Swing top bottles, lacking carb after refrigeration

[Milesey]

After I've left on fridge for like 48 hours I noticed some are flat , is this normal or could seals have perished?

Mind you they've only been lightly used but I do put them in dish washer after use ?

 

[Dazzelknight]

It could be the seals. I remove the rubber washers soak in starsan and re-replace after a good steam in the dishwasher and never have a problem (Grolsh bottles).Also remember the colder your beer gets the more the gas will contract so produce less fizz....you could be just underpriming your bottles.
Open one at room temperature if this has a slight fizz it’s probs your underpriming,, if it’s also flat it’s got to be your rubber seals.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I got a pack of these ones last year, to replace the rubber seals on my swing-top bottle - they fit well and seem to be very durable :-)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0854BSBSR

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I do put them in dish washer after use

Do you remove the rubber seals first? I should imagine it's quite likely that they might perish if they go through the dishwasher

 

[trummy]

Re cap and put somewhere warm - If the beer returns to being a bit lively then you may have undercarbonated I had the same problem camping at the weekend - too cold! ( (screwtop). I have used swing tops times without any problem, I do not remove seal when sterilising - just fill bottle with solution and close the top. Never had an infection. Never have used the dishwasher for cleaning just a good rinse after emptying then sterilise before re use .
Guess hot temperatures could degrade the seals but that would be obvious looking at them

 

[Gwen]

I have the opposite. Using swing bottles for the first time (second hand but replaced all the rubber seals) on an AG punk ipa kit and didn't even use the full amount of honey to carbonate. I have too much carbonation, like little volcanoes

 

[Victor Churchill]

I use Grolsch bottles and Fischer Alsace bottles collected over the years - many picked up on camping holidays in France when my kids were at school. I'm now a grandad. I routinely rinse the bottles straight after pouring and then put the bottles through the dishwasher (70 deg programme, no detergent) before bottling. I'd say I have seen a *small* proportion (not more than 1%) of seals perish. It's a very visible deterioration in the rubber on those bottles that use rubber seals. I think there's a lot of variation in the material used for the seals and some of them seem to go on for ever. I bought one of those packs of replacement seals years back and have used less than half of them.

 

[Tweedie]

Victor..... interesting you put the bottles through the dishwasher. Have you found this has any effect on the brew? Also do you sanitise them before filling?

 

[Victor Churchill]

Hi Tweedie - I use the dishwasher on its highest temp setting and purely as a hot-water blaster, with no detergent tablet; so it's primarily for sterilisation. ( If I find an old bottle I'll give it a VWP soak, rinse and bottle-brush first; ) No discernible effect on the brew as far as I am aware. I don't actually have a sanitiser, if you mean StarSan or equivalent; always just used VWP and recently a DiY bleach & vinegar soak. I close the bottles after they come out of the dishie while they are still piping hot.

 

[Tweedie]

Thats really interesting Victor as I spend ages filling and shaking and standing bottles in sanatiser before bottling. It always adds an hour on the bottling process. If I can just load the dishwasher, I can clean the bottles before cracking on with the priming into a second bottling FV. Anything to speed up the bottling process would be useful, apart from the obvious which is going to kegs, which is my usual go to conditioning/storage vessel.

 

[Covrich]

Thats really interesting Victor as I spend ages filling and shaking and standing bottles in sanatiser before bottling. It always adds an hour on the bottling process. If I can just load the dishwasher, I can clean the bottles before cracking on with the priming into a second bottling FV. Anything to speed up the bottling process would be useful, apart from the obvious which is going to kegs, which is my usual go to conditioning/storage vessel.

Hello (another Tigers fan here)

Dishwasher sometimes doesnt get into the bottles.. what you might find really sueful is a bottle santiser/ rinser

put your star san or no rinse sanitiser in there.. pump each bottle a few times let it sit and you are ready to fill..

 

[Hop_it]

I have found that removing, washing and drying the seals when I wash my swing tops after pouring helps them to last a lot longer. I have noticed that you get far less stress cracking around the edges when they are not left for long periods of time stretched/stressed on the caps of empty bottles. I give them a quick dip in sanitiser before putting them back on at bottling time.

I've also noticed over the years that the quality of replacement washers varies enormously. I've had some that have gone hard and brittle very quickly, and others that seem to last for ages. The washers highlighted above by "The Engineer . . . . . " look very much like the very good ones I bought a few years ago (and could not remember where I got them from . . . . . Thank you ).
They are made from silicone rubber, hence the price. They don't crack, and they do not have a compression set memory (which most cheap rubber ones do), so they always seal well. . . . . Definitely worth paying a bit more for them.