Hi everyone -
It's been a project of mine for a while to make a high alcohol, high carbonation ginger beer. So far I've made a few batches with a few different recipe variations, most of which have turned out pretty tasty, but I've been having a few issues.
Previously I've used PET bottles and swing-tops I bought from Wilco. These worked fine for the most part, but I've opted to use sugar both for sweetness (rather than an artificial sweetener) and for carbonation, which essentially meant there was a narrow sweet spot to actually drink the ginger in which the levels of sweetness and carbonation were ideal. I tried to heat pasteurise the swing-tops, but sadly this began to erode the seals.
With a more recent batch, I have switched to crown-capped bottles. Using the same amount of sugar as before (16g for a 330ml bottle) and waiting a week and a half, I was met with a shattered, exploding bottle when I went to test. With the next bottle, which I managed to get to before an explosion, I found the levels of carbonation to be the same, prosecco-like levels I found with the PET and swing-tops. During the heat pasteurisation process following this, many of the caps blew off the bottles like champagne corks, absolutely decimating my batch.
So my questions are as follows:
- Are crown caps suitable for high levels of carbonation, or is this a bad choice? What else could I try?
- How can I be sure that the crown-cappable bottles I use will be able to withstand high levels of carbonation? I struggled to find information on this when purchasing bottles.
- Should I just bite the bullet and accept the worse flavour of a sweetener to avoid the risk of overcarbonation and a heat pasteurisation process?
Any advice very much welcome, I'm very eager to get my next batches up and running. I'm using EC-1118 Lalvin yeast if this is of relevance. Thanks in advance.
It's been a project of mine for a while to make a high alcohol, high carbonation ginger beer. So far I've made a few batches with a few different recipe variations, most of which have turned out pretty tasty, but I've been having a few issues.
Previously I've used PET bottles and swing-tops I bought from Wilco. These worked fine for the most part, but I've opted to use sugar both for sweetness (rather than an artificial sweetener) and for carbonation, which essentially meant there was a narrow sweet spot to actually drink the ginger in which the levels of sweetness and carbonation were ideal. I tried to heat pasteurise the swing-tops, but sadly this began to erode the seals.
With a more recent batch, I have switched to crown-capped bottles. Using the same amount of sugar as before (16g for a 330ml bottle) and waiting a week and a half, I was met with a shattered, exploding bottle when I went to test. With the next bottle, which I managed to get to before an explosion, I found the levels of carbonation to be the same, prosecco-like levels I found with the PET and swing-tops. During the heat pasteurisation process following this, many of the caps blew off the bottles like champagne corks, absolutely decimating my batch.
So my questions are as follows:
- Are crown caps suitable for high levels of carbonation, or is this a bad choice? What else could I try?
- How can I be sure that the crown-cappable bottles I use will be able to withstand high levels of carbonation? I struggled to find information on this when purchasing bottles.
- Should I just bite the bullet and accept the worse flavour of a sweetener to avoid the risk of overcarbonation and a heat pasteurisation process?
Any advice very much welcome, I'm very eager to get my next batches up and running. I'm using EC-1118 Lalvin yeast if this is of relevance. Thanks in advance.
