed this might be a oxidation issue and have taken steps to try to eliminate it from my latest batch,but the problem is still there. So i found out i was HOT Side Aerating my wort by placing the chiller in at ten minutes to end of boil ,but then using a mix/stir wand on a drill to stir the wort somewhat aggressively as soon as the flame was off. I eliminated that on my last batch but i have noticed something in my kegging setup that may be the culprit. So last batch was 5.5 gallons in a BUCKET fermenter,which i placed in the fridge for 4 days after fermentation was complete still in the Bucket,i do not think this would have caused much oxidation do you folks? so then i racked it to a purged corny keg and placed it under 30 psi for 2 days . Now i will say my corny has a small leak around the opening, as for instance i set the psi at 30 come back and its at 25 so i crank it back to thirty. At 2 days i purged the co2 and cranked the psi down to 5 psi which is my serving pressure. I sampled a drink and it was well carbed so i left the psi at 5, come back a day later and psi was at zero,so cranked it back to 5 ,psi. so my question is now if the psi does go to 0 ie no pressure in tank could this possibley be an oxidation issue. And isnt the regulater supposed to Automatically keep the pressure at the pre set.Now my regulater is one that has a Grey knob i pull out to adjust then push back in,and i have just been leaving it pulled to the adjust position, is this wrong? Should i have to push it back in? Any help would be Welcome

I think the problem is probably more likely the cold crash in the bucket than the fine leak. Even if the pressure drops off, the co2 will be coming out of solution and slowly bleeding outward.

When you cold crash, it is going to pull in air which will diffuse into the beer. That could be the point of oxidizing that you are experiencing.

Personally, I have switched to transferring when the ferment is almost done but still active, then letting it finish in the leg before chilling. That way he yeast can consume any oxygen that gets in there and you can deal the keg and get the carbonation for free. Look up spunding if you want to read more about it.