Carbonation Stop Point/toxic yeast environment

Ok, so for my purposes this question really isnt about beer, but it relates with yeast concepts. Is there a point (at reasonable ABV) when the environment is too toxic for yeast to do anything, especially produce carbonation, even given an abundance of sugar. By toxic, I mean from alcohol alone, not from any sort of contamination. What I am thinking of doing is making some soda and putting some hard liquor in there to make it somewhat like a malt beverage type drink. I know when you make soda that you are supposed to refrigerate the bottles after a week or whenever the carbonation level is at where you like it so as not to overcarbonate. The problem for me is the amount of fridge space I have living in an apartment with roommates. The last batch of rootbeer I made, lets just say, ended up being ridiculously carbonated after a month or so, which is fine when I wanted to spend like 5 min to vent the bottle as i opened it. But, if i added alcohol too the mix, would the yeast not produce as much CO2, or stop after a point? I would like to keep the ABV at 5% or below. Also, if this would not work at that low of an ABV, would using a portion of the yeast called suffice and give me a longer shelf life without over carbonation? Thanks for any input for this little tangent project from my beer brewing.

or, another approach, is there a way to kill the yeast from bottle conditioning the soda? I wouldnt think any kind of over heating or over cooling would be good for bottles...but just another thought (too bad I cant force carbonate)

The yeast will reproduce and make alcohol and carbonation as long as they have food. The vodka will slow em down but you need to chill them or kill them, to stop the 3 F's

In order to kill the yeast, you will have a much higher alcohol level. Some yeasts are known to be able to live in an environment as high as 20% ABV. 5% is not a problem for any brewing yeast.

This means you will not be able to kill your yeast with alcohol if you want to have something that is not hard liqueur. But you can kill it with heat. I have read malt soda recipes where yeast is used to carbonate and the yeast is then killed by heating the bottles above 70*C in a water bath. This is called pasteurization. After 20-30min in the water bath, you can cool the bottles again and all the yeast should be dead.

Not killing the yeast when carbonating soda naturally calls for bottle bombs even when you put them in the fridge as yeast is still active at low temperatures. They just don't work very fast.

Kai

You can also kill the yeast using campden tablets, as long as you don't have problems with sulfites. Most ale yeasts will keep going up to 8-9% ABV, even though they will slow down.

First off, thanks for the replies. I thought of the pastuerization idea before...my concern is breaking the bottle there. Aside from trying to do some tricky pressure measurements, using some gas law equations, and figuring out the pressure bottles can handle....how safe is this? Has anyone actually pastuerized any carbonated liquid on here before? I can't imagine a beer bottle full of water and capped would be safe under those kind of temperatures. I could be wrong though...let me know

cdew4545 said:

Has anyone actually pastuerized any carbonated liquid on here before? I can't imagine a beer bottle full of water and capped would be safe under those kind of temperatures. I could be wrong though...let me know

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I know that people have done it, but I haven't done it myself and would at least wear safety gogles when doing this.

What about investing into a kegging system and force carbonating the soda. Then you can dispense or bottle from the keg.

Kai

david_42 said:

You can also kill the yeast using campden tablets, as long as you don't have problems with sulfites. Most ale yeasts will keep going up to 8-9% ABV, even though they will slow down.

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Opening up a bunch of capped bottled to add sulphites and then recapping sounds like a huge PITA to me.

I'd be a little nervous about heating the bottles, too, but it MIGHT be ok. Maybe you should use the plastic PET bottles to be safe.

-walker

Walker-san said:

Opening up a bunch of capped bottled to add sulphites and then recapping sounds like a huge PITA to me.

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Not to mention the resulting gushing since the contents is alredy carbonated.

Kai

Irradiating them would do it.. but you need $50K for the equipment

We need Chuck Norris to scare the yeast to death.