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More Biofine questions: are we pumping oxygen into our beer?

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  • More Biofine questions: are we pumping oxygen into our beer?

    We have been using Biofine Clear with moderate success in fining our beer. We dose inline between FV and BBT using a peristaltic pump. I recently realized that this technique seems like a very good way to oxidize our beer and thus reduce our shelf life since we are pumping O2 dissolved into the Biofine into the beer itself while dosing.

    Does anyone try to purge the O2 out of the Biofine prior to dosing? We thought of trying to sparge it out using CO2, not sure how successful this would be... any ideas would be appreciated.

    Matt

  • #2
    I havent notice any oxidation after using biofine. It would seem to me that the yeast you are using the biofine to settle out would eat up any O2 pretty quickly.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by jebzter View Post
      I havent notice any oxidation after using biofine. It would seem to me that the yeast you are using the biofine to settle out would eat up any O2 pretty quickly.
      Um, but these are suspended yeast in hibernation with no sugar source. I don't suspect they are actively consuming anything by the time the beer has been cold crashed and is ready to transfer.

      I haven't conclusively noticed any oxidation either - just wondering if we are shortening our shelf life by this practice.

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      • #4
        Oxygen pickup by the yeast doesn't require active transport to enter the yeast cell, so it should diffuse into it readily and attach to its side of cytochrome C and wait for protons to move. It would happen much slower than normal temps, and there would definitely be a saturation point where all the oxygen is bound to cytochrome C any more oxygen above that point would be available to oxidize the beer. It would be interesting to test the biofine and see what the ppb or ppm of oxygen in solution is.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by jebzter View Post
          Oxygen pickup by the yeast doesn't require active transport to enter the yeast cell, so it should diffuse into it readily and attach to its side of cytochrome C and wait for protons to move. It would happen much slower than normal temps, and there would definitely be a saturation point where all the oxygen is bound to cytochrome C any more oxygen above that point would be available to oxidize the beer. It would be interesting to test the biofine and see what the ppb or ppm of oxygen in solution is.
          We measured today and pretty much same as saturation in water. Around 7-8 mg/L. Is everyone that is using Biofine oxidizing their finished beer?

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          • #6
            Eh, probably. But look at it this way:

            Say 8 mg/L O2 in the biofine
            50 ml/bbl dose (somewhere in the middle of the range)
            50 ml/1000 ml x 8 mg/L = 0.4 mg O2 per 50ml biofine dose
            1 bbl is 117.35 L

            So you are adding 0.4 mg/L O2 into 117.40 L of solution.

            That's 0.0034 mg/L, or 3.4 ppb into the beer. If your target is 50 or so ppb pre-packaging, then 3 probably won't matter all that much.

            So...Meh?

            (Unless I'm Not Good With The Maths...I have been delirious with a head cold today.)
            Russell Everett
            Co-Founder / Head Brewer
            Bainbridge Island Brewing
            Bainbridge Island, WA

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Bainbridge View Post
              Eh, probably. But look at it this way:

              Say 8 mg/L O2 in the biofine
              50 ml/bbl dose (somewhere in the middle of the range)
              50 ml/1000 ml x 8 mg/L = 0.4 mg O2 per 50ml biofine dose
              1 bbl is 117.35 L

              So you are adding 0.4 mg/L O2 into 117.40 L of solution.

              That's 0.0034 mg/L, or 3.4 ppb into the beer. If your target is 50 or so ppb pre-packaging, then 3 probably won't matter all that much.

              So...Meh?

              (Unless I'm Not Good With The Maths...I have been delirious with a head cold today.)
              Your math is good. I just found it difficult to believe that so many of us would knowingly contribute to our O2 pickup.

              We did try to sparge the O2 out using CO2, with our equipment we could only get it down to about 5 mg/L. I suspect if we had better equipment we may be able to get it lower, but we probably won't be spending a lot of time on this in the near future. Thanks.

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              • #8
                Not being familiar with biofine as a specific product, but every other finings I have used is stabilised with SO2, which rapidly mops up a fair bit of the oxygen. It's a good question re O2 pickup, but since finings have been used for years (albeit as I say, the ones I have used have quite high levels of SO2), I don't think the finings themselves are a problem, as indicated by the calculation above. Certainly, the only times when I have experienced problems have been due to faulty pumps, letting the finings run dry so the pump pumps air in, or due to faulty seals in the rest of the transfer system.
                dick

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