Will my brew lose it's carbonation if bottle is opened then resealed (within a 2 second timeframe).

[pjm805]

A couple of weeks ago I bottled an IPA. They're bottled in 16oz ez cap bottles. A few days ago one broke at the neck due to too high pressure, luckily with the walls of these bottles being so thick it wasn't a full on explosion. I opened another one a day later and it had no carbonation whatsoever, so it's obvious when I added priming sugar I did not mix it well enough . My plan is to go through them one by one and add fizz drops to the ones that didn't carbonate. My question is, the ones that did carbonate, when I open them (causing them to lose pressure) then reseal them right away, will I lose carbonation?

 

[day_trippr]

You'll lose some CO2 from the head space, at least.
I'd chill the bottles to nearly freezing before opening to minimize gas loss...

Cheers!

 

[balrog]

Short answer, yes, some.
The capped bottle, closed system, comes to equilibrium with the amount of CO2 in the system, balancing at the temperature at which it sits between dissolved CO2 and headspace pressure CO2. If you change temp, then the amount of CO2 dissolved increases, the headspace CO2 pressure decreases. If you release the headspace pressure and hold temp steady, then some CO2 will come out of solution (after recapping) and stabilize the headspace at a new, slightly lower, CO2 pressure.

Will it be significant to your taste? Maybe, maybe not.

[Edit, and he beat me to it. Good advice on the cooling too]

 

[Kickass]

How’d you mix your priming sugar? I’ve never had a bottle bomb and no carbonation in the same batch of bottles. I’m wondering if there is something else at play here.

Also, what’s the volume of beer and how much sugar did you add.

 

[bruce_the_loon]

With careful pressure with some bottle openers, you can ease the cap slightly until you get a faint hiss, then reseal with the capper without too much CO2 loss. Other openers tend to buckle the cap too much. YMMV.

 

[pjm805]

With careful pressure with some bottle openers, you can ease the cap slightly until you get a faint hiss, then reseal with the capper without too much CO2 loss. Other openers tend to buckle the cap too much. YMMV.

These are ez cap bottles which would actually make it much easier to hear the hiss, but I'm concerned about the caps that would uncontrollably pop off lol.

 

[pjm805]

How’d you mix your priming sugar? I’ve never had a bottle bomb and no carbonation in the same batch of bottles. I’m wondering if there is something else at play here.

Also, what’s the volume of beer and how much sugar did you add.

It's a 5 gallon batch, I mixed 2/3 cups dextrose with about 16 oz boiling water. Racked to my bottling bucket and at the 1 gallon mark added the dextrose mixture. My assumption was as the remaining 4 gallons racked in it would mix well enough. I can't think of any other explanation?

 

[balrog]

I've had some newer flip tops have harder gaskets; they were orange for what it's worth. They would not hold pressure. I swapped out with some softer rubber ones (red, Amazon) and have had no issues. But that was a one time issue.

 

[hotbeer]

How many do you have? Just drink the beer and make a new batch. Invite some friends over after a bottle or two each, they won't complain about flat beer and it'll probably be gone before they all leave.

Then you can make your next batch and hopefully do better. The things you'll need to do to this already bottled batch might just make it taste crappier instead of just flat.

 

[pjm805]

How many do you have? Just drink the beer and make a new batch. Invite some friends over after a bottle or two each, they won't complain about flat beer and it'll probably be gone before they all leave.

Then you can make your next batch and hopefully do better. The things you'll need to do to this already bottled batch might just make it taste crappier instead of just flat.

1 gallon is in a mini keg growler pressured at a cozy 20psi so enough to go around. Well hey I could always put the rest in the fridge, if it hisses, drink it, if not, fizz drop it and try next bottle.

 

[ncbrewer]

I see some concerns. 1) If poor mixing is the problem, there is probably a little carbonation in the "flat" beers - unknown amount. Fizz drops are based on no additional CO2. It might overcarbonate and even get bottle bombs. 2) If poor sealing flip tops are the problem, again there could be some carbonation left, with the same result. I wouldn't add sugar to these just in case. Just to make them drinkable, you could mix a flat beer half and half with a carbonated beer. I did this once and used a cheap American macro beer - I think they are highly carbonated.

 

[pjm805]

I see some concerns. 1) If poor mixing is the problem, there is probably a little carbonation in the "flat" beers - unknown amount. Fizz drops are based on no additional CO2. It might overcarbonate and even get bottle bombs. 2) If poor sealing flip tops are the problem, again there could be some carbonation left, with the same result. I wouldn't add sugar to these just in case. Just to make them drinkable, you could mix a flat beer half and half with a carbonated beer. I did this once and used a cheap American macro beer - I think they are highly carbonated.

I don't think it's the seals as I tried a couple of other bottles which gave off a very faint hiss. You gave man idea though, transfer them to 1 gallon mini kegs where I can monitor the pressure and add external pressure if needed.

 

[balrog]

Pouring beer will introduce oxygen which will mute flavors and hasten staling.

 

[Broken Crow]

The woman who inspired me to brew my own beer had this same problem once....about 3 beers in, this was reavealed as the reason she asked me to drop by for a visit. Pretty much what @hotbeer recommended. It also avoided the problem @ncbrewer pointed out: You could end up blowing more out by adding tablets.
Take this problem as an excuse to have a get-together.

 

[Yooper]

That will work ok- except for one very important thing.

Even if a beer is slightly carbonated, very slightly, putting in a carb drop may create hundreds of nucleation points and create a volcano.

That happened to a friend. Yes, that's it- a friend.

The friend tells me that it was like a bathtub of coke with a package of Mentos added and she was not ready for it.

So I had to mop my ceiling and lost a full bottle of beer. I mean, my friend did. Because I would not have done something so silly.

 

[hotbeer]

Well hey I could always put the rest in the fridge, if it hisses, drink it,

The colder it is the less hiss you'll get. Also if you fill the bottles leaving less than a 1/8" headspace, you'll get very little if any hiss when you open even a very carbonated bottle.

So what I'm saying is don't discount that bottle that doesn't hiss. And if the person you give it to doesn't complain about it, then what's to worry about.

All this makes me wonder how carbonated were those barrels of beer back in the days of no refrigeration or k-way systems?

Straight from the FV at 68°F I believe I read beer contains 1.2 - 1.6 vols of CO2.

 

[pjm805]

That will work ok- except for one very important thing.

Even if a beer is slightly carbonated, very slightly, putting in a carb drop may create hundreds of nucleation points and create a volcano.

That happened to a friend. Yes, that's it- a friend.

The friend tells me that it was like a bathtub of coke with a package of Mentos added and she was not ready for it.

So I had to mop my ceiling and lost a full bottle of beer. I mean, my friend did. Because I would not have done something so silly.

Have a carbonated beer while watching another one turn into a volcano?? Now that sounds like a party!

 

[Yooper]

The key here would be to do what was recommended- make the beer VERY cold. Open, and drop it in, and close very quickly just in case it does volcano. That's what I would do if I had to do it over again.

 

[pjm805]

The colder it is the less hiss you'll get. Also if you fill the bottles leaving less than a 1/8" headspace, you'll get very little if any hiss when you open even a very carbonated bottle.

So what I'm saying is don't discount that bottle that doesn't hiss. And if the person you give it to doesn't complain about it, then what's to worry about.

All this makes me wonder how carbonated were those barrels of beer back in the days of no refrigeration or k-way systems?

Straight from the FV at 68°F I believe I read beer contains 1.2 - 1.6 vols of CO2.

Makes sense, it just makes we wonder why it's not consistent from bottle to bottle even though they all have the same amount of headspace.

 

[Broken Crow]

it just makes we wonder why it's not consistent

Priming sugar (at least dextrose), tends to clump despite what seems like thorough stirring, even if very small and hard to see clumps and is a frequent problem in using it in bottling.

 

[Beermeister32]

Couple items here, I have a couple hundred flip tops and used to use them extensively.

Assuming your carbonating charge was mixed properly, there are some other bottle related issues to keep in mind.

First has to do with the seals. There are a variety of rubber seals going from old school neoprene type rubber all the way to sheet stamped silicone rubber. Toss them all. Go find the red seals which are the same seals used in Grolsh bottles. The neoprene type seals harden, and aftermarket stamped flat sheet silicone rubber seals are too slippery and slide around too much.

The factory Grolsh seals are perfect, I believe the are possibly some type of hybrid TPE or TPE/silicone rubber blend.

Once you have the right seals, go get two heavy long nose pliers and learn how the stainless flip top hardware works. Study it. There are a variety of small tweaks to the two piece stainless ligature that can be made to get them to seal consistently without looseness or binding.

 

[balrog]

Couple items here, I have a couple hundred flip tops and used to use them extensively.

Assuming your carbonating charge was mixed properly, there are some other bottle related issues to keep in mind.

First has to do with the seals. There is a variety of rubber seals going from old school neoprene type rubber all the way to sheet stamed silicone rubber. Toss them all. Go find the red seals which are the same seals used in Grolsh bottles. The neoprene type seals harden, and aftermarket stamped flat sheet silicone rubber seals are too slippery and slide around too much.

The factory Grolsh seals are perfect, I believe the are possibly some type of hybrid TPE or TPE/silicone rubber blend.

Once you have the right seals, go get two heavy long nose pliers and learn how the stainless flip top hardware works. Study it. There are a variety of small tweaks to the two piece stainless ligature that can be made to get them to seal consistently without looseness or binding.

Oh, this times a million.

 

[pjm805]

@Beermeister32 @balrog Here's the bottles I have, being that I'm colorblind, is this the orange or red seal?

 

[Beermeister32]

Those will work. Red like a Grolsh seal.

 

[balrog]

@Beermeister32 @balrog Here's the bottles I have, being that I'm colorblind, is this the orange or red seal?

Hard to tell how soft they are from the picture. They are not orange like the ones I had trouble with. But they are not thick, red like I bought.

 

[Zambezi Special]

They look a bit weird to me.
The Grolsch ones have a hole in them (like an O-ring). These look closed?

 

[pjm805]

Yes they are closed, and they are fairly soft. $13 is not too bad though. On the bright side, every one I've had so far carbonated nicely so maybe it was just that one bottle.

 

[pjm805]

Just realized the clear bottles I got (which was the one that didn't carbonate) has a different seal... the orange ones.

 

[ncbrewer]

Just realized the clear bottles I got (which was the one that didn't carbonate) has a different seal... the orange ones.

Bingo