Submerging bottles in warm water for conditioning...

[ShizuokaBrad]

Has anyone tried submerging bottles in temperature controlled water to help with conditioning? It's winter here in Japan and not having central heating means the area where I usually bottle condition is only slightly above the outside temps (about 5C-15C). I know that a local brewery uses this technique but I wonder how it would translate on a homebrew scale and was wondering if anyone else has tried this.

I was thinking of filling a large pale with water (and bottles) and using an aquarium heater to keep it at 18C. Would this cause problems with rust under the caps...?

I might start with just a couple of bottles and see what happens.

(cue the "why don't you just keg?" crowd in three, two, ...

 

[Thedillestpickle]

I'm fairly sure you will get rusty caps.

It won't be the end of the world, but it won't be ideal.

 

[Brauer]

Why don't you stand the bottles up and keep the water level below the caps?

 

[Roland_deschain]

Why don't you just keg?
(Seeing as no one else did it I figured I'd be the first
I think your idea would work well so long as you kept th caps about water. I may have to try that myself.

 

[ShizuokaBrad]

Why don't you stand the bottles up and keep the water level below the caps?

I may end up going this route but the only reason that I haven't is it would greatly reduce the number of bottles I'd be able to condition at one time. Good idea though

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Crazy idea here. Make an air tight sink box with the beer packed tight inside. Take your beer to the nearest hot spring and head down stream to were the water is 70 degrees. Secretly stow your beer under the water and come back in 2-3 weeks. Alternatively, you could store it at the office? Just better hope you don't get any bottle bombs or gushers. Put a biohazard symbol on the cover so no one opens it.

I use EZ Cap bottles. They are like Grolsch bottles with flip tops and a rubber gasket that would probably do pretty well under water, plus they look really cool.

 

[chuckthebutcher]

I know that a local brewery uses this technique but I wonder how it would translate on a homebrew scale and was wondering if anyone else has tried this.

If it works for the local brewery why wouldn't it work for you?

 

[ShizuokaBrad]

Crazy idea here. Make an air tight sink box with the beer packed tight inside. Take your beer to the nearest hot spring and head down stream to were the water is 70 degrees. Secretly stow your beer under the water and come back in 2-3 weeks. Alternatively, you could store it at the office? Just better hope you don't get any bottle bombs or gushers. Put a biohazard symbol on the cover so no one opens it.

I use EZ Cap bottles. They are like Grolsch bottles with flip tops and a rubber gasket that would probably do pretty well under water, plus they look really cool.

I like those ideas. I need to find a place where the water from the hot spring is 70 and ideally under a bridge. I could call it Kappa-brew.

As for keeping it at work... I'm not sure having cases of beer around university students would be a good idea!!

I've got a bunch of Grolsch bottles that I should use for this. That's an idea that would work.

 

[ShizuokaBrad]

If it works for the local brewery why wouldn't it work for you?

I'm not sure I'm using the same quality caps... or what they do once the bottles have conditioned (like putting them in a dry room or something)... next time I'm there I'll ask around!

 

[flars]

I have done this before to get some beer ready for a dinner. I used an aquarium heater in a restaurant style bussing tray. The tray is seven inches deep. The heater kept the water at 24°C. The beer was probably at 23°. My ambient temperature was 20°C. In your case where it is cooler the buckets could be draped with a blanket or totes with lids.

I also use these trays as swamp coolers. The water can get slimy. I add a tablespoon of bleach to prevent the slime.

 

[eddiewould]

As far as I know, things need oxygen to rust. So long as it's fully submerged, I think the rusting process may be slow? But not sure.

 

[ShizuokaBrad]

Good point! So as long as I dry them thoroughly I should be able to avoid any rusting problems!

 

[slym2none]

You could always cap & then seal with wax.

 

[eddiewould]

Good point! So as long as I dry them thoroughly I should be able to avoid any rusting problems!

Actually, tap water probably has plenty enough oxygen dissolved to rust things - brain fart on my behalf.

 

[brew703]

I have a batch that I under-carbed by mistake. I started placing them on a heating pad at night in an attempt to try and get the carb level where I want it. I'm hoping that helps as I don't want to dump 18 bottles.
May want to try that if you have a heating pad.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

I did this when I bottled my first few batches as I was conditioning in the garage and it was dropping into the low 30s at night. I used a Rubbermaid tote that I cut a small hole in and installed an aquarium heater and water circulator that I picked up from Amazon for about $30 or so for the pair. It had no problem keeping the water around 70F, and I never got rusty caps. I would leave them in for about 2 weeks, and the water came up to about halfway up the neck of the bottle.

 

[Thedillestpickle]

Yes the other concern should be circulating that water so that you don't have a hot spot. Those aquarium heaters get really hot(like burn your finger and melt plastic hot) when they aren't submerged and so I know they kick out quite a bit of heat. So if you simply place the bottles into a tote and then top up with water until half-way up the neck then you are going to have an issue that the water in that tote cannot move around freely.
a pump would be the best solution.

Could you also consider another way of heating the bottles of beer that doesn't involve water?

A box with a small space heater inside of it.

What volume of beer are you dealing with? A large tote has space for 5 gallons worth of beer bottles and a small space heater.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

I used this heater and this circulation pump, and this sort of setup worked perfectly for me in a large Rubbermaid tote. About $25 for the set, so a pretty cheap and easy solution.

 

[flars]

Yes the other concern should be circulating that water so that you don't have a hot spot. Those aquarium heaters get really hot(like burn your finger and melt plastic hot) when they aren't submerged and so I know they kick out quite a bit of heat. So if you simply place the bottles into a tote and then top up with water until half-way up the neck then you are going to have an issue that the water in that tote cannot move around freely.
a pump would be the best solution.

Could you also consider another way of heating the bottles of beer that doesn't involve water?

A box with a small space heater inside of it.

What volume of beer are you dealing with? A large tote has space for 5 gallons worth of beer bottles and a small space heater.

Aquarium heaters have a thermostat. The power to the heater shuts off at the set temperature. When the water from the cooler end of the aquarium mixes with the warmer water near the heater, the power comes back on. When all the water in the aquarium is the same temperature the heater doesn't power on. As long as the heater stays submerged the water will equalize at the same temperature. No boiled beer or fish.

 

[ShizuokaBrad]

Yeah, I'm not too worried about the heater. I've got one with an internal thermostat and adjustable temp range between 18C-26C. It also has a very hard plastic safety case that keeps the heating element away from nuking fish or plastic (and in this case beer).

I actually have a kind of 'reverse swamp cooler' to regulate my fermentation temps. I use a 90L garbage pale half filled with water and the above aquarium heater I mentioned. I've cut a hole in the lid of the pale which allows me to stick the neck of the glass carboy (and airlock) out of the pale. I also run the cords for the heater and an additional digital thermometer to check temps through the hole in the lid. It's a cheap and compact way for me to regulate my temps.

If I use the same system for bottle conditioning I'm just worried about rusty caps... and there's been a few good ideas to help with that! Thanks!

 

[Zwerski]

I bottle condition in bomber cases. If cooler than desired, I slip a heating pad under the beer and turn the pad on low.

 

[ruger988]

Not sure if it will go low enough, but I'm looking at getting an "Anova Precision Cooker" soon. Its a sous vide cooker and maintains a perfect temperature of water. Plan on using it to maintain temp for my kettle sours (and to cook some awesome steaks.)

If it goes down to ~70* you could easily use it to maintain water temp of your bucket, bottles could always be put into big 1 gallon ziplock bags to avoid rust concerns.

EDIT: Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UKPBXM4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Looks like the low end of the range it can maintain is 77*, certainly wouldn't be ideal, but wouldn't be the end of the world for bottle conditioning though.

 

[Thedillestpickle]

Not sure if it will go low enough, but I'm looking at getting an "Anova Precision Cooker" soon. Its a sous vide cooker and maintains a perfect temperature of water. Plan on using it to maintain temp for my kettle sours (and to cook some awesome steaks.)

If it goes down to ~70* you could easily use it to maintain water temp of your bucket, bottles could always be put into big 1 gallon ziplock bags to avoid rust concerns.

EDIT: Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UKPBXM4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Looks like the low end of the range it can maintain is 77*, certainly wouldn't be ideal, but wouldn't be the end of the world for bottle conditioning though.

bagging the bottles is the best idea so far

 

[Kharnynb]

I use a similar system for my diy swamp "warmer", but use a stc-1000 to keep the temp more accurate.

In my case it is mostly for lager brewing in very cold temperatures though.

link

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Again, I used to do this and didn't run into any problems with rusty bottle caps, but for what it's worth I was using the colored ones, not just the plain silver ones. Not sure what sort of coating they use to color the caps, but it seemed to keep the rust away. Obviously your mileage may vary, but couldn't hurt to do a couple of test bottles before putting an entire batch of beer in.