HornetSparky
Well-Known Member
I have used Papper's Stovetop pasteurization process with varying rates of bottle bombs. Today I decided to get my process under a bit more control. When I get my sous vide machine built I will have it under quite tight control. Until then it is just me, a pot, a burner and a thermometer.
One observation I have made is that I can count on a bottle detonating if I have part of a bottle sticking out of the hot water bath. So I now lay my bottles down, which seems to have eliminated the detonations at the beginning of the water bath. I hypothesize that these early detonations happen when the temperature difference between the glass above the water and the glass in the water causes the bottle to crack at the top of the neck. The shape of the exploded bottles seems to match that failure mode.
Further, I guess that later detonations (after the first minute in the water) are from overheating the cider inside the bottle and exceeding the strength of the bottle or cap. To ensure that this doesn't happen, I want the contents of the bottle to get just warm enough to kill the yeast and no hotter. To measure this, I put an uncapped bottle of cold tap water in the pot and measured the temperature of the water in that bottle. Obviously this bottle had to poke above the surface of the hot water so I wasn't just measuring the temperature of the water bath but instead I was measuring how much heat had been transferred across the glass of the bottle. The monitor bottle I describe obviously isn't a perfect model for a bottle of cider laying on its side in the hot bath, but I think it is sufficiently close to be useful. I targeted 145-150 deg F for the contents of the bottle.
I found that 3.25 gallons of water heated to 185 deg F brought the monitor bottle to 145 F or better in 4 minutes when five 12 oz bottles at 70 deg F were laid in the bath. I had no detonations.
I hope this is useful and welcome questions or additions.
One observation I have made is that I can count on a bottle detonating if I have part of a bottle sticking out of the hot water bath. So I now lay my bottles down, which seems to have eliminated the detonations at the beginning of the water bath. I hypothesize that these early detonations happen when the temperature difference between the glass above the water and the glass in the water causes the bottle to crack at the top of the neck. The shape of the exploded bottles seems to match that failure mode.
Further, I guess that later detonations (after the first minute in the water) are from overheating the cider inside the bottle and exceeding the strength of the bottle or cap. To ensure that this doesn't happen, I want the contents of the bottle to get just warm enough to kill the yeast and no hotter. To measure this, I put an uncapped bottle of cold tap water in the pot and measured the temperature of the water in that bottle. Obviously this bottle had to poke above the surface of the hot water so I wasn't just measuring the temperature of the water bath but instead I was measuring how much heat had been transferred across the glass of the bottle. The monitor bottle I describe obviously isn't a perfect model for a bottle of cider laying on its side in the hot bath, but I think it is sufficiently close to be useful. I targeted 145-150 deg F for the contents of the bottle.
I found that 3.25 gallons of water heated to 185 deg F brought the monitor bottle to 145 F or better in 4 minutes when five 12 oz bottles at 70 deg F were laid in the bath. I had no detonations.
I hope this is useful and welcome questions or additions.
