Bottle Cap Shelf life
Twano
around 4 -5 years old, it seems the bottles that were capped with them
aren't carbonating as well as ones with caps purchased in the past 6 months
or so. I was wondering if the sealing material in them is old enough to
allow CO2 to escape. I'm pretty sure the problem is in the caps, because the
only flat ones I have are with the old caps. I'll be recapping them today.
Twano
MDixon
Twano <pat...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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I don't think they do. I routinely use old caps without any problems.
Actually overrun caps. Many of them are soft drink brands that are no
longer in existence...
Cheers,
Mike
Thomas T. Veldhouse
time. As far as caps go, I have used them a few years later without
trouble. Just make sure the rubber (or whatever it is) seal they have
inside the cap is not dried (aged) and brittle.
Tom Veldhouse
"Twano" <pat...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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JTULL5
it was the right thing to do. Shouldn't the bottle caps be sanitized somehow?
Jim
>Subject: Re: Bottle Cap Shelf life
>From: "Dan Listermann" d...@listermann.com
>Date: 12/18/2002 12:40 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <v01ct2i...@corp.supernews.com>
>
>Did you boil the old caps? Boiling should not be necessary or even
>desirable since it can bother the lining. Maybe the old caps reacted
>differently to boiling.
>
>--
>Dan Listermann
>
>Check out our E-tail site at www.listermann.com
>
>Free shipping for orders greater than $35
>and East of the Mighty Miss.
Dan Listermann
desirable since it can bother the lining. Maybe the old caps reacted
differently to boiling.
--
Dan Listermann
Check out our E-tail site at www.listermann.com
Free shipping for orders greater than $35
and East of the Mighty Miss.
"Twano" <pat...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Thomas T. Veldhouse
:)
Tom Veldhouse
"JTULL5" <jtu...@aol.com> wrote in message
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MDixon
thought
> it was the right thing to do. Shouldn't the bottle caps be sanitized
somehow?
I use StarSan. I used to used bleach and a rinse, then I used Iodophor. I
think they should be sanitized, but the reality of it is that beer is very
difficult to contaminate with anything other than air after it has finished
fermentation.
Cheers,
Mike
Robert Ryan
with them.
Twano
"Dan Listermann" <d...@listermann.com> wrote in message
news:v01ct2i...@corp.supernews.com...
> Did you boil the old caps? Boiling should not be necessary or even
> desirable since it can bother the lining. Maybe the old caps reacted
> differently to boiling.
>
> --
> Dan Listermann
>
> Check out our E-tail site at www.listermann.com
I always give my caps a soak in Idophor solution. I soaked all the caps I
needed at once, old and new, and the bottles were capped with whatever I
picked up. I did notice that the old caps did not require as much pressure
with the lever capper as the newer ones did.
Anyway, I recapped the old ones, came out to 32 bottles
Twano
TechnoShroom
at all. I thought it odd that he said this but didn't question him on it
since I wasn't going to change my way. I find it really funny that they said
not to when I routinely pull out caps covered in dust and dirt because they
use the same scoop for the grain as they do for the caps and the caps sit in
a barrel underneath the grain scale. Needless to say I would never use caps
without at least rinsing them.
"JTULL5" <jtu...@aol.com> wrote in message
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mattoleriver
"Pennywise" <suprchunk_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message > They might,
but they are activated only when wet. I am sure that a
> fair amount of humidity in the air would cause this to activate, and
> hence lose it's ability to absorb oxygen. Maybe I will try a test, if
> only I were a scientist.
Would the caps regain their full potential (or any potential) to absorb O2
if they were subjected to dry heat prior to use? Is the O2 absorption a one
way, one time process or can the caps be "recharged"?
George
steve
"mattoleriver" <mattoleriver@(remove this)yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:attr59$fit$1...@quark.scn.rain.com...
> Would the caps regain their full potential (or any potential) to absorb O2
> if they were subjected to dry heat prior to use? Is the O2 absorption a
one
> way, one time process or can the caps be "recharged"?
advantage was their ability to prevent oxygen from entering the bottle. The
plastic which seals regular caps bleeds O2 into the beer. These Oxy-caps
prevent this bleeding.
Steve
MDixon
If oxygen could enter, couldn't carbon
> dioxide escape? Leaving a flat beer.
It would depend upon the properties of the rubber/plastic that is used for
the cap liner. My guess is that they are fairly resistent to air, and very
resistant to CO2. It all has to do with partial pressures, so CO2 would not
have to leave for O2 to enter...
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Sharp
material, usually metal, (though carbon is one) that adsorbs or otherwise
reacts with gases, The O2 caps use a form of iron, and the process is
one-way (ie: oxidizable iron to rust). I think (but do not know for
certain) it's the same material that's used in those little cloth packets
you open up to keep your hands warm. Some sort of elemental iron compound
that oxidizes slowly.
The caps only react to oxygen passing through the membrane, though. Oddly,
when I looked it up, I didn't see any real mention that moisture was needed
to activate them, though many many getters are shipped passivated, and you
have to do _something_ to activate them once they're in place. But frankly,
I don't see how wetting a plastic membrane, with a getter _embedded_ inside,
can do anything.
Off topic ramble about getters:
There are lots of weird getters. If you cut open your nice stainless steel
vacuum insulated thermos bottle, you'll find it's packed with a carbon dust.
It's actually charcol made from coconut shells--only coconut shell charcol
works for this (due to the pore size). It adsorbs hydrogen, which is what
usually ruins the insulation of those stainless thermos bottles. It works
best at cryogenic temperatures, by the way...but still adsorbs enough to
help at "normal" temps.
I used to work for a company who makes most of the world's barium getters
(CRT tubes and HID lighting use it), and I found many getters will get
extremely hot, once activated. We took a zirconium getter (it was a stack
of discs, each about 3/4 inch in diameter, spaced apart) once, and put it on
a concrete floor. We activated it (using an electric heating element), and
stood back. The whole thing vaporized in about 3-5 seconds. It was so
bright you couldn't look at it. I had a green spot in my vision the rest of
the day! There was a permanent black defect in the concrete when we were
done. Like someone took an oxy-acetylene torch and held it there for a good
long time.
Regards,
Mike Sharp
"MDixon" <mpdixon@_no_spam_ipass.net> wrote in message
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Alan McKay
> But if the pressure is pushing "out" inside the bottle, how much
> chance is there that ambient pressure, less than that of the interior,
> would flow in? It seems, at least to my feeble brain, to be about the
> same as a vacuum pushing air out the same direction as it is sucking
> in. Be gentle, I never took physics.
We just went through this a month ago. In short, things work much
like you would expect them to, except more or less on a per-gas
basis. So if there is no O2 inside, O2 will want to push its way
in regardless of the pressure of other gasses in there.