Capping on foam

Do you know what anecdotal means? I'm not sure you do. Most of my reasoning is based on shit like science and chemistry, of which I know quite a bit.

 

When someone bottles a batch that may be oxidized, they have only about four options. They can a) cry about it b) drainpour it c) some mixture of a&b or d) drink it while fresh.

All beer eventually goes stale, no matter what the bottling procedure was. The reason for this is oxygen. If not oxygen introduced during bottling, then somewhere else down the line. The only way to prevent a beer from staling due to oxygen, is to drink it before it stales due to oxygen. This is for any beer.

Since homebrewers generally drink beer at its freshest we don't have to worry AS MUCH as commercial breweries who want quality control and bottle thousands of beers that may or may not sit at room temperature in the back of a storeroom for a while before consumption. This is the reason they purge the bottles with CO2 and cap on foam, because once they pass the product off to retailers or consumers, they have less control over its handling but the beer is still representing them and their brand.

To be clear, I am not rationalizing poor bottling procedure by advocating quick consumption. I am advocating quick consumption to react to poor bottling procedure.

 

I'll let someone point out the holes in your previous response. So, I'll just respond to this one.

Anecdotal: MW

a : of, relating to, or consisting of anecdotes <an anecdotalbiography>

b : anecdotic 2 <my anecdotal uncle>
2
: based on or consisting of reports or observations of usually unscientific observers <anecdotal evidence>
3
: of, relating to, or being the depiction of a scene suggesting a story <anecdotal details>

Anecdotal: TFD

1. also an·ec·dot·ic (-dŏt′ĭk) or an·ec·dot·i·cal (-ĭ-kəl) Of, characterized by, or full of anecdotes.
2. Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis

You're simply advocating a methodology based on you personal experience, or experience in competitions that you have shown no evidence for. Much of your belief in your own methodology seems to be based on conjecture, and the assumption that you can apply things you've read about other processes, to the one you are arguing.

Again, if you're going to advocate a process that goes against convention and long standing practice, come with something more than this.

 

I haven't run through all your numbers, but there are at least three problems with your logic.
- The surface area exposed to O2 in ~58 bottles is a lot more than the surface area exposed in a fermenter. Unless your fermenter is only about 8 inches tall.
- The rate of oxygen dissolving into the wort (or beer) will be greater at the beginning of the agitation than at the end. As more O2 gets into solution, it becomes harder to get even more in. So you can't divide the O2 dissolution after 300 seconds by 5 seconds and assume that's what you'd get.
- If you are splashing beer in your bottles, I'm pretty sure that's more agitation per square inch (and thus more temporary added square inches per resting square inch) than you can ever get sloshing a bucket or carboy. I'd say that filling the way you described agitates somewhere between a bucket/carboy shake and spraying.

 

At an NHC talk a few years back, Ray Daniels mentioned some experiments where the beer was brewed and handled in an environment free of O2. It stayed fresh about 15% longer, IIRC. Beers go stale due to oxidation, but you can get that through Reduction-Oxidation reactions. The take away was that the brewers blame the maltsters for the oxidation.

Dark beers also have a greater reduction capacity, so they are not as sensitive to oxidation.

 

A rather simple experiment might shed some light on this rather lively debate. One could easily try FarmerTed's technique for bottling on a few bottles next time they bottle and then compare the beer in those bottles to ones that have been bottled using a more canonical technique. Next time I bottle, I may give it a go, but that may be a while as I now keg nearly all of my beer. Any volunteers?

 

Well the other couple problems I see with his technique is fermenting in a bottling bucket, keeping that spigot clean is a pain in the butt, and I doubt it is ever completely sanitized. Plus I'd imagine his bottles have just a butt ton of sediment in them. I can't imagine trying to pull beer off the yeast cake directly into bottles, but then I've never been a big fan of sediment in my bottles. That issue doesn't bother some people as much as it does me. I strive for just a light dusting of sediment when I bottle condition. Some homebrew I've seen has like half an inch of crap in the bottom.

 

sure.
oxygen is oxygen is oxygen.
when you fill a bottle of beer in atmosphere, you displace air, which is more or less 21% oxygen.

liquid on the other hand is not air. and depending on the circumstances, it can hold the gas known as oxygen in a dissolved state.

now, if you agitate the liquid, you may dissolve a certain percentage of AIR into the liquid, of which 21% is oxygen. this is gas that is not in the headspace but rather physically within the liquid.

if you fill an empty bottle, you will displace the AIR. if you fill the bottle to 99.99% of capacity with a liquid that has 0% dissolved Oxygen, , you will leave 0.01% AIR, of which 21% is oxygen... and that will then be absorbed into the bottle after capping.

but we don't fill a bottle to within 99.99% for good reason.

in fact, as homebrewers, all we have is the de-gassed beer to fill the bottle.
so...
do not agitate your beer prior to bottling. that is to say DO NOT add any oxygen after fermentation has been completed.


I could go on, but I think you see the point.
Cheers.

 

holy crap, what it takes to convince some people...

for the record, and for the future reference of anyone reviewing this archived thread...

years and years of study has been conducted on a grand scale by brewers both big and small. some of us actually have optical DO meters for reference because we are just that nerdy...

DO NOT introduce any oxygen after primary fermentation. it DOES NOT help your beer. don't worry though. we have solutions for everything in homebrewing.

as a homebrewer you will indeed package your beer with a certain amount of dissolved Oxygen, and it will be fine. as a commercial brewer, you will of course invest in equipment as the budget allows that packages you beer with as little introduced oxygen as allowed.

(there are so many things that we as homebrewers can do that meet or exceed the conditions of commercial breweries. unfortunately, packaging beer is not one of them. close, but not equal.)
Cheers.

 

Just to add to this pissing contest...CO2 produces foam also.

There is a big difference though, if you are not purging your bottles like commercial brewers or those employing beer guns/counterpressure fillers.

oh...and spigots are not the problem

 

Virtually all of the claims in this thread are anecdotal. Conventional wisdom is anecdotal if it isn't backed up with any evidence. I actually put together some numbers; the ideal gas law isn't anecdotal. I haven't seen a single claim from anyone that disagrees with me that is anything other than anecdotal. Oh, and for schnitzengiggles, I measured the headspace in a bottle of Odell Red, and it was 23 mL, which is over twice what I guesstimated earlier. There is almost no way that you are going to introduce 5+ mg of O2 into beer during transferring into a bottle, unless you shake the ever-loving shit out of it and try to aerate it. 5 mg alone would equate to having ~14 ppm of O2 in your beer. Believe my numbers or not, they aren't anecdotal, and I'll stick to doing things my way because they make perfect sense to me.

In the end, it really doesn't matter how you do it, imo. Beer goes stale no matter what you do sooner or later. I've never had a beer noticeably stale in 3 or 4 months after bottling, which is about the longest anything that I brew lasts. My main purpose in responding to this thread was to tell the OP that yes, you can cap on foam when bottling (that was the question that started the thread). It's simple to do, and it will displace more O2 out of the bottle than filling with a bottling wand and then capping on air.

 

Know when to fold them, also. Cheers

 

There's barely any sediment in them; I use a Speidel plastic fermenter (not a bottling bucket), and a little yeast comes out at the beginning, but I just collect 3-4 oz's in a cup, put it in the fridge, and then use it later for refractance measurements and tasting. Maybe the first 2 bottles have more yeast in them than the rest, but there's essentially no sediment from bottle 3-50, and then the last bottle or so gets a lot when I'm draining the dregs. It's easy to keep the spigot sanitized. I soak a piece of paper towel in starsan, shove it up into the spigot, then seal it in with aluminum foil. I'm hardly the only person that uses a fermenter with a spigot for home-brewing, and I haven't heard any complaints from anyone else that uses a Speidel.

 

'
"I soak a piece of paper towel in starsan, shove it up into the spigot, then seal it in with aluminum foil. I'm hardly the only person that uses a fermenter with a spigot for home-brewing, and I haven't heard any complaints from anyone else that uses a Speidel"

WTF? I've been using spigots on my fermenters (no Speidels even) for years, but I've never heard/or seen the need for the paper towel and tin foil enema

 

nobody here is interested in presenting the "anecdotal" evidence for your convenience. you can be as adamant as you like, but it don't make you right.

you may want to stick around a while. you could learn something. or don't. whatever.

like GK101 says, GIUA.
Cheers.

 

I've read about that too. Brewers are always blaming the maltsters!

 

Of course we must remember this is homebrewing, after all. Part of the fun is making beer how you want. If you enjoy, and it then screw what everybody else thinks.

Interesting, well thanks for the info, I have been contemplating going with a Speidel for my next fermentor, but the spigot always turned me off ( as far as being able to clean and sanitize it properly). I imagine that the spigot on a Spediel is much better designed than a standard bottling bucket as well, maybe it breaks apart better? I keg 90% of my beer, so either way i won't be bottling from the primary.

 

I'm not gonna convince anyone here. If his way works, keep on.. Its against years of research and ideas, so if he thinks he's the one and only person that has found the "new" way, then so be it..

I'm a chemist, by trade, but I don't need to flaunt it, or remind people of it. If you produce beer by splashing it, so be it!

For the record, for the new brewers and people lurking here, it's not advised. You might not be advanced enough, or know what you expecting from these results. Splashing your beer, post fermentation is ill advised, period. Big brewers dont do it, so as expected, it should be followed to avoid it.

 

That's a cop-out, but cheers.

I have a ph.d. in chemistry. I could care less what big brewers do, because they have equipment that doesn't equate in any way to what I as a home-brewer use during packaging. Most big brewers don't bottle condition beers, anyway, so once they package the beer, any O2 in the package stays there. Bottle conditioning reduces the O2. Brooklyn Brewery is fairly big, and everything I think/do is consistent with their Brewmaster's comments that I posted earlier. I personally could care less what anyone else does. Again, I was just confirming for the OP that capping on foam is quite easy during bottling.

You can pull the spigot off and soak it in whatever you want, but I don't think you can take the valve apart. Replacements are that expensive. If my approach to keeping it clean offends you for some reason, just put a shot-glass under it and fill the shot glass with starsan to keep things out of the spigot during fermentation.

 

Well I'm a wizard.
And I can see that FarmerTed never gives up until people stop talking to him and walk away. He's just that kind of guy. The rest of us seem to agree that purposefully oxygenating an already-fermented beer is a pretty fucked up idea.
Everybody good?