Pasteurizing sealed bottles

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cj8scrambler

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I finished a batch of sake based on Bob Taylor's guide and bottled it into about 18 beer bottles. He is adamant that it needs to be pasteurized in order to be shelf stable. He recommends pasteurizing twice, once during the secondary and once at bottling. I did pasteurize once while it was in 1 gallon jugs, but now 3 weeks later, I've bottled and capped the sake, but haven't pasteurized again.

I'm wondering if it's safe to heat a sealed bottle to 145 degrees or am I risking a bottle bomb? I figured I'd uncap one bottle and monitor the temp in that one while I heat a batch of them together. I remember seeing on a Point brewery tour that they heat pasteurize in the bottle, but I'm not positive that they were capped at that point (the line wasn't actually running that day). I would think that pasteurizing in the bottle would eliminate any chance of evaporating off any alcohol during the process.
 
Hmm, that's a good question. If you attempt this be sure you very slowly ramp up the temperature. I'd probably attempt it in a water bath. It is possibly you'd evaporate a percentage of alcohol by that time, but I would know by how much. If capped I believe you'll have mini pressure cookers :D which introduces another problem of calculating what the actual temperature is in the bottle.
 
zoebisch01 said:
If capped I believe you'll have mini pressure cookers :D which introduces another problem of calculating what the actual temperature is in the bottle.

Your right, I didn't think about that. The sealed bottles would heat up faster than the open one.

zoebisch01 said:

That sounds like the system I saw at Point brewery. This makes me think I can do it using a bath water system.
 
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