A thought experiment for reducing oxygen naturally when bottling

[Silver_Is_Money]

Disclaimer: As of now this is merely me literally thinking 'out loud' through my fingers as I type, and I'm reaching out to see if my thought has any potential merit. I have no idea if there will be merit.

My thought experiment is one of attempting to reduce oxygen in 'nominally' a typical 12 ounce bottles headspace and carbonate the beer at the same time simply by fermenting initially with a yeast well known to not ferment maltotriose, such as London ESB, or Windsor, or S-33, and then add Nottingham or some other yeast well capable of fermenting maltotriose and taking the gravity down thereby at bottling time, and lastly bottling without any addition of bottling sugar.

Would this simple procedure ...:
1) ... be sufficient to decently carbonate the bottled beer?
2) ... consume sufficient headspace induced oxygen during the process of chewing through the maltotriose to adequately extend the storage life and enhance the flavor profile of the beer?

Additional thought. Might this experimental method be more suitable for 22 ounce bottles, whereby each bottle would still have the same headspace induced oxygen to be removed by the yeast, but with the benefit of quantitatively more maltotriose to be eaten through by the yeast whereby to provide for more adequate carbonation?

 

[Big Monk]

Disclaimer: As of now this is merely me literally thinking 'out loud' through my fingers as I type, and I'm reaching out to see if my thought has any potential merit. I have no idea if there will be merit.

My thought experiment is one of attempting to reduce oxygen in 'nominally' a typical 12 ounce bottles headspace and carbonate the beer at the same time simply by fermenting initially with a yeast well known to not ferment maltotriose, such as London ESB, or Windsor, or S-33, and then add Nottingham or some other yeast well capable of fermenting maltotriose and taking the gravity down thereby at bottling time, and lastly bottling without any addition of bottling sugar.

Would this simple procedure ...:
1) ... be sufficient to decently carbonate the bottled beer?
2) ... consume sufficient headspace induced oxygen during the process of chewing through the maltotriose to adequately extend the storage life and enhance the flavor profile of the beer?

Additional thought. Might this experimental method be more suitable for 22 ounce bottles, whereby each bottle would still have the same headspace induced oxygen to be removed by the yeast, but with the benefit of quantitatively more maltotriose to be eaten through by the yeast whereby to provide for more adequate carbonation?

Bottle spunding is much easier. Just bottle with remaining extract.

 

[ncbrewer]

It seems like priming sugar would accomplish the same thing as the two-yeast method - and be more predictable.

 

[Big Monk]

It seems like priming sugar would accomplish the same thing as the two-yeast method - and be more predictable.

The issue is you need active fermentation to scavenge Oxygen. Adding sugar to finished beer will carbonate it but not protect from oxygen intrusion st bottling.

 

[ncbrewer]

The issue is you need active fermentation to scavenge Oxygen. Adding sugar to finished beer will carbonate it but not protect from oxygen intrusion st bottling.

I don't get it. The priming sugar ferments and is commonly believed to scavenge some oxygen. If the correct amount of additional sugar is fermented by the two-yeast method, both would have the same amount of fermentation in the bottle, no?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Bottle spunding is much easier. Just bottle with remaining extract.

Do you do forced ferments regularly? The only way I'd be comfortable doing that with something I don't brew regularly would be alongside a forced ferment. I'm wary of recommending it on a homebrew site (though the LODO section may be the least risky) just because doing it wrong is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Qhrumphf]

(i have routinely racked to pins with remaining extract, but those get spiled, and are beers I've brewed many times and know where they'll finish)

 

[Big Monk]

I don't get it. The priming sugar ferments and is commonly believed to scavenge some oxygen. If the correct amount of additional sugar is fermented by the two-yeast method, both would have the same amount of fermentation in the bottle, no?

The problem is time. Even though cold beer absorbs dissolved oxygen much slower than warm beer, yeast which has taken a beer to terminal gravity does not have enough “get up and go” left to do anything other than slowly eat sugar to carbonate the beer.

Only actively fermenting yeast has the reducing power to actively scavenge oxygen.

 

[Big Monk]

Do you do forced ferments regularly? The only way I'd be comfortable doing that with something I don't brew regularly would be alongside a forced ferment. I'm wary of recommending it on a homebrew site (though the LODO section may be the least risky) just because doing it wrong is a recipe for disaster.

Of course you have to do a FFT. I do one every time.

 

[Miraculix]

We had this figured out in another thread with experiments and all. When bottle conditioning, the problem lies in the air trapped in the head space. It contains oxygen and it does not get completely dissolved before the yeast finishes eating the priming sugar. Afterwards it goes slowly into solution and oxidises the beer, with the yeast now being inactive. The solution, replace the headspace with co2 or other gases than air.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Back to the original question, I don't think the amount of sugar consumed by the second yeast would be predictable at all, and would likely result in over-carbonation.

IMO everyone who bottles should be doing FFTs, because they allow reliable spunding, and avoid the uncertainly and oxidation that occurs with other methods of determining stable FG.

A multi-faceted approach is very helpful if you want to fully decrease oxidation. Minimizing and/or purging the bottle headspace before capping is definitely part of it. Spunding and minimizing transfers is also part of it, among other things.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I seem to recall watching a video (or perhaps two separate videos) where a guy filled plastic beer bottles, then squeezed them until the liquid was nigh on coming out, and at that juncture capped them. He conventionally bottled a beer at the same time. Several weeks later he opened and poured them, and the plastic bottle beer was a nice yellow, whereas the glass bottle was brown. He said there was a world of taste difference favoring the pale yellow beer. This seems to lend credibility to plastic bottles. His plastic bottles were Coopers brand.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

OK, my memory of the videos wasn't quite spot on, but the gist of it is there.

 

[Miraculix]

I seem to recall watching a video (or perhaps two separate videos) where a guy filled plastic beer bottles, then squeezed them until the liquid was nigh on coming out, and at that juncture capped them. He conventionally bottled a beer at the same time. Several weeks later he opened and poured them, and the plastic bottle beer was a nice yellow, whereas the glass bottle was brown. He said there was a world of taste difference favoring the pale yellow beer. This seems to lend credibility to plastic bottles. His plastic bottles were Coopers brand.

Just like I said above, the air in the headspace is the real problem when bottle conditioning. The yeast uses the little oxygen in solution in the liquid but cannot get all of the oxygen in the headspace. Unfortunately, you cannot do this with glass.... But with plastic, why not!

 

[brewbama]

I agree with the guy on the video. That was probably one of the best side by side demonstrations of oxidation I’ve ever seen.

 

[Big Monk]

Bottle spunding becomes much more amenable to the masses when you bring PET bottles into the mix. I'd still want to be doing a FFT on the batch and monitoring closely, but for the squeamish it could serve to alleviate any apprehension they might have.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

At the end of the second video the kegged beer from the same batch is noticeably lighter in color than the plastic bottle that had the air squeezed out of it.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Does anyone know where the Coopers brand of either 500 mL or 740 mL PET amber beer bottles and caps for same can be found within the USA? Amazon.com used to offer the 740 mL bottles, but no longer has them.

 

[Big Monk]

Does anyone know where the Coopers brand of either 500 mL or 740 mL PET amber beer bottles and caps for same can be found within the USA? Amazon.com used to offer the 740 mL bottles, but no longer has them.

You can get those sizes in PET all day on Amazon. Not sure why they would need to be Cooper's brand.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Various reports indicate that the Coopers brand are much heavier walled than the rest, including (to my knowledge, subject to correction) Mr. Beer. They are also presumed to have better oxygen barrier characteristics than the rest.

 

[Vale71]

Maltotriose makes up on average about 20% of fermentable sugars in an all-malt wort. That's way too much for bottle carbonation, bottle bombs will ensue. Besides that no saccharomyces cerevisiae has been proven to be unable to ferment maltotriose so basically you're planning to bottle with an indeterminate amount of fermentable sugars left, which is much worse than bottle spunding (which I don't recommend doing either).
Refermentation in the bottle will only consume a small amount of oxygen no matter whether the fermentables are added in the form of priming sugar or are made up of residual fermentable extract. FV or bright tank spunding followed by proper counterpressure filling is the only way to really achieve O2-free packaging of beer in glass bottles.
Regular PET bottles are extremely oxygen permeable. Those made specifically for beer have O2 barrier and scavenger layers added and are probably better, in the short run, than a glass bottle filled with large amounts of residual O2. In the long run even the best PET bottles with barrier and scavenger will let in much more oxygen than a glass bottle which will only let O2 in through the cap.