(Another) disgorging question

[Peter C. Ross - Incy Wincy Cyder (Aust.)]

We've started playing with disgorging as we have about half our product in 75cl Champagne bottles (the rest in 500 ml Cider Style). We're trying to supply bars and restaurants, and try as I might, i can't train their busy staff to pour conditioned product correctly. We're in Australia, so we use a bit of refrigeration to get the bottles to sub 5 deg C (mind you it was only 5 degrees in my shed last weekend anyway !) and then use a Freeze solution which is typically at about -20 deg C to freeze the necks. 

Process from there is simple and relatively easy with two people we crack the Tirage Seal with a disgorging tool, and shoot the small ice block, then quickly reseal with a rubber stopper mounted with a food grade syringe full of top up Cider (no sugar). After that top up, again as quickly as possible reseal the bottle with a new Tirage Seal. In total we estimate the bottle is open for <10 secs.

The problem we're having is we lose a lot of pressure / bubbles when we open the bottle a week later and we can't really understand what's going on. Admittedly we're only conditioning at 10g/litre so the coronation is moderate at best before disgorging and we will try a batch next year at 12.5 g/ litre so we have more gas to start with.

What I don't understand is that if I open the conditioned 75cl bottle (non-disgorged) , pour a glass, and leave the cap off for 20 mins and then pour another, the carbonation is still quite good. So that is buzzing my logic circuits a bit.

Is it possible that because we just store the bottles head down and don't actively 'riddle' there's a nucleation which is capturing our C02 in the ice ? I always assumed that the C02 was dissolved in the cider and wouldn't freeze anyway as the temps are not low enough (-72 needed for C02). 

Or am I missing something else ?

Thanks

Peter

[Bartek Knapek]

Are you using the same crown caps before and after the disgorging?

I found some 29mm caps are leaking pressure.

 

On the attached photo, the caps to the left have rendered my ciders nearly flat after some weeks.

The caps to the right have with much more rubber sealing underneath and were holding the pressure properly.

 

//Bartek

 

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[Peter C. Ross - Incy Wincy Cyder (Aust.)]

Yeah same brand of Cap. I do have some alternatives so i might try another style just to be safe.

Thanks

[Peter C. Ross - Incy Wincy Cyder (Aust.)]

Actually I just checked, we've already tried both Cap Brands, so that's not it........

[wayne]

Yes, I wouldn't expect the level of carbonation to drop as much as described. I've had a similar experience when the volume of the top up was quite high and not very cold. As a test, I would pre chill everything down even lower and possibly pre carbonate the top up somehow (sodastream?)

[Richie McBride]

Im in the UK and have been using Methode Champenoise for four years now - hobby level- 400 litres per year.

Good to see this discussion on here. I also have leakage en tirage occasionally and i'll be looking at my crown caps closely now so thanks for the heads up.

I usually prime at about 15-18g/litre and often bottle in <10 degrees C. I do add dosage and , heres a tip, i use a Sheep Drenching Gun to dosage. Obviously exclusively used for the cider but it allows a full range of dose from 1-45ml and refills itself. I attach it to a 2l PET bottle suspended above the bench. and it works a treat. I do lose some pressure but, due to the higher priming dose I seem to have plenty left to fire my stoppers (where used) 5m high ( is that a technical spec?).

Thanks for the info guys, happy pressing from down under (up under? down over? up over?) :-)

[Tom Bell]

Hi Peter,

I use a similar process which has been evolving over the last few seasons.  I condition the bottles upside down too but now put around 25g/l dextrose in along with EC-1118.  Below is a carbonation curve for one of my ciders this season.  As you can see, the temperature during conditioning was quite high so what has taken six weeks in past seasons only took four weeks this year.  The sudden pressure drop corresponds to cold storage until the pressure stabilized at 2.6 atmos. for two days prior to disgorging.. The recovery curve shows a final pressure of 2.7 atmospheres which took about ten days.  

My disgorgement is a little different from yours.  First, the bottles have been well chilled for several days to a week so the CO2/cider mix has reached equilibrium at this low temperature.  I think this makes a big difference in how much gas I lose.  Since I do all of this without another person to help, I disgorge in groups of 12, placing each bottle back in the freezing solution to keep it cold until all 12 have been disgorged.  Next, I add sulfite, +/- dosage, +/- sorbate ,and top up the bottles to within an inch of the top.  Within ten minutes of disgorging, I recap them and using a pair of heavy gloves, try to twist the cap.  If I can twist it, I remove it and recap.  Finally, I wash and dry the bottles and put them upside down in dry boxes and check them the next morning for leakage recapping any leakers.  I keep an eye on them for at least another week, chilling and recapping as necessary. 

I recently worked with a friend to disgorge his cider and we were hurried enough that we used an ice water bath to cool the bottles down to around 40 deg F.  It was noticeably harder to freeze the necks than cold stabilized bottles, taking over 20 min as opposed to five minutes or so with my usual method.  Their starting pressure was about 3 atmos and I think he told me they stabilized at just under 2 atmospheres a week later.  Back to the carbonation graph of my cider, note that the recovery pressure at 80 deg F is also about half of the pre-disgorgment pressure at the same temperature. This is pretty typical.

You might try a more substantial primer so your pre-disgorgement pressure is higher and cold stabilize long enough to reach equilibrium before disgorging. Pressure monitoring will give you a better perspective on what is going on inside your bottles.  Build a cheap (<US$10) pressure monitor from a Perrier bottle and fill it when you bottle then refill it when you disgorge.

One more beat of the crown cap drum!  Vendors have told me the bead on champagne bottles is wider than beer or cider bottles so a wider skirt on crown caps is an absolute necessity if you want a reliable seal.  The integrity of my caps took a quantum leap once I learned this.  The caps I use have a similar plastic seal to those Bartek has posted and may even be the same brand. --Tom

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Tom, How did you monitor the pressure in your bottles? Is there a commercially available gauge that can be attached to champagne bottles?

[Tom Bell]

Jeffery, 

Yes, there are $1,000 solutions to a $20 problem.  If you look at vendors and manufacturers of instruments and tools for the champagne industry, you can find at least two different kinds of pressure measurement/monitoring devices.  One uses a hollow needle to pierce a corked bottle which is then linked to a pressure gauge.  I think it runs into the hundreds of dollars and does not look like the best way to do regular monitoring since sooner or later the cork would have enough holes in it to fail and you might introduce some spoilage bug which would invalidate any correlation between your test bottle and the rest of your bottles..  The other type fits a cap like device to a champagne bottle that does the same thing.  Lots of machining of stainless steel stock involved in that one which is reflected in the price.  It also looks very heavy and bulky.

If you examine the image I included in my post you can imagine how I drilled a hole in the cap of a Perrier bottle and inserted a standard pipe fitting through it that I could screw a pressure gauge onto.  I didn't invent this, I found the basic idea on another site.  The gauge cost $7.40 and the fitting to adapt it to the bottle cost $10.57.  Add a little silicon gasket sealer, a stainless washer and nut on the inside of the cap and you are good to go for less than $20.  Here are the links I use in the States.  You can probably find comparable components in Australia.

Single Scale Pressure Gauge with 304 Stainless Steel Case

1/8 NPT Male Center Back Connection, 1-1/2" Dial,0 to 100 PSI 
40565K32

Miniature Medium-Pressure Stainless Steel Pipe Fitting

Reducing Adapter, 1/8NPT Female x 10-32 UNF Mal

I have built enough of these to monitor ten batches simultaneously.  When I bottle, I fill my test bottle which then follows the glass bottles where ever they go so both are exposed to the same temperature.  I don't turn my pressure bottle upside down for conditioning but I don't think that matters.  I also don't disgorge it.  When it is time to disgorge, I use the contents to measure my final cider properties including SG and a tasting to see if I want to add dosage.  A 500 ml taste of cider gets me in the mood to expel those lees and put the batch to bed for another 6 months. Sooner or later, the Perrier bottles fail so I only use them once.  They also are somewhat permeable so with time the cider in them will oxidize, another good reason not bottle in PET bottles.

I made up a gauge that is attached to a quick disconnect fitting so I can spot check cider I have conditioning in corny kegs.  Everything gets logged to a spreadsheet and graphed for easy understanding of each batch's progress.

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Fantastic, Thanks for the details. What is the maximum pressure you have seen in your Perrier bottles? Any Idea about the failure pressure?

If I think I understand your setup, but more photos would of course be really appreciated!

[Jeffrey Lewis]

I wonder if anyone has insight into the multi-week riddling process used for champagne. Why is it necessary? My experience seems to mirror that of others here: turning the bottle upside down for a few days seems to do the job and I get a bright, cloudless final product.

Has anyone had continued secondary (tertiary?) fermentation in their disgorged cider after adding sugar?

[Tom Bell]

They've seen 90 psi.  A little scary for a PET bottle.  I worry about my test bottle exploding more than the champagne bottles.

Here are a couple of gauges ready to use. I fill the inner cap with StarSan to sanitize them before use.  The gauge face cover seems to be waterproof but I have never submerged one for long.

This is the order of assembly.

I built this test device.  I mounted a rubber football valve in some fittings and locked it into the bottom of a bottle . I can fill the bottle to a specific pressure with a needle and regulator on a compressor or CO2 tank and read the gauge to confirm it is approximately right.

I also assembled a gauge to get readouts from a corny keg.

When dealing with PET bottles and their poly caps, the easiest way to make an accurate hole is with a heated piece of copper tube or even the right socket out of your tool kit though it is a pain to get the excess plastic off the socket.  The inner surface of a Perrier bottle cap has mold marks which can be flattened with the end of a hot metal rod.  This surface should then be abraded so the silicone gasket sealer makes a good seal.  Same story on the top side of the cap.  Once you have one made, you can test it for leaks with the test bottle or if you do not build one, you can partially fill the bottle with very cold carbonated water, put the gauge on, let the water warm up in the sun and spray the gauge and fitting with a water/detergent mix.  If you see bubbles growing, you have a leak.  When in use, the pressure can start to fall over a few days.  Test the fitting and gauge with soapy water.  Even if you cannot detect a leak, it is most like the bottle failing, not the gauge and cap though your seal through the cap can be the problem.  At that point, you are flying blind with regards to your bottled cider.

Let me know how you like it.

[Jason Mitchell (Ashridge Cider)]

Hi Jeffrey.
I don’t think the whole laborious business of riddling would be done unless there was a good reason.
The French, and others, have perfected the technique over many many years.
It may be that your Cider looks clear and bright after disgorging, but I wonder if it would still be OK after one, two or three years?
Many high end champagnes would want their product to be perfect for considerably longer than this.
Keep some of yours back for say two years an an experiment.
I certainly have had tertiary fermentation after disgorging, and it’s a pain as you can imagine.
In my experience Cider seems to need a longer riddling period than wine, and the effect of having an agent such as bentonite is without doubt essential in my book, to get a good clear end product that is stable.
Bon chance!
Jason

> On 7 Aug 2018, at 20:01, Jeffrey Lewis <jeff.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I wonder if anyone has insight into the multi-week riddling process used for champagne. Why is it necessary? My experience seems to mirror that of others here: turning the bottle upside down for a few days seems to do the job and I get a bright, cloudless final product.
>
> Has anyone had continued secondary (tertiary?) fermentation in their disgorged cider after adding sugar?
>

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[Wes Cherry]

Lees can stick to the bottle side and survive disgorgement if you don’t riddle completely.   Leaves chunky yeast bits.   Learned this the hard way...

A few vigorous riddles should break up the lees.

The French riddling method is equivalent of stirring the lees with sur lee aging and will yield more yeast breakdown products (mannoproteins) into solution for better mouthfeel.   I believe this also creates more micro-nucleation particles and yields finer bubbles.   There are a number of other benefits:

http://www.newworldwinemaker.com/2016/05/5715/

-'//es Cherry

Dragon's Head Cider

Vashon Island, Wa US

www.dragonsheadcider.com

[wayne hewett]

The traditional French sparkling wine disgorging technique has advantages over cider. Gas pressures, length of time on lees before disgorging and alcohol levels all go to inhibiting any viable yeast refermenting. 

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[Jeffrey Lewis]

Great article.  Thanks, Wes.