Swing top bottles -- Grrrr!

[BrewZer]

All you who want to say "I told you so," feel free to fire away.

Gaskets should be good for more than one use, yet I found two bottles today that did not seal tightly enough to hold the carbonation at a level I like in my Irish Red Ale.

Still tastes great, and is less filling without all those bubbles, but man...

 

[IslandLizard]

I flip the gaskets over each time I clean them. I also don't store the empties with the bail engaged. Been lasting for years.
Maybe look for better quality gaskets?

 

[FunkedOut]

I’ve had brand new gaskets not hold up to bottle conditioning on some of those 1L bottles.
Could be poor quality gaskets.
Could be the bails are out of spec.
Could be the bottle is out of spec.

They always work for holding carbonated beer, like a growler.
Anymore, I just use them when I fill from a keg.

 

[augiedoggy]

I bought 2 cases of 22oz flip top bottles used 5 years ago, they were very old and used but have real rubber red gaskets. I just rinse the whole bottle in starsan after cleaning and have never touched or removed these gaskets and have never once had a bottle not seal.

I have some newer cheaper flip top bottles that came with red silicone seals and I have only used them a couple times but question how well they will hold up. the actual wire bails also dont seem to hold as well which can be part of the issue.

 

[Ridenour64]

I made a batch of beer that I bottled at the end of November. They were supposed to be fully carbed by December 5th. I cracked a bottle and it was flat so I pitched it. I tried another one a week or 2 later. Still flat. I almost poured them all out, but I didn’t. Just cracked a bottle tonight and its perfect. I guess they can just take a long time?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Fully carbed in a week? When a beer is bottle primed you have fermentation happening again. So a week to carb a week for the yeast to clean up after themselves again. If your bottles were stored where it was a little cool that would slow the process down. If your swing top seals weren’t seated or for some reason didn’t seal right your gas would escape. Some high gravity beers take longer.

 

[Homergah]

Once upon a time in the West...I had a lot of swing top bottles. I loved Grolsch. Go figure. I filled those things more times than I care to remember. I don't recall enough leakers to recall leakers. I DO remember my first root beer. Those poor, poor bottles. Gets me teary eyed thinking about it. Oh well, they were great targets! Explosive!
And come to think of it, it was in the East!

 

[augiedoggy]

I flip the gaskets over each time I clean them. I also don't store the empties with the bail engaged. Been lasting for years.
Maybe look for better quality gaskets?

same here... real rubber gaskets came with used bottles I bought 4 years ago.

 

[augiedoggy]

I made a batch of beer that I bottled at the end of November. They were supposed to be fully carbed by December 5th. I cracked a bottle and it was flat so I pitched it. I tried another one a week or 2 later. Still flat. I almost poured them all out, but I didn’t. Just cracked a bottle tonight and its perfect. I guess they can just take a long time?

depends on the temp where they are stored but usually 2 weeks is good at room temp.

 

[Ridenour64]

I take that back actually. So about a month ago, I opened a bottle, it wasn’t carbed, so I closed it back up and just set it to the side. I planned on dumping that bottle, just never got around to it. I popped it open today and it was perfectly carbed. It poured perfect (at room temperature). Then I cooled and opened my second bottle and it was very Minimal carb. Idk what the deal is with these things.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Clearly hit and miss. I had problems with these and switched to crown caps with a wing capper. People tell me I used them wrong or didn’t wait long enough or that I must be crazy. I’m going to go ahead and tell you I told you so. I have never had a problem with crown caps.

 

[Ridenour64]

Yeah I probs won’t use them anymore. Unreliable.

 

[augiedoggy]

they are not at all all the same.. many of the new chinese made swing tops are no where as good as the older ficsher made ones or grolsh. I have all three and can say this based on my experience with them,

 

[BBBF]

they are not at all all the same.. many of the new chinese made swing tops are no where as good as the older ficsher made ones or grolsh. I have all three and can say this based on my experience with them,

I have Fischer bottles from the 80's that still have their original gaskets. Some have been replaced with the pink, rubber ones. I haven't had any problems with those. I recently replaced some dry rotted gaskets with thick, orange, silicone ones from amazon. I can't say how they will do long term, but they seem much more heavy duty than the ones on newer bottles.

 

[augiedoggy]

I have Fischer bottles from the 80's that still have their original gaskets. Some have been replaced with the pink, rubber ones. I haven't had any problems with those. I recently replaced some dry rotted gaskets with thick, orange, silicone ones from amazon. I can't say how they will do long term, but they seem much more heavy duty than the ones on newer bottles.

same situation here.. some of my original seals are starting to dry rot and I got a bag of extras when I bought these bottles on craigslist years ago.. I have some never bottles from kegworks which is local and those seem to have much thinner seals so far only one failure as far as sealing with them though.

 

[bucketnative]

I have some newer cheaper flip top bottles that came with red silicone seals and I have only used them a couple times but question how well they will hold up. the actual wire bails also dont seem to hold as well which can be part of the issue.

Silicone rubber is highly permeable to gases, especially CO2. Ditch those silicone gaskets, you're just venting CO2... albeit slowly. See Table 2 below.

https://imageserv5.team-logic.com/mediaLibrary/99/D116_20Haibing_20Zhang_20et_20al.pdf

 

[augiedoggy]

good to know... They must really leak it slowly since all the fermenters and brite tanks ive seen use silicone seals as well

 

[bucketnative]

good to know... They must really leak it slowly since all the fermenters and brite tanks ive seen use silicone seals as well

Well, there are silicone rubber formulations that have been optimized for gas permeability (still more permeable than other rubbers, though). However, those are two applications that only need to hold CO2 gas for relatively short periods of time where the physical barrier is more important than the molecular barrier. The silicone is pretty resistant to chemicals and heat, which makes it a good choice for those applications, but I wouldn't use it for long term applications that require little permeability.