Can Conditioning - process?

[stijn26]

Hi,


I'm thinking about buying a Oktober Can Seamer.
But how I bottle now, I have a bottling wand where I fill bottles and then put the cap on (no cap on foam). Afterwards there is a refermentation on the bottle.
I don't have oxidation issues this way. Homebrew stays good for at least a year. Even ipa's I made 2 years ago, they are still decent, aroma is mostly gone ofcourse.

Now I'm thinking about can conditioning. Fill a empty can with the bottling wand, then put the lid on, afterwards there is a refermentation on the can.
Will I have oxidation issues this way? Purging every can manually seems a hassle.

 

[stijn26]

No one with experience on this matter?

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

No experience on this myself, but I can't see how can condtioning should be any different than bottle conditioning. If anything, cans, once sealed, should offer an even better protection to O2 ingress than bottle caps.

The only potential issue I can think of would be the headspace in the can. The top of a can being much larger than a bottle neck, you might risk having a larger air-filled headspace, if you don't take extra care to fill your cans high enough.
A large headspace could be a problem, especially for hoppy beers.
In any case, I would try my best not to have a larger headspace volume as compared to your bottles now.
It should definitely be possible.

I hope someone with practical experience on this can chime in and give you more information. Good luck.

 

[cefiro355]

While I don't have direct experience myself, I researched (what little info there is on the web) and I have heard from a few people that using the wand in the can will have enough headspace. Meaning just like bottling, fill to top of can and pull out should be fine.

 

[beervoid]

Has anyone tried this out yet?

 

[stijn26]

I did this with a neipa recently. Its now almost a month in the can. I will measure DO later and check for oxidation problems. Can conditioning works fine

 

[beervoid]

I did this with a neipa recently. Its now almost a month in the can. I will measure DO later and check for oxidation problems. Can conditioning works fine

Good to hear. How do you calculate the priming amounts?
And could you describe your process?
Im thinking to either freeze some leftover wort and boil and add yeast to use for conditioning or just add yeast and dextrose.
Add to the keg and rack the beer onto it then right after when its still cold can it.

Curious to hear how much sedimentation is in the can.
What kind of DO meter do you have?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Measuring DO after a month is useless. It needs to be done in real time. You could measure 100ppb at packaging and 80ppb the next day. It's because the oxygen is already being taken up in staling reactions.

Also curious what meter you have. Meters financially tenable for all but 0.001% of homebrewers aren't sensitive enough for a post-fermentation reading. Hell many craft brewers can't afford a sensitive enough meter.

Because of the geometries, inital packaged oxygen uptake tends to be higher in a can vs a bottle. However, a can seamer should *theoretically* provide a hermetic seal that all but eliminates the ingress over time you'd see from a bottle cap. This means an ultra-fresh bottle may be fresher tasting than a can packed the same day, but a can will maintain its freshness longer. Theoretically.

That's assuming your seamer is producing a truly hermetic seal. On commercial canning lines the seamer is one of the most routine breakdown points. So I don't often trust them to be truly impermeable.

I might expect cans to have a thinner, but looser sediment than a longneck. Probably less so than a stubby bottle.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

Measuring DO after a month is useless. It needs to be done in real time. You could measure 100ppb at packaging and 80ppb the next day. It's because the oxygen is already being taken up in staling reactions.

Also curious what meter you have. Meters financially tenable for all but 0.001% of homebrewers aren't sensitive enough for a post-fermentation reading. Hell many craft brewers can't afford a sensitive enough meter.

Because of the geometries, inital packaged oxygen uptake tends to be higher in a can vs a bottle. However, a can seamer should *theoretically* provide a hermetic seal that all but eliminates the ingress over time you'd see from a bottle cap. This means an ultra-fresh bottle may be fresher tasting than a can packed the same day, but a can will maintain its freshness longer. Theoretically.

That's assuming your seamer is producing a truly hermetic seal. On commercial canning lines the seamer is one of the most routine breakdown points. So I don't often trust them to be truly impermeable.

I might expect cans to have a thinner, but looser sediment than a longneck. Probably less so than a stubby bottle.

Sorry, a bit off topic since unrelated to canning (but related to the topic of package O2 as a whole).
You seem to know quite a bit on the subject, so may I ask you a question:
Do you know if there is a difference between swing top and crown cap bottles with respect to O2 entering the bottle after packaging?
Are those equivalent, or is one better than the other?
I would assume using oxygen absorbing crown caps is probably better than using swing tops with rubber gaskets...
FWIW I use swing tops exclusively...and I am fairly happy about shelf life even for hoppy beers.
I started that way and I am still very fond of those bottles. But I might consider changing to crown caps if there are significant benefits in doing so.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I'd think it depends on the permeability of the gasket and the stopper. "Rubber" can mean a lot of different things. I don't know offhand what the standard swingtop gasket material is or its permeability. If it's silicone, probably poor. If it's EPDM probably quite low permeability.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

I'd think it depends on the permeability of the gasket and the stopper. "Rubber" can mean a lot of different things. I don't know offhand what the standard swingtop gasket material is or its permeability. If it's silicone, probably poor. If it's EPDM probably quite low permeability.

Thanks!
In my case:
Stopper = ceramic
Gaskets = no idea...but almost certainly not silicone.

 

[balrog]

many after market grolsch flip top gasket replacements are silicone rubber

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

many after market grolsch flip top gasket replacements are silicone rubber

Honestly I have no idea what it is, but it's a pretty hard and resistant material.
Silicone is rather soft, right? Or are there different types of silicone with different hardness?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Not necessarily. I've got silicone cookware that's quite firm.