Crown caps and bottle conditioning

[Southernmost cider]

Hey everyone,

 

 I am getting ready to do my bottle conditioning for the year. Dry cider into a champagne bottle with 10g dextrose added and capped with stainless 26mm caps with a Colt Strong bench capper, fastened to a platform.

I wanted to reach out to the group and see if there was any discrepancies makers have encountered with crown caps leaking CO2 over time. As well as if there is a ceiling to the amount of CO2 a crown cap can take before it pops off/leaks. Presuming the cap was and is fastened properly.

Thanks!

Max

@southernmostcider

[gareth chapman]

properly capped bottles won't leak CO2, sparkling wines are kept under crown caps for years before disgorging on some occasions.

10g sugar  in a 750ml bottle will give you around 4 volumes of CO2, which is no problem for a crown cap. A heavyweight champagne will take over 100psi and a normal range for champagne is usually close to 90psi without popping a crown cap. I reckon even a champagne bottle would break before the cap popped.

An over crimped cap is just as likely to leak as an under crimped one.
Also champagne bottles usually take 29mm caps.

[Andy Backinsell]

Butting in and reading between the lines...of the original post; would my hand capper not be deemed suitable for consistantly good capping for BCing or just slower / harder work for me!?

[gareth chapman]

@Andy should be fine I used a hand capper for years without any problem. As you said just slower and takes a bit more effort.
You could use a go-no-go gauge to check if you are worried, but they are expensive an engineering workshop made one for me for a fiver in their tea fund

[charles udale]

Hi Chappers, 

Thank you for this information, I have been searching around for a while trying to understand the maximum carbonation I could achieve with 750ml bottles and 26mm crown caps and thus the highest SG I could bottle at given an expected FG of 1000 (which I tested with a batch I put in the boiler room to speed up fermentation). In other words, I would like the cider to be dry, naturally conditioned, and as fizzy as possible without exploding! 

My 750ml bottles take 26mm caps. Does your advice apply to these or only to 29mm caps? Is there a difference in the pressure the two cap types can withstand? I have noticed that sometimes the 29mm's have a thicker plastic liner, is this related to pressure? If the bottle can be expected to blow before the cap, why bother using corks and cages?  

One final question: when you say 10g of sugar => 4 vols of CO2, what assumptions are you making about CO2 already dissolved in the cider?

Of course, anyone else's thoughts / advice would be much appreciated!

All the best, 

Charlie Udale

[gareth chapman]

Hi Charlie

Not sure about your bottles. Here we are talking a punted, champagne bottle which will take around 200+ psi, which woild be twice as fizzy as anything you would want to drink.

Here in the UK/Europe a champagne bottle takes a 29mm crown cap as std, but I believe in the US some take 26mm caps.

As an example champagne is carbonated to around 6 vols of co2 or about 90psi, not sure you would want anything fizzier than that.

At that level you are talking around 20-25 g/l of sugar. That is just based on how I bottle my Met. Trad. Which is usually about a year in the barrel and then pumped to a brite tank, so somewhat degassed so nothing scientific, but at a guess maybe 50% CO2 saturation.

If planning a pet nat bottling, I suppose that equates to about a 10 point sg drop.

You may want to do a small trial bottle accelerated fermentation in the boiler room to determine the actual dry point as it may be above or below 1.

Either way you're not going to pop the cap or break  even a 650g punted champagne bottle at drinkable carbonation levels.

Gareth

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[charles udale]

Thanks Gareth! Glad to hear it. 

Though I am now even more curious about why a cork + cage would be required at all, is this just an aesthetic choice?

I am also in the UK but I would mention that when I spoke to my bottle supplier (Rawlings and Son, Bristol) they offered me either 650g, 750ml bottle with 26mm cap or 560g, 750ml bottle with 29mm cap. Sounds like you are saying the choice of cap size (or alternative cork and cage set up) should not be made on the basis of expected / intended carbonation since the capacity of all configurations is sufficiently high to ensure any desirable (as opposed to possible) level of carbonation could be reached safely. So, I could happily bottle at, say 1006 (exp. FG 1000), with a 650g + 26mm cap without needing to worry about the safety of the product? 

All the best, 

Charlie 

[gareth chapman]

yeah the 650g would be more than adequate the 560g bottle is probably a Mundstruck with 29mm cap and that takes 15bar.
Check with Anna at Bottle Company South(also in Bristol) she will be able to do a full weight punted bottle cheaper MOQ 1050/pallet but take 29mm caps which may be an issue if you are trying to keep similar cap sizes across 750ml and 500ml bottles.
Cork and cage is largely aesthetic but cork over time is micro porous to air so can have effects on the aging process.

I'm sure you are aware of this but if you are selling your cider then carbonation levels and cork and cage affect the duty status

[gareth chapman]

meant to add that a 6 point drop would give you a fairly decent sparkle, somewhere between say Strongbow and champagne.

[Mark Warnett]

Hi Charles

I can’t speak to the science but last year we crown capped a batch of ‘stuck’ keeved cider to which we added DAP and blended a bit of I keeved cider.

That cider became very fuzzy (but not unpalatable in fact very nice) but if bottles were laid horizontally we found cider was escaping out around the crown caps

Vertically stored is fine 

Sent from my iPhone

On 13 Jan 2022, at 11:41, charles udale <charle...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Gareth! Glad to hear it. 

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[Johan Strömberg]

This is not due to pressure so slightly off-topic but I managed to do some potential bottle (or at least cork) bombs when I crown capped about 300 750ml champagne bottles with 29mm caps and very poor hand corker. I still don't know why but some bottles had leaked about 50% of its content BEFORE bottle fermentation had started. I still don't know how it's possible but added sugar probably did the caps good enough to held pressure at some point. I can say that it's not a good feeling to handle that kind of bottle and I had to re-cap almost all of them.

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[Eric Tyira]

Not sure if I asked this before, but has anyone put together a chart of SG's with resulting vols of carbonation?  Or g/L of sugar added at bottling (assuming fully fermented before adding) and assuming it fully ferments in bottle?

I ask because I'm a very visual person and charts and graphs help me significantly in seeing the process and results.

Or, if you have a calculator available or online, I will gladly use it to generate a chart and repost.

Eric

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[charles udale]

Hi Mark, 

Thank you for our contribution to the conversation. Do you know how many points your cider dropped in the bottle? 

All the best, 

Charlie

[gareth chapman]

interesting point re leakages, we too used to see some leakage varying amounts butas observed occasionally approaching half a bottle (maybe as many as 1in 4), but also as observed still fully carbonated. We have since switched to pre biduled caps and now maybe see a dozen in a 220l bottling.

[tom.t...@gmail.com]

Hi Eric,

about a year ago a very similar discussion was had, and I found the time to quickly compile a graph or two.

you can see it here. It may not be 100% relevant to what you need, but enjoy nontheless.

https://groups.google.com/g/cider-workshop/c/qCm03bCTdUA/m/O4I_ejxRBAAJ

Tom

[CGJ]

Eric,

"Craft Cider Making" (Andrew Lea) has just such a table (p 82 of the
paperback version of the 3rd Edition). Claude Jolicoeur has the
calculations included in his fermentation model spreadsheet, although I
can not find a link to it on his website at the moment.

Carl
West Barnstable
Massachusetts

[Mark Warnett]

Hi Charlie

No but I might be able to check. If I have time I’ll let you know. I’d speculate 6-7.

Interestingly and as noted by somebody else, the bottles which leaked cider remained fully carbonated / just as fizzy. I can’t explain why but they were!

Cheers

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On 13 Jan 2022, at 14:45, charles udale <charle...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Mark, 

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[Eric Tyira]

Thanks, Carl.

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[Eric Tyira]

If I've done the math right, I get this chart.  This is SG at the time of bottling and the resulting CO2 and vols.

Vols is simply g/L CO2 x .560 which came from https://discussions.probrewer.com/forum/probrewer-message-board/brewing-process-and-theory/process-and-techniques-sponsored-by-cpe-systems/2671-calculating-co2-volumes

Can someone please confirm it's correct?  I don't want to lead anyone astray.  I'm also ignoring temperature.

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 10:21 AM CGJ <ca...@cedar-meadow-farm.com> wrote:

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le jeudi 13 janvier 2022 à 10:21:36 UTC-5, CGJ a écrit :

Claude Jolicoeur has the
calculations included in his fermentation model spreadsheet, although I
can not find a link to it on his website at the moment.

The Fermentation Model can be downloaded from http://www.cjoliprsf.ca/ciderhandbook.htm

Link is at the bottom of the page.

This will effectively let you simulate an in-bottle fermentation and give you as result the vols of CO2 as well as the pressure.

And as of how many points of SG drop are required to produce a good sparkle, I find that 4 to 5 points drop is quite sufficient for a good sparkling, while about 3 points will give a nice petillant.

[charles udale]

Thank you for doing this, Eric. 

Taking the values in the last column of your table and dividing by 0.56 does not produce the values in the penultimate column so I am a little lost about how you got there. 

I have taken a slightly different approach and get (very) slightly different results: 

In Claude's book (p.272) table 15.3 says 1 vol CO2 = 1 sg point drop under the assumption that the cider is at 60% CO2 saturation rate (i.e 1.2g/l CO2 already in solution). Claude's table suggests each 1 sg point drop is associated with 0.8 g/l of additional CO2 in solution and, using the 0.56 relation you provide leads to the following table: 

		Assuming Full Saturation		Assuming 60% Saturation
SG @ Bottling	SG Drop to Dry = 998	CO2 g/l	Vols	CO2 g/l	Vols
1010	12	11.6	6.5	10.8	6.0
1009	11	10.8	6.0	10.0	5.6
1008	10	10	5.6	9.2	5.2
1007	9	9.2	5.2	8.4	4.7
1006	8	8.4	4.7	7.6	4.3
1005	7	7.6	4.3	6.8	3.8
1004	6	6.8	3.8	6.0	3.4
1003	5	6	3.4	5.2	2.9
1002	4	5.2	2.9	4.4	2.5
1001	3	4.4	2.5	3.6	2.0
1000	2	3.6	2.0	2.8	1.6
999	1	2.8	1.6	2.0	1.1
998	0	2	1.1	1.2	0.7

The table assumes dry = 998 but this is not always the case as far as I can tell. It will surely depend on residual sugar, alcohol, and also additional solids in suspension. 

Overall the results of our two approaches are very similar, however and the error introduced by the assumptions about already dissolved CO2 seems to be a bigger cause of discrepancy. 

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[gareth chapman]

If you want to work by SG drop to dry, then the best thing to do is run accelerated test jars kept in the warm, so you will know where your large batches will end up. Otherwise it's just guess work.

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le jeudi 13 janvier 2022 à 12:38:21 UTC-5, charle...@gmail.com a écrit :

Taking the values in the last column of your table and dividing by 0.56 does not produce the values in the penultimate column so I am a little lost about how you got there. 

Note Eric did a slight typing error in transcription... the factor should be 0.506 and not 0.56 (see the link he provided). Actually he used the correct factor in his calcs and his table is right. The factor comes from the volumic mass of CO2 at standard conditions which is 1.977 g/L. And the reverse of this number is 1/1.977=0.506.

If you use my fermentation model spreadsheet, you'll get:

For each SG point of in-bottle fermentation, you will ferment 2.16 g/L of sugar and that will produce 1.02 g/L of CO2, to which you then add the amount of CO2 already present in the cider at bottling, which may be between 0 and 2 g/L if saturated - I usually take 60% of saturation here, so 1.2 g/L.

So for example, with a drop of 5 points in bottle, 5*2.16= 10.8 g/L of sugar is fermented.

This will produce 5*1.02= 5.1 g/L of CO2

Add the 1.2 g/L you assume is already present (or another number between 0 and 2) to get 6.3 g/L.

Divide by 1.977 (or multiply by 0.506) to get 3.18 Vols.

Note this is not always absolutely exact as the fermentation may be more or less efficient depending on many factors. Different by-products may be produced... So this is sort of average.

[Eric Tyira]

Thank you, Claude.

Now that I understand the math, I made the corrections, recalculated and formatted.  I added a chart for visual folks like myself.

Eric

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[Eric Tyira]

I guess the last step would be to add the pressure inside the bottle due to the CO2 generated.

Can anyone provide the math and I'll add it to the chart and repost?  I did a calculation but don't want to post it until I know it's correct.

[T “N D” Tibbits]

Hi Eric - unless you choose a standard temperature to define all your calculations at (and bottle your cider at) you’re on a hiding to nothing with pressure as it’s strongly temperature dependent.

The partial pressure of CO2 in cider is the maths you need to do the calculations. I don’t know the coefficients offhand, but I’m sure google knows.

Good graph you’ve made above, and very useful too !

Thanks,

Tom

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On 14 Jan 2022, at 13:42, Eric Tyira <secretc...@lostruinswinery.com> wrote:



I guess the last step would be to add the pressure inside the bottle due to the CO2 generated.

Can anyone provide the math and I'll add it to the chart and repost?  I did a calculation but don't want to post it until I know it's correct.

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 8:16 AM Eric Tyira <secretc...@lostruinswinery.com> wrote:

Thank you, Claude.

Now that I understand the math, I made the corrections, recalculated and formatted.  I added a chart for visual folks like myself.

<image.png>

Eric

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[Eric Tyira]

Thanks.  I know temps matter, especially mathematically, but I'm guessing we can assume that bottle conditioning is done between, say, 50 F and 65 F, or something like that.  I don't think the pressure will change all that much.

The reason I want to add the pressure is there's been plenty of talk on here about what bottles can handle what pressure, etc.  If we have a general idea of how much pressure we could be creating, that at least that points us in the direction of which bottles to use and which ones not to use.

Or to take it a step farther, we could calculate a pressure range based on a fixed temperature range, say from 50 F to 170 F (cellar to pasteurization).  Then we'll have an idea of pressure at serving (room temp-ish) vs. what pressure at pasteurizing.

I think the less experienced of us (myself included) may not realize how powerful a little sugar can be.

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le vendredi 14 janvier 2022 à 08:42:42 UTC-5, Eric Tyira a écrit :

I guess the last step would be to add the pressure inside the bottle due to the CO2 generated.

It is all in my book, page 267-268...

Claude