Oxidation by splashing?

[Nimzomitch]

How much risk of oxidation is there really when racking to secondary or bottling bucket?

If shaking the carboy full of wort is an inadequate way to oxygenate, even when done "vi-ga-rously," it then seems to me like I'd really have to try to do some big splashing to get off flavors from oxidation when racking...?

[DannyW]

If oxygen gets in there pre-fermentation the yeast will use it up.

In the finished beer, the O2 just sits there oxidizing your beer.

[Nimzomitch]

I get that, but how much splashing would it really take to get off-flavors?

And wouldn't the yeast use up what little gets in there? I'm bottling and so there is going to be some yeast activity anyway...?

[DannyW]

Sounds like a good time for a side-by-side.

Use 2 bottling buckets. Siphon to the bottom of one, and let the other spash down from the top. Mark which bottles are which, and report back to us in a few months.

Better yet, send 3 bottles to the BN for an on-air tasting - 2 from one bucket and one from the other, but don't tell them which is which and see if they can tell. Mark the caps with colors or smurfs or something so you can call in and tell them which is which after tasting.

[Brancid]

also, when moving to a secondary. the primary carboy is full of co2. While splashing around in the primary may realy stir up the yeasties and trub at the bottom I think that airiation at that point wouldn't be a problem. Durring transfer may be a different story though.

[barleypopmaker]

I wouldn't think it would take much. Any oxygen introduced after the yeast hit the anaerobic state is not a good thing. But to me it's not worth wasting a potentially good beer to try a side by side. All I do is lay down a blanket of CO2 into my secondary or bottling bucket and then you don't need to worry about splashing. To do it on the cheap if you don't keg and have a co2 tank, just use the paintball cartridges and one of these.

Then you don't have to worry at all one bit. The beer can splash around and as long as it is below the co2 blanket your good to go.

[BeerMan]

Beer is very forgiving my best beer ever was after a stuck sparge requiring me to transfer all the grain to a bag into a bucket, then I broke my carboy (glad I had a spare on hand) all my times were F&%ked up I moved grain when I should have sparged etc. I agree with the triangle test but you don’t need to bother TBN cause the ultimate judge is you have a friend or a lover or a friend/lover arrange 3 glasses for you and then decide.