Stove-top pastuerizing - CAUTION!

I just finished pasteurizing my first batch of cider. I read and re-read the instructions for "Easy Stove-Top Pasteurizing" and tried to follow them to the letter. Two bottles exploded - one in the kettle with the lid on - one as I was setting it on the drying towel. A shard of broken glass hit me in the cheek and, fortunately, didn't do any harm. Broken glass was scattered in a 10 ft. radius of the explosion. (See pix of countertop below.)

I don't know why this happened when it seems no one else has had this issue. I used a thermometer to check water temp and a timer so the bottles wouldn't stay in longer than 10 minutes. Perhaps my cider was a little more carbonated?

After cleaning up the broken glass so the area was safe to work in, I opted for what I believe was a safer way to proceed. (again see picture below) I placed an open bottle of tap-temperature water with a thermometer in with the bottles to be pasteurized. When the open bottle contents were at 150F I figured the rest of them would be also and pulled them from the pot.

No more broken bottles. No more changes of chonies.

Cheers.

Glad to hear nobody was injured.

Did you use a Pop bottle to test for carbonation?

Could be weak bottles.. or, as I mentioned a couple of times in another post.. if the bottles are too full you run the risk of explosions due to the liquid in the bottles expanding too much. Once the empty space at the top is filled there is no place for the liquid to go but out.. read "explosion". That breakage combined with the hot gas in suspension.. causes the damage.. and danger. People need to keep this in mind when filling the bottles. DO NOT OVERFILL. Better yet.. UNDERFILL.

HopSong said:

Could be weak bottles.. or, as I mentioned a couple of times in another post.. if the bottles are too full you run the risk of explosions

People need to keep this in mind when filling the bottles. DO NOT OVERFILL. Better yet.. UNDERFILL.

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I followed my normal ale bottling procedure leaving about 3/4" at the top. And no, I didn't see anything about leaving them shorter than that. My bad I guess.

My concern is that there are some other dumb-a**es like me that will try this not realizing that there is such a thin margin for error between overfilled and correctly filled bottles. I'm going to bottle more cider, but I'm going to do it by monitoring the temperature in an open bottle and pull them all when that one reaches pasteurizing temperature. I think that procedure is intrisically safer.

Best to put a lid on when waiting for bottles to finish...

rocketsan22 said:

Best to put a lid on when waiting for bottles to finish...

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Yes. The first one exploded in the kettle and the lid saved a big problem there. The one in the pix exploded while I was moving it from the kettle to the drain-board.

I figured I had a weak bottle when the first one went off. Decided I had a flawed procedure when the second one blew.

Not that I am a safety freak or anything but a nice cheap pair of googles would keep glass and hot cider out of your eyes when pasturizing. Over in europe the seem to have a simple table top pasturizer to use at home, why the heck dont we have something simple like that over here? WVMJ

I've found the safest way to stove top pasteurise is to not... Use the dishwasher instead...

Puddlethumper said:

II don't know why this happened when it seems no one else has had this issue.

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Trust me, you aren't the only one this has happened to. There are a myriad of posts about people having to clean up after a bottle exploded on the counter top. Luckily I haven't read any where people sustained injuries other than their pride. I just never really could wrap my head around the idea that I could injure someone in my kitchen from exploding bottles, so I chose a different route.

I know it's easier said that done, but kegging really makes the whole process a LOT more enjoyable if you can afford it and have somewhere to put the set up. If you need your cider to travel, just fill a growler for transport.

Pickled_Pepper said:

Trust me, you aren't the only one this has happened to. There are a myriad of posts about people having to clean up after a bottle exploded on the counter top.

I know it's easier said that done, but kegging really makes the whole process a LOT more enjoyable if you can afford it and have somewhere to put the set up. If you need your cider to travel, just fill a growler for transport.

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I really couldn't believe that my experience was an isolated incident. And I am now convinced that this procedure has just too slim of a margin for error to be considered safe. I was wearing glasses to protect my eyes and the shard that hit my cheek would have made them necessary had it been an inch higher.

Kegging is definitely a great way to go. But initial setup cost and space requirement for a kegerator can be a problem. Perhaps the only truly safe method involves the use of artificial preservatives producing still ciders. I'm not ready to go there yet. I think we need a safer procedure for pasteurizing in the bottle.

First things first: you do not need to get the temps to 150 F, that might be too high. As I understand it, multiple studies have shown that just one minute at 140 F will kill every living thing in the cider [EDIT: this is apparently a little low... though 150 might still be high]. If you had a highly carbonated brew going to 150, then that may have been the cause.

Second: my advice is to test 6 capped bottles full of room-temp water in your pot before adding any cider. The reason is that pot size, water composition, altitude and a whole bunch of other factors might change how your bottles will react (as compared to Pappers' in the initial experiments). If your pot gets 6 of your bottles to 140 F in ten minutes, use that temp for the cider. If the water goes too high, drop the pot's water temp and try again. If the water doesn't hit 140, raise the temp and try again. Repeat until you've got it right.

I use two pots and they each pasteurize my bottles VERY differently.

Thought 180ish was ideal???

oljimmy said:

First things first: you do not need to get the temps to 150 F, that might be too high. As I understand it, multiple studies have shown that just one minute at 140 F will kill every living thing in the cider. .

I use two pots and they each pasteurize my bottles VERY differently.

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I had not heard the 140F number mentioned until your post. If that is the case then it does change things quite a bit.

That being said, I'm inclined to view much of this as overthinking of a simple problem. If we want the temperature of the fluid to reach a certain point (whatever that point may be) it would seem logical to simply monitor that fluid until it reaches the desired temperature. We can't stick a thermometer into a capped bottle but we can do the next best thing, i.e; monitor a similar sized sample bottle in the same pot during the process. This seems like such a simple solution to me, but perhaps I am missing something (?)

That's happened to me when my cider was over carbed.

Hi PT, sorry, correction: my sources tell me that 1 minute at ~140F will likely kill all existing *yeast*, even if there are microbes left over that might survive (there shouldn't be, if we've sanitized correctly). Though it looks like full pasteurization (total kill) does need a little higher. My numbers might be a little low. That said, I wonder if we can't achieve our goals by hitting 140F... I've never had a bottle re-ferment and that's been my target temp. Furthermore, it seems to greatly reduce the chances of the sorts of explosions you're worried about.

As for your test method, I considered it, but I worried that cap-on heat transfer might be very different from cap-off heat transfer, so when I started pasteurizing I just did a bunch of advance tests to make sure I was getting the temp I wanted. Perhaps the cap-off method works well, too. Anyway, let us know if you decide to give it another go.

oljimmy said:

As for your test method, I considered it, but I worried that cap-on heat transfer might be very different from cap-off heat transfer, so when I started pasteurizing I just did a bunch of advance tests to make sure I was getting the temp I wanted. Perhaps the cap-off method works well, too. Anyway, let us know if you decide to give it another go.

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Thanks for the update. I have another batch in secondary right now and will bottle it in a week or so. I intend to use the cap-off method at 150F for pasteurizing.

This evening I opened a bottle from the batch I pasteurized last week and it must have worked because the carbonation had stopped. Will see how it is in another week or two with another bottle.

Fossey said:

I've found the safest way to stove top pasteurise is to not... Use the dishwasher instead...

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So how does that work? Just put them in and run it?

bizarrojosh said:

So how does that work? Just put them in and run it?

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Pretty much... I just run it on the longest hottest setting - which for me is 2 hrs on intensive (dishwasher says 70 deg C, peaks at about 50) let the bottles cool in the dishwasher and store in a cupboard.

If any blow - I've only ever had one bottle go - its all inside and safe. And you get a 6 gallon batch done in one go...

Maybe this will help.

passedpawn said:

Maybe this will help.

]

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That does help a lot!

Using this knowledge it would seem safe to change the target temperature to 145F. When you figure the time required to heat the fluid from 140F to 145F then add the carry-over time as the fluid cools back to a level below 140F we have more than ample exposure for effective pasteurization. This reduces the stress on the bottles and yields a safer procedure.

Bingo!

oljimmy said:

I worried that cap-on heat transfer might be very different from cap-off heat transfer, .

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Maybe I'm missing something but I can't understand why it would be all that different. If anything, I would think the capped bottles might heat a little faster much the same as a covered pot boils faster than an uncovered one. Your experience with 140F was probably spot-on because of the time the fluid remained in the target temperature zone.

Following passedpawn's information perhaps we can use the uncapped bottle method to monitor the temperature and shoot for a guaranteed safe target (i.e. 145F) ??

Your thoughts?

IMO stove-top pasteurizing = recipe for disaster. Use a dishwasher if you have one with the right settings, or pasteurize in a cooler with a spout as I describe in the thread I started https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/quck-simple-cider-nottingham-yeast-437568/

Another thing to consider... The OP doesn't say how he did it, but I believe the sticky recommends putting an upside down plate or something in the bottom of the pot to help keep the bottles from directly touching the bottom. Plus you need to let the bottles cool down a little afterward as well, because you don't want thermal shock from them going from very hot water to room temperature countertop.

One more thing - on the dishwasher method, you need to make sure to use the "sanitize" cycle if you have one as otherwise the water may not get hot enough. If your dishwasher (like mine) just has a "heat water" cycle that would probably be sufficient, I would think.

FYI, if you have the NSF logo on the door of your dishwasher, you get the temps in the graph. I measured those myself, with a thermocouple inside a bottle. Good luck with your efforts.

I bought a meat thermometer with a 4 foot cord, filled a bottle with water, corked it and stabbed the probe thru the cap. Ran that thru my dishwasher on normal and heated (didn't try sanitize). The heated run hit 147 for about an hour inside the bottle. Anyways, if anyone wants to try the dishwasher method and doesn't know the temps it hits you can get similar thermometers for under 30 bucks.

Never had an issue with stove top pasteurizing. One thing I do know though, if you subject glass bottles to sudden changes in temperature, they will stress and fracture along any faults in the glass. Ever pour a hot liquid into a cold glass? Boom, shatters. Moreso if the contents of that bottle was under any sort of pressure from the liquid inside.

Make sure you always add the bottles at the beginning and don't just drop them into a hot water bath from room temperature (or, God forbid, fridge temperature) or you'll sure to have some breakage. I insert my bottles into the pot and bring the temperature of the bath up to 190f, then cut off the heat and let the bottles rest for a full ten minutes. Then, I use strong kitchen tongs and a hand towel to remove them to the counter top and allow them to cool back down.

That being said, i'm sure the dishwasher method also works fine.

This was one of the reasons I spent all of the time doing the experiments regarding pressure and pasteurization in this thread - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/bottle-carbing-idea-final-data-review-205862/


Edit - This thread is where I started - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/bottle-carbing-idea-203159/

Dishwasher idea sounds like a nice simple method. I'll have to give that one a go.