Carbonation Calculations for Glass Bottles

[mrjgking85]

I'm interested in making my own ginger ale/beer and other experimental sodas. I have a bunch of the hinge top glass bottles that I used to make wine and mead and would like to use these to make my soda. My real questions is how do I determine how much sugar and yeast to add to the bottles so that they will carbonate without shatter, exploding, or overflowing when I open them? I realize that different amounts of natural sugars in different recipes. Can I use a hydrometer to calculate how much sugar I need to add to get the mixture to a SG that will allow for carbonation or is there a magic specific gravity that I am looking for to cause carbonation without detonation?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Yooper]

I'm interested in making my own ginger ale/beer and other experimental sodas. I have a bunch of the hinge top glass bottles that I used to make wine and mead and would like to use these to make my soda. My real questions is how do I determine how much sugar and yeast to add to the bottles so that they will carbonate without shatter, exploding, or overflowing when I open them? I realize that different amounts of natural sugars in different recipes. Can I use a hydrometer to calculate how much sugar I need to add to get the mixture to a SG that will allow for carbonation or is there a magic specific gravity that I am looking for to cause carbonation without detonation?

Thanks in advance.

In short, no, unless you are using 100% non-fermentable ingredients and then adding only enough sugar to carbonate. That's how beer brewers and cider makers do it- ferment the beer/cider out completely until it's done, and then add a small prescribed dose of priming sugar to carb up exactly.

With soda, using anything to sweeten the soda will mean that the yeast will ferment it, and bottle bombs will result.

 

[mrjgking85]

There has to be a way to calculate the sugar in a mixture prior to adding any additional sugar, or at least, how much fermentable sugar is in it.

 

[Yooper]

There has to be a way to calculate the sugar in a mixture prior to adding any additional sugar, or at least, how much fermentable sugar is in it.

Of course there is. But that doesn't mean the yeast will stop where you want them to. If there is fermentable sugar (due to sweetening the soda), the yeast will not stop and the bottles will blow up- that's why soda is usually kegged or in plastic bottles and kept cold unless non-fermentable sweeteners are used.

 

[mrjgking85]

Correct, I plan on using stevia or Xylitol to sweeten my sodas.

I'm guessing there is a sweet spot of Specific Gravity that I am looking for in my initial mixture. If it's too high, I'll need to water it down. If it's too low, I need to add more sugar.

Basically, I am trying to figure out how much food to make available to my yeast and whether or not I need to dilute or add to the sugar content. I should be able to figure out that at x SG, my yeast will produce y CO2 before it runs out of food.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I think we're just missing something.

I'm thinking a mixture with a SG of .655 or an ABV of .5% is what I am looking for.

 

[Yooper]

Correct, I plan on using stevia or Xylitol to sweeten my sodas.

I'm guessing there is a sweet spot of Specific Gravity that I am looking for in my initial mixture. If it's too high, I'll need to water it down. If it's too low, I need to add more sugar.

Basically, I am trying to figure out how much food to make available to my yeast and whether or not I need to dilute or add to the sugar content. I should be able to figure out that at x SG, my yeast will produce y CO2 before it runs out of food.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I think we're just missing something.

I'm thinking a mixture with a SG of .655 or an ABV of .5% is what I am looking for.

You can easily do that. The problem is knowing how much pressure your glass bottles can hold. Some will just not hold 4 volumes of c02 without blowing up. I like my soda (kegged) at about 4.1 volumes of c02. Plastic soda bottles can hold this, but most glass bottles can not.

If you have appropriate bottles, then you can easily calculate how much priming sugar to use. For 4.1 volumes of co2 (what I like), the "dosage" of table sugar is 1.7 oz per gallon.

 

[mrjgking85]

I have the liter swing top champagne bottles. I made sparkling cider with them. I hope they'll be able to withstand the pressure.

 

[MrFoodScientist]

I did some math here that seemed to make sense at the time. I was interested more in ABV output than sugar input, so it may not help you specifically.
I would think that champagne bottles should be no problem, I believe they're rated to up to 7 volumes, but I wasn't aware that there were liter swing top champagne bottles. Where are you picking those up from? I think it's safe to assume anything that held soda or champagne previously can hold soda again. Though I have some twist top Orange Crush bottles that seem pretty thin.