Does wax help reduce oxidation?

There has been much discussion about this topic in this forum. If you search for "wax" you will find several threads. I think that the consensus is that it probably doesn't help much if any, but it can't hurt (unless you stab yourself trying to remove it), but there hasn't been enough research on the topic and anecdotal reaponses go both ways.

 

Have you ever seen a corked and waxed bottle?

 

Propolis brewing in WA waxes, corks, and caps their beers. I've never been more pissed off opening a beer.

 

This is one of those things where if you ask 10 different people you'll get 10 different answers. But I remember a while back someone posted a little experiment they did where they aged 2 of the same beers for a few years, one waxed and the other without and said their was a definite difference.

 

All I can say is that I wax my beers and have had beers up to 10 years old that have held up. I've never had one go bad, so why not continue doing it? I've not waxed beers that have gone bad. It can't hurt the beer (as long as you don't lock in moisture) and it's cheap and kind of fun to do. Plus if you color code (which I don't) your cellar will look cool and all of your friends will be impressed.

 

My primary reason is protecting the beer. They're all black. It's clear which side of discussion you're on.

 

Air, moisture. Anything outside the bottle that could get in.

 

I suppose then that I should switch to better colors other than black so that my beers look cooler.

 

Geeze I'm not certain because it's been a long time since I've bought wax but I believe L. D. Carlson beads. Whatever my local homebrews shop carried but I believe that was it.

 

It's more trying to slow the rate of oxygen defusing into the beer through the seal in the cap then trying to physically keep anything out or in

 

Which loss of carb often does happen in long term cellared beers.
Here's a quote from jackhorzempa in a thread a while back discussing the topic.

 

Whats is the point of cellaring beer? To allow it to change over time as it reacts to oxygen. What your trying to do, by waxing, is slow that process down. But for what? So it takes longer to age to perfection? Im a beer drinker. I cellar my beer to improve flavor and taste as it developes over time. Im not a beer collector. I don't need to take someone to my basement, hold up a bottle, wag my ego, and say this is 10 years old. I like the idea of stock rotation. Every 2 to 5 years, will be all new bottles for the most part. People have been cellaring beer for years without waxcand nothing bad has happened.

To me this debate is as simple as wax if you want to, other wise dont bother.

 

I totally agree. Does does oxygen diffuse through the cap? Yes. But as any homebrewer knows the rate of oxidation greatly depends on how the beer was handled. Racking, bottling, ect.

 

Sierra Nevada went to the pry off caps to minimize the O2 coming in. They reduced the O2 diffusion by a factor of 20, but it still gets in.

Aging and oxidation also happens due to redox reactions, it is not just O2.

 

There is discussion about oxygen ingress including some calculated values in this thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/old-ipas.177842/page-4#post-2442987

If you have additional questions perhaps you would like to conduct a conversation with Peter_Wolfe on this topic.

Cheers!

 

There is no one simple answer to that question.

There are numerous flavors associated with oxidation process compounds. Some of the flavor descriptors for oxidation process compounds include:

· Honey like sweetness

· Caramel type flavors

· Cardboard/Papery

· Sherry

· Dark fruit flavors in dark colored beers

· Etc.

The descriptor of cardboard/papery is popularly ascribed to a beer being oxidized but that is not necessarily to most common manifestation of oxidation.

The cardboard/papery compound is a long-chain alphatic (non-aromatic) aldehyde (e.g., 2-noneal) with a perception threshold in beer of 50-100 ng/l.

Cheers!

 

Total packaged O2 at a low level is in the 20-30 ppb range. With the data Jack provided, you can see that the diffusion through the cap liner is appreciable. Anything that reduces that is better.