Carbonation lost by recapping beer?

[Drifted88]

Going to be micro dosing some bottles with gypsum to adjust the mineral content, but I'm not sure how much carbonation is going to be lost by uncapping them. Does anyone have any experience with this or know how much carbonation is lost in breaking that seal?

 

[Kenmoron]

There really shouldn't much lost at all as it takes time for CO2 to diffuse out of liquid. If you have the bottles really cold that will minimize it even further. One thing to note is that you will likely be exposing your beer to a little more oxygen. I would be cautious about that if this is a hoppy beer. Making sure they are real cold and keeping them that way will also slow down the effects of oxidation.

 

[isomerization]

There really shouldn't much lost at all as it takes time for CO2 to diffuse out of liquid. If you have the bottles really cold that will minimize it even further. One thing to note is that you will likely be exposing your beer to a little more oxygen. I would be cautious about that if this is a hoppy beer. Making sure they are real cold and keeping them that way will also slow down the effects of oxidation.

The oxygen mixing in comes at the expense of carbonation lost from the headspace in the bottle.

I’d also expect a lot of nucleation from the gypsum, causing foaming/carbonation loss too.

 

[lowtones84]

Adjusting the mineral content really doesn't seem to be worth the risk to me. But if you're going to do it, I would make sure it's as cold as possible during the process.

 

[Drifted88]

Thanks everyone for the tips. The plan is to dissolve everything into a distilled water solution to avoid the nucleation problem. It’s a Vienna Lager so hopefully oxidation is kept to a minimum.

 

[isomerization]

Thanks everyone for the tips. The plan is to dissolve everything into a distilled water solution to avoid the nucleation problem. It’s a Vienna Lager so hopefully oxidation is kept to a minimum.

Make sure to super chill the gypsum solution too. Might be helpful to also calculate a tiny bump in vol of CO2 (using sugar) along with your gypsum. Presumably the yeast are still active and this could both scavenge O2 and replace lost carb.

 

[mattdee1]

Adjusting the mineral content really doesn't seem to be worth the risk to me.

+1 to this

Let it ride and change your gypsum levels next time you brew the recipe.

 

[Drifted88]

Make sure to super chill the gypsum solution too. Might be helpful to also calculate a tiny bump in vol of CO2 (using sugar) along with your gypsum. Presumably the yeast are still active and this could both scavenge O2 and replace lost carb.

This is my scratch work so far. That much sugar according to my calculations should add 0.5 volumes per bottle

 

[Drifted88]

+1 to this

Let it ride and change your gypsum levels next time you brew the recipe.

Definitely adjusting next time. This brew is on a time schedule sadly. No time to brew another batch before the deadline. Baby shower is this weekend

 

[isomerization]

Definitely adjusting next time. This brew is on a time schedule sadly. No time to brew another batch before the deadline. Baby shower is this weekend View attachment 668060

I don’t know if you have enough time then to guarantee the yeast uses that sugar.

Does this beer taste awful as is? If not, most people likely won’t notice either way, so I’d also vote not to treat the whole batch. Maybe do a bottle or two for science?

 

[isomerization]

This is my scratch work so far. That much sugar according to my calculations should add 0.5 volumes per bottle
View attachment 668058

Using your numbers, I am coming up with a target of 0.725 g sugar per 12 oz bottle. If you dissolve 32.6 g of sugar into 200 mL (final volume), then you need to add ~4.5 mL liquid to each 12 oz bottle (32.6/200=0.163 g/mL). Adjust for different bottle sizes, but something looks off?

Edit: Nevermind looked again and you have the amount of sugar doubled in the 200 mL volume, so looks good.

 

[Drifted88]

I don’t know if you have enough time then to guarantee the yeast uses that sugar.

Does this beer taste awful as is? If not, most people likely won’t notice either way, so I’d also vote not to treat the whole batch. Maybe do a bottle or two for science?

It’s tough to drink for me. If I get halfway through I can drink the rest, but with the gypsum addition it’s a proper crushable beer. I had been trying to diagnose this problem for the last 2 months

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I will fall in with the "not worth it" crowd.
If the beer has been lagering for a while, the yeast are likely very dormant and would likely take a while (longer than between now and next weekend) to revive and eat the sugar you are adding. By then, you will likely have suffered oxidation damage from 2 fronts:
1: air entering the headspace, bringing oxygen with it
2: the water in which you dissolve your gypsum solution will have oxygen dissolved in it unless you take care to deoxygenate it, and that will diffuse throughout your beer.
Also, if they don't eat it by then, you will have a sweeter than intended beer.
You will lose a little carbonation not as a result of it off-gassing while the cap is off, but because once you close it back up it will have to off-gas in order to build up an equilibrium pressure in the headspace. When you release the headspace pressure, the beer has to repressurize it by sacrificing dissolved CO2 (and trading it for the oxygen you introduced into the headspace).

Do you really think a little gypsum will help it? have you tried it with a test beer (drink it without, add some gypsum and taste it again)?
Edit: I see you already answered the last question.