barls
causer of chaos and mayhem
- Joined
- 30/1/05
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here are the bungs at grain and grape
http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/index.php?cPath=1_30_35
http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/index.php?cPath=1_30_35
Whoa whoa whoa! Risks? I'm quite risk averse. After all the hard work so far I don't want to botch my first batch. First of all, I don't know what risk I'm taking? Also, after identifying said risk, could one of you deft hands guide me in the right direction?
I'll give my usual safety warning about bottle pasteurisation - heating pressurised glass bottles is really, REALLY dangerous. If you do this, use PET bottles or invest in one of those bomb disposal suits. Better still, just don't do it. Its really frickin dangerous. The beverage industry never, ever bottle pasteurises.
Cheers
Dave
here are the bungs at grain and grape
http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/index.php?cPath=1_30_35
The risk I am referring to is acetobacter getting into the headspace. Acetobacter live on the surface of the cider. You have a large surface area of contact between air and cyser, this is where acetobacter lives. If you fill right into the neck the surface area is tiny, and any reserves of oxygen negligible. Also oxygen can oxidise alcohol into acetaldehyde, which tastes horrible. This process doesn't need any bugs to help it.
Even though you have a good seal, you will probably open the carboy to test your cyser, letting air in. Air can also slowly infiltrate through the airlock. If your carboy is plastic, air can move through the walls. Experience shows that oxygen has a way of getting in despite our best efforts. If you have no headspace, you don't have to worry about any of this. Personally I think its worth it to add a bit of water or juice to make your chance of success much better.
Greg
marbles are another way to do it.
you add the marbles to decrease the head space. it means that you dont dilute or need to add anything else.
Hi Dave.
Not really on topic but i was sure that most large breweries did bottle pasteurize? I went to independent distillers last year and i'm sure that's exactly what they do, as to southern bay brewing and grand ridge brewery from memory. I might be wrong but i distinctly remember that one the product was bottled it went through the big thing that looked like a giant pizza oven (one of those ones with the conveyor belts - put pizza in one side and comes out cooked on the other). This was the pasteurizing unit which worked by spraying with hot water?? Happy to be corrected. Sorry this isn't really on topic
:icon_offtopic: I've never seen a beverage manufacturer use bottle pasteurisation (worked in industrial control for years). If they pasteurise, they do it before the bottles are filled through a flash pasteuriser then force carb and fill. If all they want to do is settle yeast a lot will centrifuge instead. I did a quick search and indeed, you can get industrial bottle pasteurisation units. Well. Well. Never seen one. Possibly its on used a smaller scale than the flash units.
The issue with bottle pasteurisation is that you are heating a carbonated liquid inside a sealed container. As it warms, the pressure inside will rise. Glass bottles will hold some pressure but all it takes is a small flaw or scratch on one bottle and its shrapnel time. You can also blow the crown seals off. It may be feasible on an industrial scale when you know the quality of your bottles and have the whole thing calibrated (plus its all contained inside a big steel box if things do go foom) but on a homebrew scale where you are using whatever bottles you can get, have no idea what the pressure rating is, no idea how much pressure is inside the bottles and have very limited control over temp...
Cheers
Dave
It's really starting to clear now, I would like to rack again.
Looking at the process, I see some people purge the vessel being racked into with CO2 to limit oxygen contact.
Just wondering instead of buying a CO2 canister (or whatever you buy the CO2 in), could you just use dryice?
Drop a chunk in the carboy it's going into, and maybe even drop a chunk into the one you're racking from to create a barrier in the head space?
I suppose a cheap way of getting the small amount of CO2 required could be buying soda stream canisters? Just need a way to release it in a controlled fashion into the carboys? I assume putting it on top of a jiffy fire starter isn't the recommended way of getting it out Ahh childhood!
After a bit more research it seems Argon might be the way to go. Gave my local BOC a quick call, can get 500lt of food grade Argon, a regulator and an application gun for $300! Bargain...
http://winesave.com/ is a cheaper option, but you only get around 50 x 1 second 'squirts' for $20 (1 second squirts would do a wine bottle). You would probably use a 5 second squirt for a 6 gal carboy to create a layer thick enough to protect during racking and while aging.
Out of all of my hobbies, I think this one is becoming the most fun! So many gadgets!
Or just don't have a headspace if you are that paranoid about o2.
heres the even cheaper option
https://daveshomebrew.com.au/index.php?page...t&Itemid=99
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