brewski09
Well-Known Member
Can I reuse the pop bottle caps to test the carbonation or I need to buy a new cap with brand new seal?
I wouldn't reuse caps. They are cheap anyway.
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Can I reuse the pop bottle caps to test the carbonation or I need to buy a new cap with brand new seal?
Irebound I reuse my swing tops if that's what you mean by pop tops all the time with no worries I tell my friends I want my bottles back swing tops aren't cheap here in cali
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Oops. I think I posted the question in the wrong thread. Some folks put cider into plastic soda bottles to get a feel for the level of carbonation. I was wondering if I can reuse the plastic bottle cap for this purpose?
Also, glass pressurizes higher than plastic on the same amount of priming sugar because the plastic has some give/flexibility to it.
Is it a spa floating thermometer being used? i can seem to find one that is not for a spa.
They are sold in homebrew stores and online brewing stores. I don't know what a spa floating thermometer is, so can't say if they are the same.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/floating-thermometer.html
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/floating-thermometer.html
Has anyone fermented this dry, back sweetened with apple juice, and then carbonated and pasteurized? If so, how did you treat the apple juice (not frozen concentrate) ??? Thanks in advance.
No oxidation problems then?
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No, is there a concern about a particular part of the process leading to oxidation?
When the apple juice is added you could be adding oxygen just before bottling and there isn't enough fermentation time in bottle carbonation to eliminate the oxygen.
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I have two cidery's close to me and both us a fancy machine.. not unlike a dishwasher.. that sprays, if I remember correctly, 180* water down on the bottles. They get a few broken bottles.. but, not many. The process is pretty fast.. no where near 10 minutes.
That said, I made a post awhile back about breaking bottles.. and I had a few myself. My belief is that the bottles are not broken by temperature and pressure alone. Maybe I should rephrase that.. but not sure the proper words.
I just did an experiment where I was going to make a dip stick to determine the amount of water in my boil kettle. I poured in 1/2 gallon at a time and put a mark on the dowel until I hit 4 gallons. Then I boiled it and the change was significant. The line went up to almost 4.5 gallons. The water expanded due to the heat. Duh? you say??
My belief is that most broken bottles are due to that expansion of the liquid in the capped bottles and there is NO place for it to go except to explode the bottles.
Ice works in the same way. When an amount of water freezes, it expands. Fill a bottle to the top, cap it and freeze it.. It will break.. won't explode.. but will break. I remember as a kid, experiments where they drilled and tapped a hole in a 'cannonball'.. dropped in a couple drops of water and sealed the hole with a bolt. Froze the cannonball and the ball split from the expansion of the ice. Same thing happens with ice in mountain rock.. The freezing.. and expansion.. splits the rocks.
Next time you pasteurize a bottle.. put a mark on the bottle where the cider is at ambient (room) temp. When you finish your pasteurizing time, pull the bottle and check the liquid level.
I've had bottles break.. and I've had situations where I can hear 'steam' escaping from the bottles w/o blowing the caps.
My suggestion is.. do NOT fill a cider bottle the same way you fill a beer bottle. Leave MORE head space.. and/or pasteurize at a lower temp. You aren't trying to kill bacteria.. just Yeast.. Even if you go to 165* for 10 minutes, you will kill any remaining yeast and have fewer explosions.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it
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