Co2 purity

[lagermanted]

How do you add the sugar? If it's in any sort of open container then you're doing a lot more damage to your beer than by force carbing with food grade CO2.

I add my boiled sugar to my keg, purge and then rack beer into the keg. The sugar solutions are pre-made and canned for stability and convenience.

 

[Ogilthorpe2]

I add my boiled sugar to my keg, purge and then rack beer into the keg. The sugar solutions are pre-made and canned for stability and convenience.

I thought just purging kegs with Co2 under pressure didn't do much except waste CO2? I thought you had to push the sanitizer out of a completely full keg in Order to fully purge? In which case, the only way to get sugar in without opening the keg is with a syringe.

 

[day_trippr]

Those are my perceptions as well. And 300ml syringes are very handy

Cheers!

 

[lagermanted]

I thought just purging kegs with Co2 under pressure didn't do much except waste CO2? I thought you had to push the sanitizer out of a completely full keg in Order to fully purge? In which case, the only way to get sugar in without opening the keg is with a syringe.

I prefer to let my sanitizer drain from the keg. Too many times the nuance of the sanitizer steals the greatness of the beer. If you purge your kegs from the bottom, (out tube) you can get good oxyagen removal. During racking , again fill from the bottom.

A visual check on oxygen is if you splash uncarbonated beer in a CO² environment, and no foam forms, you have a "lower" oxygen atmosphere.

 

[Ogilthorpe2]

I prefer to let my sanitizer drain from the keg. Too many times the nuance of the sanitizer steals the greatness of the beer. If you purge your kegs from the bottom, (out tube) you can get good oxyagen removal. During racking , again fill from the bottom.

A visual check on oxygen is if you splash uncarbonated beer in a CO² environment, and no foam forms, you have a "lower" oxygen atmosphere.

I prefer to let my sanitizer drain from the keg. Too many times the nuance of the sanitizer steals the greatness of the beer. If you purge your kegs from the bottom, (out tube) you can get good oxyagen removal. During racking , again fill from the bottom.

A visual check on oxygen is if you splash uncarbonated beer in a CO² environment, and no foam forms, you have a "lower" oxygen atmosphere.

So much for “don’t fear the foam” eh?

What does purging from the bottom accomplish? The gasses are still mixing inside the keg. It’s not like the CO2 keeps to itself and pushes everything else out.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]Too many times the nuance of the sanitizer steals the greatness of the beer. [...]

Hmm? What are you using for sanitizer? Bleach? Iodophor?

I do the "Star San Purge" thing (unless I can use a fermentation to purge a pair of kegs). There is roughly a teaspoon of sanitizer remaining that the dip tube doesn't reach, before the keg gets filled. I would challenge anyone to detect that...

Cheers!

 

[Qhrumphf]

If you go low and slow to minimize gas mixing you can purge that way. Liquid purging uses less CO2, is faster, and more effective with much less room for error. Especially without a DO meter to verify efficacy of it.

If you're fully blowing out a no rinse sanitizer what in difference is that gonna make?

 

[lagermanted]

So much for “don’t fear the foam” eh?

What does purging from the bottom accomplish? The gasses are still mixing inside the keg. It’s not like the CO2 keeps to itself and pushes everything else out.

From taste tests, I fear any sediment from starsan. My preferred sanitizer but my water causes it to cloud and precipitate. The sediment is very harsh.

Yes oxygen is sticky and will mix in with the co². I purge to 10 psi, vent and repeat 10 times. This significantly reduces the oxygen in the keg. As mentioned, the beer will not foam when agitated by dumping, splashing ect. Naturally I never intend to abuse the beer like that

Proof is in the beer, keep a keg of good beer for a year. Try it,, if it is not tasty you need to work on your oxygen reduction strategy. Purging as i described is part of how I can keep beer beyond normal storage life.

 

[jerrylotto]

i'm going to calculate the molar mass of an atom of oxygen, and co2 then see how many atoms of oxygen 50 ppBILLION an atom compares to co2...but we didn't hear a flow rate for o2 meter....so no idea how many grams co2...i think anyway...

gases (unlike liquids) fractional composition is generally in mole/mole so you don't need any molecular (or atomic) weights to express it. 50 ppb O2 in CO2 is 50 molecules of oxygen per billion of gas.

 

[Vale71]

Except the industry uses vol/vol measurements.

 

[Beermeister32]

I switched to carbing with sugar. Stopped the major o2 contamination. Most important on beers I keep for months/years.

That's a great observation. I've carbed kegs both ways, the O2 being consumed by the yeast. I hadn't figured in stray O2 when force carbing though. Makes sense.

 

[jerrylotto]

Has anyone played with ascorbic acid / carbon sachets for O2 scavenging? If I could figure out a way package and suspend this in my conical head space, it would be cheap insurance when dry hopping.

 

[lagermanted]

I had a chance to sit down and talk to the Sierra Nevada guys when I wrote an article on crown caps for Zymurgy, some brands of oxygen scavenging caps scavenge hop flavors. That shocked the heck out of me, last thing I expected. Their taste panels could taste the difference. They were more concerned with the amount of wrap a crown had versus loosing hop character to the cap and felt that more contact on the cap to bottle will prevent the oxygen ingress and have an overall better beer. If you recall they were one of the first to go back to the tool required caps. They have a better seal. We did not get into brands of caps, but it did push me to abandon adding oxygen scavenging packets to my hop packages I ship out.

It really keeps getting back to process, keep out the oxygen. I fight it at all points from after I dough in. I worry about all bubbles in the process, most are oxygenating issues. I have not gone over to the other side to low oxygen brewing ie boil and mash, the balance is low oxygen processing.

I love drink German and Belgian beers. The Germans have the worst oxygen contamination issues of the two. One major difference is the Belgians naturally carbonate their beers, an oxygen scavenging process

 

[jerrylotto]

Except the industry uses vol/vol measurements.

And PV = nRT so vol/vol and mole/mole are pretty much the same - at least for an ideal gas

 

[aeviaanah]

Certificate of analysis from the cheaper source.

 

[Vale71]

Certificate of analysis from the cheaper source.

Pity they don't measure O2...
Wait, as a matter of fact they didn't measure anything but purity i.e. percent CO2...

 

[moreb33rplz]

I'm all about science, but I don't think that's happening here. One user has used a device that measured some oxygen in bottled co2, then said that is enough to oxidize your beer.

Not saying he's wrong, but it definitely hasn't been proven, or that the reality isn't way more nuanced than that. Maybe it isn't enough to oxidize the beer. Maybe it is, but it takes 3 years before a BJCP judge can pick out the oxidized flavors. Maybe his device isn't calibrated properly or wasn't used correctly.

I'd be pretty surprised if the entire industry has been accidentally ruining their beers for decades.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I'm all about science, but I don't think that's happening here. One user has used a device that measured some oxygen in bottled co2, then said that is enough to oxidize your beer.

Not saying he's wrong, but it definitely hasn't been proven, or that the reality isn't way more nuanced than that. Maybe it isn't enough to oxidize the beer. Maybe it is, but it takes 3 years before a BJCP judge can pick out the oxidized flavors. Maybe his device isn't calibrated properly or wasn't used correctly.

I'd be pretty surprised if the entire industry has been accidentally ruining their beers for decades.

I suspect you are doing what many do, and viewing flaws in black and white pass/fail terms rather than gradients and thresholds.

Any oxygen present not taken up by yeast will oxidize. And any supplied CO2 is gonna contain a measure of impurity that includes oxygen (fermentation-produced at the source being the highest purity). I don't think anyone on either side of the discussion is trying to dispute those. The question is at what point is it going to make a perceptible difference, and that's where the disagreement is.

I don't think 40ppb oxygen contamination in a CO2 supply is gonna produce cardboard or sherry flavors on its own. But in my experience it can definitely dull bright fresh beer flavors, especially hops, and can be the difference between decent beer and BOS table beer (as another poster said). Which to me is plenty difference to be of concern. Especially when other typical sources of ingress are added atop of it.

It also matters the way it's applied. Used as head pressure for a gas transfer will see little diffusion and little impact. Used through a carb stone is another story. Purging it's probably good enough as long as you're not short filling a keg. Carbonating with it even via just head pressure, you're again allowing that oxygen into solution, just not as rapidly as with a carb stone.

40ppb residual oxygen won't pass many breweries acceptable threshold for a CO2 purge- in which case they must be using a higher purity supply (whether or not its certified as such). And many certainly aren't measuring DO at all. There's a hell of a lot of oxidized beer out on the market, even fresh. And most breweries, larger ones especially, aren't using cylinders but bulk supply or even harvesting fermentation CO2 (which is super pure).

And I don't question the measurement. What Intend to do is check a few other canisters and see if that 40ppb was abnormally high, typical, or even low. On its own (discounting other impurities) its within the purity threshold regulations for beverage grade CO2 so none of the three would surprise me.

 

[moreb33rplz]

All I'm pushing back on is the comments that implied if you didn't believe oxygen in co2 was oxidizing your beer, you're denying science.

There is no science that confirms oxygen in co2 oxidizes beer. There isn't even a standard for measuring oxidation.

"But in my experience it can definitely dull bright fresh beer flavors, especially hops, and can be the difference between decent beer and BOS table beer (as another poster said)."

This may or may not be true, but it isn't science, and is not objective.

 

[Bilsch]

And I don't question the measurement. What Intend to do is check a few other canisters and see if that 40ppb was abnormally high, typical, or even low. On its own (discounting other impurities) its within the purity threshold regulations for beverage grade CO2 so none of the three would surprise me.

I managed to get a 50lb bottle of research grade from Oxarc and the COA said 3ppm which I thought was pretty good compared to the 40-50ppm in food grade.

 

[bracconiere]

I managed to get a 50lb bottle of research grade from Oxarc and the COA said 3ppm which I thought was pretty good compared to the 40-50ppm in food grade.

is that a typo? what's the comparison of 3ppm, to 50ppb?

 

[Bilsch]

All I'm pushing back on is the comments that implied if you didn't believe oxygen in co2 was oxidizing your beer, you're denying science.

There is no science that confirms oxygen in co2 oxidizes beer. There isn't even a standard for measuring oxidation.

"But in my experience it can definitely dull bright fresh beer flavors, especially hops, and can be the difference between decent beer and BOS table beer (as another poster said)."

This may or may not be true, but it isn't science, and is not objective.

There is quite a bit of science that confirms O2 in CO2 oxidizes beer. Just a little time on google would have confirmed that. Hach website for instance is a good read on the topic.

So maybe the more correct term here is oblivious to science instead of denying it?

 

[Bilsch]

is that a typo? what's the comparison of 3ppm, to 50ppb?

No typo. Research grade is one of the best grades you can get and 3ppm is on the low side of the range allowed. Which is like 99.9997%

 

[Vale71]

This may or may not be true, but it isn't science, and is not objective.

Buddy, you have absolutely no idea at all what you're talking about. Like, absolute zero.

 

[moreb33rplz]

There is quite a bit of science that confirms O2 in CO2 oxidizes beer. Just a little time on google would have confirmed that. Hach website for instance is a good read on the topic.

So maybe the more correct term here is oblivious to science instead of denying it?

What constitutes oxidation? 1 ppb? 100? Is it style dependent?

There is no way to measure oxidation, at least in a way that correlates amount of dissolved oxygen to perceptible defects (that I know of).

 

[moreb33rplz]

Buddy, you have absolutely no idea at all what you're talking about. Like, absolute zero.

Feel free to enlighten me? Another poster already made the point that oxygen in beer is bad, which I agree with. I'm pretty sure you can't produce evidence that oxygen in co2 bottles makes the beer taste bad.

 

[Bilsch]

What constitutes oxidation? 1 ppb? 100? Is it style dependent?

There is no way to measure oxidation, at least in a way that correlates amount of dissolved oxygen to perceptible defects (that I know of).

Sure there is. Big brewers constantly measure TPO immediately after packaging, before the oxygen can react with the antioxidants to get an idea of how much loss of flavor they can expect. They know these things quite precisely and what toll it will take on their product.

Am I the only one that reads up on these things off this website?

 

[moreb33rplz]

Some breweries target certain amount of max allowable oxygen in their packaged beer, but that doesn't answer my question (which was rhetorical). There is no way to measure when a beer is oxidized. There is no agreed-upon correlation between the amount of oxygen in a packaged beer that will make it taste bad.

But that's the broader subject of oxidation.

To rewind to the original thread: Do you guys honestly believe using bottled co2 ruins your beer?

 

[bracconiere]

hate to break up the charm..but i'm still scratching my head trying to wrap it around 3ppm, compared to 50ppb? wouldn't 3ppm, be like 3m ppb? would you use that to both oxegenate, and ferment under pressure? i'm not sure i'm gettinig the math.....

edit: this is actually kinda a serious question. i was told it wasn't a typo, then vale told me it was just a typo on the second use?

edit #2: vale, if you meant the it's supposed to be ppm the whole time, then that changes the whole thread!

 

[Bilsch]

hate to break up the charm..but i'm still scratching my head trying to wrap it around 3ppm, compared to 50ppb? wouldn't 3ppm, be like 3m ppb? would you use that to both oxegenate, and ferment under pressure? i'm not sure i'm gettinig the math.....

I invite you to do a little googling on the available grades of CO2 and reading for yourself what the specs are. I have no idea how the other member got PPB levels as that’s not even mentioned on supplier sites. Maybe his stock was from ferment captured gas, maybe a mistake in measurement.. I have no idea.