EyePeeA said:Posts #17 & 18 made the most sense not to sanitize the 02 caps for me. If you have an issue with not sanitizing them, then don't waste your money on them.
But you don't lose the benefit if you sanitize them.
If you sanitize them you lose the oxygen absobing properties.
If you sanitize the O2 caps you lose the benefit and the extra money spent on the caps.
According to Austinhomebrew, you do.
I agree that there are more than a few working methods which are practiced by successful brewers. But when it boils down to it, we don't really "know" how long it takes for the reaction to occur, or even how long we should dip our caps in sanitizer solution to effectively sanitize them, or if sanitizing caps even matters since you are now dealing with alcohol as opposed to a sugary wort. I've seen suggestions of immediately to 30 seconds to several minutes, and now you are saying days or weeks. It is really all just a crap shoot.
revvy said:Soaking them is what activates the oxygen absorbing magic. It actually takes a week for them to do their job on the bottle.
On Basic brewing James Spencer contacted the maker of Oxygen Absorbing Caps (Crown Beverage), and actually recommended you santize them quickly, evidently the "Oxygen Absorbing Effect" of the caps is not immediate and they need to be wet for a period of time before the magic happens, like days.
Click to listen
It's within the first few minutes of the podcast. Right after the opening and announcements.
They recommend sanitizing ONLY the caps you are using, and sanitizing just before bottling. But you do need to wet them, and it's probably the smartest idea to go and do it, with the sanitizer
Old thread, new question. Will these affect the carb up in bottle conditioning? Don't we need some oxygen for that?
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