If all else fails you could get a keg and Co2 tank just for soda. Carbonate it at room temp, cool it down in a tub of ice to bottle, that way you don't involve yeast at all.
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Primary: Nothin Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead Kegged: Crappy infected mild Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash
Success! I was able to bring the bottle of highly carbed H2O to 158° without 'sploding. I ran a temp probe through the hole in the lid into a chilled, uncapped bottle of water. I monitored this temp, knowing it would stay close to the temp of the capped bottle. When the temp hit 153° I removed it from the heat, and began running cool water into the canner through the same hole. I removed the lid gasket this time, so when it filled, it just ran out under the lid and into the sink. The bottle temp ended up coasting up to 158 (due to the high temp of the water bath) before it began to cool.
Now that I know that even a highly carbed bottle can be safely brought to pasteurization temps ("safely" assuming some precautions are followed), I'll next try it on some ginger ale!
The next step will be to use a temp controller to switch a hotplate on and off to maintain a water bath at an appropriate temperature. Using this method, it would be much safer to run a big batch of bottles, since it wouldn't be necessary to keep such a close eye on the bottle temp.
Looking forward to the ability to create all natural sodas in bottles!
Quote:
Originally Posted by conpewter
If all else fails you could get a keg and Co2 tank just for soda. Carbonate it at room temp, cool it down in a tub of ice to bottle, that way you don't involve yeast at all.
I'm actually not planning to use yeast at all, I just want to prevent wild yeast/bac from creating bottle bombs in the mail... I'll carb the stuff with a carbonater cap in a 2 liter, or maybe cook up a whole 5 gallons and just dedicate a keg to it for a while.
I pasteurized a sixer of ginger ale and shipped it cross country. It's been at room temp for a week now with no sign of any kind of infection, and nothing exploded in the mail.
During the pasteurization, my temp probe's alarm quit working, so I overshot my temp - got to 180° and one bottle burst. This time I wrapped them all in a towel inside the canner to contain the glass shrapnel, and all was well. I suppose the remaining bottles were "ultra pasteurized" heheh.
I'll definitely continue to do this in the future. I'd recommend a temp controller.
How much head space did you end up leaving in the bottles?
It could be an interesting experiment to bottle conditions some beers and pasteurize half of them. Then at different intervals do some side by side tastings to see how the non-pastuerized beers change compared to the pasteurized ones
Just a thought. I read about this being done in Brazil. They stressed in putting some type of "riser" in the heating pot so the BOTTLES DO NOT TOUCH THE BOTTOM OF THE POT. This may be some of your problem. The bottoms of the bottles are getting much hotter than you intend due to the direct contact with the heat source (bottom of the pan). Try using a steamer tray (or something else that allows the water to pass through) under the bottles to keep the heat on the bottles more uniform.
I've read about this being done in Brazil. One thing they stressed is to put some sort of "riser" under the bottles. It is very important to keep the bottom of the bottles from touching the pot. This would put the bottles in direct contact with the heat source.
Try using a steamer tray (or something that lets the water pass through but keeps the bottles off the bottom).
Maybe this will keep the temps more uniform on the bottles.
I've read about this being done in Brazil. One thing they stressed is to put some sort of "riser" under the bottles. It is very important to keep the bottom of the bottles from touching the pot. This would put the bottles in direct contact with the heat source.
Try using a steamer tray (or something that lets the water pass through but keeps the bottles off the bottom).
Maybe this will keep the temps more uniform on the bottles.
Since he is using his pressure cooker I suspect the riser is installed in it just like you would do for canning, but it is a good point
Since he is using his pressure cooker I suspect the riser is installed in it just like you would do for canning, but it is a good point
Yes, canners come with a riser, and I had it in place for the pasteurization. Without it, I'm sure the risk of bombs would be much higher.
I left a normal amount of headspace, approximately 1.5" in longneck bottles (estimate from memory). The bottle that exploded did get filled significantly higher than the others, which explains its early failure.
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