# Is Soda Water Deoxygenated?



## Asher (19/11/08)

Is soda water (commercial or home made) Deoxygenated?

In pursuit of the perfect Aussie Lager (for competition purposes only ) I was thinking of watering down a high gravity beer with soda water h34r: 
...So to make soda water I just carbonate water right?
If the water is not deoxygenated in the first place will this soda water addition to a beer aid in oxidising it?
...Or is the fact that I'm carbonating water deoxygenating it at the same time?
Water Chemists?

While I've got your attention:
What is the best way to deoxygenate the water before carbonating if that's what you have to do?
Is boiling it enough?
for how long?

Beers
Asher


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## newguy (19/11/08)

Boiling the water before carbonating it will both de-oxygenate it and it will also sterilise it. Both desirable, particularly if you don't know how much dissolved O2 the water has in the first place.

Simply carbonating the water alone won't drive off any oxygen; adding gas A to water doesn't mean that gas B gets 'evicted'. Hope this helps.


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## Fermented (19/11/08)

Home made soda water (soda siphon, Sodastream) is plain old tap water. 

I don't know about commercially, however, I wouldn't expect that they would do much more than filter it owing to the commerciality of the operation (i.e. spend less, make more $). 

A five minute rolling boil should remove most dissolved oxygen from water. 

As for the rest of your post, someone else may be in a better position to discuss that. 

Cheers - Fermented.


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## bigholty (19/11/08)

I don't know if manufacturers deoxygenate the water before they make it, I don't myself. I have a carb-cap and I often have a 2l soft drink bottle in my keg-fridge connected to about 30PSI (210kpa) of CO2 so that I have soda water on hand. Tastes fine to me, I would normally mix it with cordial or scotch anyway. If you were going to use it to dilute a beer, you could use pre-boiled and cooled water. I believe the boiling helps drive off dissolved gases such as oxygen, and you would also be sterilising the water. I know some of the commercial light beers I have drank are closer to soda-water than beer, but that's fine when you're after a thirst-quench and it's gone in 20 secs!!


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## Adamt (19/11/08)

Commercial soda water may be deoxygenated, depending on the manufacturer. As a pure guess, I'd say Schweppes would start with RO, deoxygenated water, due to their high volume of production.

Adding water with dissolved oxygen into beer presents all the requirements needed for oxidation to occur, so my guess is it would happen. However, if you've filtered/otherwise removed the yeast, this should prevent any ill effects (I'm FAIRLY sure...)

I agree with the others that boiling is best for making your own; this ensures sterilisation and deoxygenation. Give it 5 minutes on the boil and *stir*


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## Kai (19/11/08)

Adamt said:


> Commercial soda water may be deoxygenated, depending on the manufacturer. As a pure guess, I'd say Schweppes would start with RO, deoxygenated water, due to their high volume of production.
> 
> Adding water with dissolved oxygen into beer presents all the requirements needed for oxidation to occur, so my guess is it would happen. However, if you've filtered/otherwise removed the yeast, this should prevent any ill effects (I'm FAIRLY sure...)
> 
> I agree with the others that boiling is best for making your own; this ensures sterilisation and deoxygenation. Give it 5 minutes on the boil and *stir*



If you've filtered out the yeast then oxidation is more likely to occur, as there's no yeast to scavenge the remaining oxygen eg during bottle conditioning. 

newguy is right that merely carbonating water won't remove any dissolved oxygen. However, as CO2 comes out of solution then it will be knocking out O2 at the same time, so yes you can deoxygenate water like this. For example, if you're trying to deoxygenate a keg of water, leaving the lid off and trickling gas through the liquid post (and hence the spear) will knock out most of the O2 given enough time.

If you're exploring high grav brewing for an authentic aussie lager, then perhaps you could go another step and consider some sulphite additions ?


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## Adamt (19/11/08)

Thanks Mr Kai. Fairly sure did not mean completely sure


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## Asher (19/11/08)

That's all pretty well what I had decided too.

What Kai said about deoxygenating. How do you deoxygenate a keg of air? purge it with CO2.... Therefore, a similar process should work for a liquid. A bit of a PITA compared to boiling I know,,, but interesting just the same..


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## Guest Lurker (19/11/08)

The problem is, the amount of oxygen dissolved in water is a function of the pressure of oxygen in the environment. Adding CO2 by increasing the pressure of CO2 to make soda water does not change the amount of oxygen that can be dissolved, they act independently according to their own partial pressures. As noted the action of pushing CO2 in bounces into some of the O2 and knocks it out. But to be safe for your purposes, boil it a few mins, cool with minimal O2 exposure, gas with CO2, use to dilute beer, then you are adding water but not oxygen.


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## Fermented (19/11/08)

I think there's a slight difference between O2 dissolved in liquid and gaseous O2 / gaseous atmosphere in a container.

Cheers - Fermented.


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## kook (19/11/08)

Fermented said:


> I think there's a slight difference between O2 dissolved in liquid and gaseous O2 / gaseous atmosphere in a container.
> 
> Cheers - Fermented.



One spoils beer quicker than the other? h34r:


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## randyrob (19/11/08)

Hey Guys,

This would probably be the most interesting topic i have read on here in months, and it's to do with water not beer!

if a person was to do as the big boys do and not brew at sale gravity, would water adjustments (i.e. salts) be as important post fermentation?

Rob.


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## Supra-Jim (19/11/08)

Asher said:


> What Kai said about deoxygenating. How do you deoxygenate a keg of air? purge it with CO2.... Therefore, a similar process should work for a liquid. A bit of a PITA compared to boiling I know,,, but interesting just the same..



Purging a keg with C02 removes the oxygen because CO2 is heavier than air. i.e you flush with Co2, Co2 sits below the oxygen in the keg (think of it in a similar way to oil and water sitting in a glass). When you pull the release valve, the pressuried Co2 pushes out the oxygen, at it is sitting at the top of the keg.

However in water the oxgyen is dissolved/in solution, and to remove it you need to change either the temp of the water (boil) or the pressure (produce a vacuum). Boiling is simpler.

Cheers

Jim


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## Fermented (19/11/08)

If a gas is disolved in a water which is about 800 times more dense than air sitting in a keg, it's going to be a lot harder to displace that oxygen from the water than by a burst of CO2.

By way of example, carbon monoxide stays in solution in our blood better than oxygen. Try having a cigarette then going for a scuba dive. The carbon monoxide in your bloodstream makes is much harder for oxygen to be in play for about thirty minutes. However, that's a haemoglobin reaction for the most part as I understand it.

The total volume of gas able to be disolved in a liquid is rather finite. Pushing more of one in does not displace the other until the other is somehow equalised to ambient pressure (atmospheric, vacuum, etc). 

In brewing, the oxygen in the wort for the most part is consumed by the yeast. Not so much as to have an anaerobic state, but enough, again, as I understand it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Cheers - Fermented.


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## tin pot brewery (19/11/08)

if one opens a bottle of commercial soda water( as cheap as it comes) when it is at room temp and lets it degas for a couple of hours and pours it into a purged beaker, the DO meter placed in previosly mentioned water will read at almost zero. this is practice, not theorising. cheers.


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## Bribie G (19/11/08)

A couple of months ago there was a thread about Coca Cola buying BlueTongue brewery and planning to build a megabrewery at Tuggerah NSW and someone posted the PDF of their planning submission in which the company described the brewing operation.
(Lion Nathan is trying to take over Coke and presumably kill the brewery but I digress)

In the document they state that they will brew overgravity and reduce the beer to what they call 'sale strength' using _deoxygenated _water.

If I was doing what the OP suggests I would boil a kettle of water, chill it in a PET until just about frozen so it will hold max amount of gas in solution, then use a sodastream to produce soda water. Depends how much you want to spend as sodastreams aren't exactly cheap but come up on special, particularly this time of year approaching Xmas.

Edit: tinpot beat me to it, cheaper than buying a sodastream but far less fun


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## Fermented (19/11/08)

tin pot brewery said:


> if one opens a bottle of commercial soda water( as cheap as it comes) when it is at room temp and lets it degas for a couple of hours and pours it into a purged beaker, the DO meter placed in previosly mentioned water will read at almost zero. this is practice, not theorising. cheers.



That's because it has equalised to ambient atmospheric pressure.

Is that a low enough dissolved oxygen content so that oxidation of a completed ferment would not occur?

Cheers - Fermented.


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## MHB (19/11/08)

Most commercially made Soda Water has added Bi-Carbonate, this is added to improve the flavour, whether or not you want that in your beer is a different question.

As to the amount of dissolved Oxygen, I think most commercially made beverages are made on De-Aired water, to discourage bacterial and algae growth (nothing less marketable than green spring/soda water).

Further on the Oxygen content, there is no acceptable amount of Oxygen in filtered/sterile beer, the Oxygen acts like a free radical and just wanders around smashing up molecules, this degrades the beer and is one of the major limits on shelf life for packaged beer. Breweries around the world go to great lengths to reduce or eliminate Oxygen from packaged beer.

Fortunately as home brewers we shouldnt be faced with this problem as the best Home filtration is going to allow some yeast through, this yeast will scavenge the Oxygen in very short order (less than a couple of hours generally).

If reasonable care is taken to get the Oxygen content down as low as possible (boiling, Nitrogen stripping or vacuum) just using the water you brew with would appear to be the obvious choice.

MHB


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## katzke (19/11/08)

Ok just pour water in it and drink it.

Better yet brew some water and add that. If you do not use much malt or sugar and add the yeast with out oxygenating it will be good to go after fermenting.

Dont see how adding CO2 to water will remove the O2. Just one more step after the agreed on recommendation of boil it.


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## mika (19/11/08)

I've always understood that yeast only uses oxygen in it's growth phase. Post-fermentation with essential nothing to 'eat' why would it absorb the oxygen and what does it do with it ? CO2 I presume.


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## MHB (19/11/08)

What stops the growth (reproductive) phase? Usually its running out of Oxygen in the brew.

Yeast doesnt want to make Alcohol; it wants to make Yeast, under adverse conditions it will switch over to alcohol production, to poison its neighbours so when conditions change (i.e. more O2 becomes available) it has more opportunity go back to making yeast.

We just subvert the process to get the yeast to do what we want, but yeast is always hungry for Oxygen.

MHB


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## Thirsty Boy (20/11/08)

I shall avoid theory and go with practical - 

At work where we make much of the sort of beer to which Asher refers.. we do our dilution with de-aerated water. The water is de-aerated in exactly the way Kai suggested, by bubbling through CO2 while venting the tank. At the end of the process the water basically has no dissolved O2 in it at all. The fact that the water is lightly carbonated afterward, means that the mild effervescence will stop any 02 pick-up during transfer.

Boiling it first would speed up the process and use less C02 as you would only need to drive out the small amount of oxygen that the water re-absorbed after it cooled down, and to add a light spritz so it wont pick up any more later.

TB


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## James L (20/11/08)

Asher.

when i'm making anaerobic media at work, i tend to boil the media (usually 1L or 2 at a time), cover the bottle with foil, and bubble carbon dioxide through it for 20 minutes as it cools. If you dont do this, as the media cools, it will start absorbing oxygen again. 

Then you can seal the bottle, and then purge the headspace with CO2 until needed. 

Otherwise, if you have access to a sonicator, you can remove dissolved gas by sonicating under vaccuum but that is probably a little difficult...

Cheers

James.


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## randyrob (20/11/08)

I'm thinking of having a play with this over the weekend.

i've got a keg full of 9.1% DIPA and i'm running out of general consumption beer
so was thinking of filtering and boiling 10L of water then running this into a C02 purged keg
then filling the headspace with more CO2 and chuck in the fridge and when cool transfer 10L
of DIPA into that keg, effectively ending up with 19-20L of 4.5% beer and 10L of 9.1% DIPA.
What do you think?

Rob.


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## Doogiechap (20/11/08)

randyrob said:


> I'm thinking of having a play with this over the weekend.
> 
> i've got a keg full of 9.1% DIPA and i'm running out of general consumption beer
> so was thinking of filtering and boiling 10L of water then running this into a C02 purged keg
> ...


Hey bloke,
Sounds like a plan  .
Just try out the dilution ratio in a glass first with cheapo soda water to see what suits your tastebuds 
Cheers
Doug


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## Thirsty Boy (20/11/08)

What Doogie said, but remember that the cheapo soda water sometimes has (someone mentioned earlier...) bi-carbonate in it. Your beer will quite likely taste a little like... well, soda water.

A great idea to check the dilution ratios first, but I would go ahead and make your own soda water from filtered and boiled water instead of using the bottled stuff.

TB


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## mika (20/11/08)

James L said:


> If you dont do this, as the media cools, it will start absorbing oxygen again.



How much oxygen are we talking here though ? I remember a post that Screwtop did where with a DO meter he measured the amount of dissolved oxygen in a wort sample prior to yeast pitching. Think it may have been quite a while after the boil and it registered 0 on the scale. He then went on to aerate with different methods and test how much oxygen and whatever was needed but not relevant here.
So thinking that the amount of oxygen picked up is probably negligble ?

Rob - I don't know if cooling boiled water in a closed vessel is such a good idea. Wasn't that the ol' science trick for crushing a can ? or is my brain completely addled :unsure:


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## randyrob (20/11/08)

mika said:


> Rob - I don't know if cooling boiled water in a closed vessel is such a good idea. Wasn't that the ol' science trick for crushing a can ? or is my brain completely addled :unsure:



yeah i did think if this, but it's not an issue really my first handfull of ag batches were no-chilled into 19L cornies before i got a chiller.
the only thing to watch out for is if the ss touches your leg you end up with a bit less skin in that patch


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## James L (20/11/08)

Mika, That protocol is for ensuring there is absolutlely no oxygen in the media. For those strict anaerobes. I'm sure you dont have to be that particular for this application, but it works...


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