Cold crash in better bottle

Whats the best way to cold crash in a better bottle? When I use a solid stopper it sucks in the outside of the bottle and I'm worried it will eventually damage it. If I use an airlock I'm worried about it sucking in air or water through the airlock.

I'm about to cold crash my Oktoberfest in a Better Bottle in a few days... I'm probably going to rig a sterile air filter to the top so that any air intake is, well, sterile. If I weren't doing that, then I'd probably just open the stopper to relieve the negative pressure a few times and not worry about it too much.

I've also seen foam stoppers that allow air to flow in but act as a filter-- not sure if they come big enough for a BB though, but I'm sure something could be done with them.

-Steve

OK, so I gave this one a little more thought on my drive in to work this morning. Excluding bacteria and other organisms is only half the battle-- the other is excluding oxygen. I thought of two different ways to tackle both problems at once: a) a simple, elegant, and automatic solution, though untested and it would need some trials to dial it in, and b) a complex solution that will definitely work.

A) At some point before fermentation ends, attach a balloon to the BB so it will fill with CO2. During crash cooling, the CO2 will supply the extra gas needed to prevent the BB from collapsing under negative pressure. Some experimentation would be needed to determine exactly when to attach the balloon so that enough CO2 would be collected to counteract the contraction of the gas in the BB.

B) Attach a CO2 dispenser (cylinder, cartridge, etc.) and pressure regulator to the BB after fermentation is over and set it to something very low and non-dangerous (e.g. 1-2 psi) and crash cool as normal. Same principal as the balloon in (A), but less "hit and miss". Or, instead of using a pressure regulator, just use one of those small CO2 injectors and regularly apply a short burst of CO2 during crash cooling.

Of course, all of this is probably way overboard, but that's generally my MO.

-Steve

Remove the airlock and bung and replace with an inverted clean and sanitized jelly jar. Done.

I have noticed the "suck in" effect caused by crash cooling a BB. It doesn't really seem to flex the bottle too much, cleaning it flexes more.

It does tend to startle you when you pull the stopper to rack, though.

Popov vodka or star san in the airlock. While I appreciate savagesteve's initiative, it's a bit overkill for a simple problem. I've had my lagers suck back a full quart of star san before, and it didn't hurt it. Vodka would work similarly. You don't have to worry about air. It's not gonna oxygenate it.

Evan! said:

While I appreciate savagesteve's initiative, it's a bit overkill for a simple problem.

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Absolutely! I've never let it bother me before with glass carboys, but now that I have something new, I gotta fiddle with it, no?

What I came up with is more of a mental exercise that I find myself in a lot of times.

-Steve

If you really want to be anal about it, you can fill a small bag with CO2 and rubberband it over the top. That way as the volume is decreasing inside, it will just pull the CO2 out of the bag and collapse it a bit.

little spray of Starsan on some aluminum foil cover and done .