Sweet bottle carbed Pasturisation plan.

[Rick Stephens]

The keg is about $75, though I got mine for Xmas. Regulator and gauges another 60, CO2 tank from my local gas supplier was $100 though they can be had cheaper. Assorted hoses and fittings etc. on top of that. CO2 fill up is $20 for 5 lbs. The keg holds 1.75 gallons, I fill it with 1.5. I can bottle directly from the keg

I am interested in hearing your 'bottle direct from keg' walkthrough. Any special delivery parts that make this easier to fill without foaming up?

 

[Miraculix]

The keg is about $75, though I got mine for Xmas. Regulator and gauges another 60, CO2 tank from my local gas supplier was $100 though they can be had cheaper. Assorted hoses and fittings etc. on top of that. CO2 fill up is $20 for 5 lbs. The keg holds 1.75 gallons, I fill it with 1.5. I can bottle directly from the keg

Wow, that is a lot.

 

[Maylar]

I am interested in hearing your 'bottle direct from keg' walkthrough. Any special delivery parts that make this easier to fill without foaming up?

I dispense from the keg with a picnic tap and fairly short line to the keg. You can see in my pic that the line stays in the fridge (I have a real tap handle that I'll install some day). A standard bottling wand fits tightly into the tap. Push the button, fill the bottle, easy peasy. Cider foams very little. I use 12-13 psi of CO2 in the keg, and I drop it down to about 5 psi when bottling.

 

[Rick Stephens]

I dispense from the keg with a picnic tap and fairly short line to the keg. You can see in my pic that the line stays in the fridge (I have a real tap handle that I'll install some day). A standard bottling wand fits tightly into the tap. Push the button, fill the bottle, easy peasy. Cider foams very little. I use 12-13 psi of CO2 in the keg, and I drop it down to about 5 psi when bottling.

Thanks! Didn't figure it was a big deal, but hearing it answers that nicely. Might have to consider a keg system one day. I own a welding shop, lots of CO2 cylinders around and don't need em permanently hooked if only carbonizing pre-bottling. Nor any kind of kegerator.

 

[Chalkyt]

From the number of responses, you can see that your little project is certainly keeping us interested and entertained.

I am a bit of a purist and the idea of bottle conditioning/carbonation appeals to me especially as I tend to make in one gallon lots. Having said that, I am not too much of a purist since I use sulphite, pectinase, DAP, bought yeast etc and I must say that kegging does have its attractions.

Back to your bottle bomb issue... bottle conditioning and heat pasteurising does take things close to a few limits, but it can be managed if you have your head around what these limits are. There are three issues that might have gone pear shaped for you.

1. In the Pappers (and JimRausch) methods, the heat is turned OFF when the bottles are put in the bath. This causes the bath to cool down as the bottles heat up and equilibrium temperature is reached. As outlined above (Wednesday) the ideal equilibrium temperature is about 70C. At this temperature the bottle pressure with 2.5 volumes of CO2 would be around 125 psi, but at 80C it would be closer to 160 psi. Pressure increases exponentially with temperature. Slightly higher carbonation and temperature would get you to around 200psi or higher which is getting into bottle bomb territory (see Andrew Lea's www.cider.org.uk/carbonation_table.xls).

2. Glass is a funny animal. It can stand quite high stresses for a short while before it breaks. The stresses eventually concentrate at "weak points" (corners, flaws, etc) until they cause failure. So minimising the time that the glass is stressed (i.e. pasteurise during cool down rather than maintain a high temperature for too long) helps avoid this problem. It sounds as though you had the bottles in the water for 45 minutes while it heated up, so they may have been subjected to stress from internal pressure for quite a while. Something in the order of 100 PUs (pasteurisation units) can be produced as the bottles are cooling down from 70C to below 60C. As cider only needs 50PUs, it is actually quite difficult to "under pasteurise", so a really high starting pasteurising temperature isn't needed and "over pasteurising" doesn't appear to affect the flavour of the cider, it is only overheating or cooking it that has an effect, and from my experience 70C doesn't go anywhere near causing this sort of issue..

3. Most "standards" require ordinary 12 fl oz bottles to withstand around 250 psi. However testing for this involves sampling from a production batch and if the samples pass the test, so the batch passes. In practice the spread of pressure resistance in a batch can be quite high due to flaws and variances in the production process with a worst case bottle withstanding much less than the test level. Of course if the worst case bottle doesn't get selected for testing the batch goes into production and the under-spec bottle can potentially end up with us. So, it is prudent to use a heat pasteurising method that doesn't generate more than say, 125psi which should accommodate a "worst case bottle" and can be achieve with 2.5 vols of carbonation at 70C.

You are not "Robinson Crusoe" (i.e. by yourself). I have had a similar situation to yours where a bottle "went off", and although I didn't have temperature etc figures on that occasion, as it was my first attempt at heat pasteurisation, the bottles had been in for a long time and the heat was still on. I guess we learn (quickly) from our mistakes.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Just bottled up 55 bottles. Half at FG of 1.015 and the other half at 1.010. These are new crimp capped 375 Belgians. Been doing carbonation priming and backsweet with Xylitol in the past. This is first time doing Paps method. Looking forward to it! I read the entire thread over the last week or so. Each half batch, out of the same fermenter but sweetened differently, has its own pop bottle.

I have canning stuff galore. I'll let you know how it goes. My plan is one water bath at 130, the other at 165-170, both with flame off while bottles are in. I have trays for the bottom, so no bottles touching kettle. While a batch is in the hot one, I'll be warming up the next batch in the other. I have plenty of temp measuring tools, instant thermometer, laser gun, etc. Lots of propane heat capability to bring back up between dunks. I'll start with an open top bottle to get an idea of internal temps.


My bet is the issue with those who have bombs and over carbonation issues are often based on both yeast type and temperature during conditioning. All it takes is a few degrees hotter than the other guy and your fermentation is much quicker with narrower windows. Overshoots are too likely when temps are a little higher or yeast is hotter or more active. These bottles are heavier as well, which also means they'll take a bit more time to do a yeast kill.

I even got SWMBO helping out. We had a blast.

 

[TheBluePhantom]

@TheBluePhantom Oh I can definitely see the benefits. Just noticed in forum posts that when people start kegging they seem to see no other way to brew from then on.

Come over to the dark side, we have taps...

 

[nanglec]

@Maylar @TheBluePhantom Kegs may be a long term thing. Right now I want to keep my kit minimal and portable, since i'm likely to move soon. And there's something kinda special about more old school methods, akin to grandpas planer and cast iron pans

@Chalkyt Appreciate the reassurance and details. I'm still pretty fresh, but it's good to have scientific data to work of the back off

So to update; I split the same batch previously in order to suss out flavor vs FG vs carbonation, so the new bottles are technically the same batch as the first ones, just bottled a few days later.

48hours carbing, 70C pasteurization using a medium heat, and not one bottle bomb. Again today (72 hours) at 70C and no bottle bombs. I think I've found the sweet spot for now (obviously with the caveat that temp will change carb levels per day and I'm not measuring but estimating that factor, other than cracking open a bottle and looking).

My thinking with my approach is this; by heating the bottles up from low (about 50C) slowly up to 70C (took about 30 mins) I will minimize thermal shock, and give the contents of the bottles time to come to temp. A wire rack between the bottles and the base on the pan will protect it somewhat from uneven heat, and allow water movement.

And there is minimal drop from the bottles "absorbing" the heat as the stove top is adding heat back into the mix. As soon as it hits 70, bam, flameout. Then leave the bottles in place and let the water naturally drop back to a reasonable temp/pressure level, again avoiding too much shock.

Next experiment will be a full batch, all bottled at 1.020-1.025, all carbed for about 2 days, and all pasteurized at 70C.

(Well that and my experiment with SafCider vs EC-1118. Saf is much cloudier, and fizzes up when siphoning to the point of breaking the flow, but it tastes a whole lot more round and apple-y so may be worth a batch )

 

[TheBluePhantom]

And there's something kinda special about more old school methods, akin to grandpas planer and cast iron pans

You don't have to tell me about old stuff. My bench capper is my grandfathers, same one I used as a kid on soda. It is back from the 30's or so. My kid did a soda with it, so 4 generations on the same capper. I have several carboys that say Absopure from my father, from when they converted to plastic and sold the glass to winemakers. I just took the easy route for soda and cider. bottle pasteurization is fairly advanced and can get dangerous, I am not that ambitious. Kegging is faster and easier, but yes, it is expensive. On a side note, with kegs, you can try keg carbonation with yeast...

 

[Chalkyt]

Re monitoring pasteurisation, you might like to look at a post by Bembel (May 11, 2016) where the elapsed time to reach each temperature point (i.e. 65C, 66C, etc) is recorded and the number of accumulated PUs (pasteurisation units) is calculated. I have used a similar but slightly different approach where the temperature reached at each minute is recorded.

PUs are the measure of pasteurisation achieved from a combination of temperature and time. One PU results from holding a beverage at 60C for one minute, so 50 PUs needed for cider could be achieved by 60C for 50 minutes, or as suggested by both Jolicoeur and Lea, 65C for 10 minutes. Pasteurisation increases exponentially with temperature.

i.e.

Temp C	60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	78	69	70
PUs/Min	1.0	1.4	1.9	2.7	3.8	5.2	7.3	10.2	14.2	19.7	27.5

Also, it takes about 20 minutes for a change in temperature to distribute evenly throughout a bottle, so measuring the temperature in the middle of the bottle will slightly understate the temperature at the edges. This isn't a bad thing as the peripheral bottle contents will be a little "overpasteurised" in relation to what the temperature in the middle suggests.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Re monitoring pasteurisation,

PUs are the measure of pasteurisation achieved from a combination of temperature and time. One PU results from holding a beverage at 60C for one minute, so 50 PUs needed for cider could be achieved by 60C for 50 minutes, or as suggested by both Jolicoeur and Lea, 65C for 10 minutes. Pasteurisation increases exponentially with temperature.

Seems to me that pasteurization as a goal is different from yeast kill. I don't think we are aiming to get a full pasteurization when the goal is to stop fermentation. Open to be told I am mistaken though.

 

[jseyfert3]

Well that and my experiment with SafCider vs EC-1118. Saf is much cloudier, and fizzes up when siphoning to the point of breaking the flow, but it tastes a whole lot more round and apple-y so may be worth a batch )

If you're curious to try more I'd recommend D47 and Mangrove Jack's M02. Not sure what juice you're using, but I just did an experiment with store bought filtered juice and Safcider, EC-1118, D47, Safcider, US-05 (had previously done US-04), and M02. For my preferences, with my juice and fermentation temps (~67 °F for a month and a half, no secondary) the Safcider did beat EC-1118, but D47 and M02 beat Safcider hands down. I need to experiment more but I suspect M02 may become my go to yeast, at least for store bought filtered juice.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Pasteurized my batch of 55 bottles that got back sweetened, half the batch, 2.5 gallons, to 1.010 and the other half to 1.015. Used 1/2 gallon plain apple juice on the 1.010 and the 1.015 with 1/2 gal plain juice plus a can of frozen blueberry pomegranate.

Since this 5 gallons was fermented to 1.000 with 1116 champagne yeast I was a little on the short trigger for timing, figured the prime would ferment fast. Took just a few days and the plastic coke bottle for the 1.015 batch was getting stiff, so opened a bottle and recapped yesterday, did the same today and liked the resulting level of carb.

I bottled in 16 ounce 375 ML Belgians. Set up a water bath canner at 140 to preheat bottles. Set up the pressure canner without gauge or pressure cap at 180 degree water. Ran 10 minutes each. Result was 150ƒ bottles. Did 7 bottles at a time for 10 minutes.

Last batch did 8 bottles. Bottles having trouble getting into the 140's. So left another 10 for total 20 minutes and ended up around 148ƒ. Interesting that one bottle effected heat transfer that much. Good lesson though! No excitement at all. No bottle bombs or bulged caps.

 

[Chalkyt]

Hi Rick... just got back from a couple of days away so I missed your question about the purpose of pasteurisation. Sounds like you are having fun!

Originally when Pasteur came up with the idea of pasteurisation, it was to inactivate spoilage mechanisms in wine etc, which don't have a big yeast load. This still applies to other beverages such as milk, juice, etc.

In the case of beer, cider and the like where fermentation has taken place, the idea is also to inactivate or kill the yeast so that fermentation doesn't continue in the container (otherwise there is the potential for BOOM!)

Without getting too technical about this, the "magic temperature of 60C" was developed from empirical research by an Italian scientist DelVeccio and others in the 1950s. They came up with a formula PUs=time in minutesx1.393 raised to the power of celsius temperature -60 (i.e. PU=t x 1.393^(T-60)). This is easy enough to calculate with a spreadsheet but even easier just plugging numbers into on-line calculator (google... calconic pasteurisation calculator). So, by monitoring temperature and time it is easy to track your pasteurisation level. (or working out that so many minutes at whatever temperature will give you the desired result).

Breweries still use this approach to pasteurise beer and to tailor it to minimise energy costs. Typically they will heat beer to 72C for 30 seconds which is the equivalent of 60C for 15 minutes (i.e. 15 PUs). For beer 15-30 PUs is enough, but for craft cider which has a higher yeast load, the accepted target is 50 PUs. As I said above, it is actually quite difficult to under-pasteurise cider because even just two minutes at 70C will get to around 50PUs and stop the yeast in its tracks. By the time the bottles cool down a lot more PUs will be generated from the residual heat.

Cheers.

 

[Rick Stephens]

From a yeast kill standpoint, we should be golden. Thanks!