Beer Aging Question

[Village_Taphouse]

@hopfenundmalz

Not sure what you mean there.

I was just acknowledging that your information about the caps that we use is indeed bad news.  As homebrewers we bottle our beer and feel like it’s safe inside the bottle… but it’s really not.

[TXFlyGuy (Bel Air Brewing)]

@Village_Taphouse

@hopfenundmalz

Not sure what you mean there.

I was just acknowledging that your information about the caps that we use is indeed bad news.  As homebrewers we bottle our beer and feel like it’s safe inside the bottle… but it’s really not.

Based on the responses here, no beer is safe once in the bottle, even a commercially brewed beer.

[TXFlyGuy (Bel Air Brewing)]

@chinaski

As someone who has judged many competitions, more likely than not the oxidation from a well-packaged beer will only matter if the beer is one of the top beers in a flight or at the best of show round.  Why?  Two reasons- the huge range of quality among entries and the fact that all entries have to be packaged at some point.  Brew and submit the best beer you can, package it carefully, and accept what comes.  Oxidation coming from outside into a capped bottle is probably one of the least likely variables to affect your score.

This makes sense. So is a BJCP Judge going to be able to taste the difference in my beer…say a beer bottled right now and stored for one month, vs. a beer bottled the day before the entry deadline? My bottles were completely purged with CO2 prior to bottling.

If so, this judge has Superman taste buds!

[denny]

@TXFlyGuy

@Village_Taphouse

@hopfenundmalz

Not sure what you mean there.

I was just acknowledging that your information about the caps that we use is indeed bad news.  As homebrewers we bottle our beer and feel like it’s safe inside the bottle… but it’s really not.

Based on the responses here, no beer is safe once in the bottle, even a commercially brewed beer.

I think that’s correct.  That’s why my philosophy is do the best you can, then don’t worry about it.

[denny]

@TXFlyGuy

@chinaski

As someone who has judged many competitions, more likely than not the oxidation from a well-packaged beer will only matter if the beer is one of the top beers in a flight or at the best of show round.  Why?  Two reasons- the huge range of quality among entries and the fact that all entries have to be packaged at some point.  Brew and submit the best beer you can, package it carefully, and accept what comes.  Oxidation coming from outside into a capped bottle is probably one of the least likely variables to affect your score.

This makes sense. So is a BJCP Judge going to be able to taste the difference in my beer…say a beer bottled right now and stored for one month, vs. a beer bottled the day before the entry deadline? My bottles were completely purged with CO2 prior to bottling.

If so, this judge has Superman taste buds!

I’d say maybe.  I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

[chinaski]

@Village_Taphouse

Agreed.  Every minute that the beer sits in the bottle it’s losing comp points.  That’s just based on what the LO guys have said about the seal on a bottle compared to beer being stored in a keg.  If you want to help that situation you could do the wax coating over the cap to keep as much O2 out as possible.

I’ll tell this story from the LO forum:  The experiment was whether O2 got into sealed bottles.  The brewer filled six bottles the same way and three of those bottles went into the fridge while the other three bottles went inside a keg that was sealed and pressurized with CO2.  All of it was kept cold and X amount of time went by (2 months, 3 months?).  At the end the brewer opened a bottle that was stored inside the keg and the beer tasted fresh and the color was as it was on bottling day.  The bottles stored in the fridge outside of the keg were not as fresh-tasting and oxidation had darkened the color noticeably.  O2 and finished beer are not friends. 

I respect that this LODO story makes some sense, BUT what would be the result if the taste evaluation of those two beer samples were done blindly?  Would this difference be detected?  And, if so, would the beers from the kegged treatment be judged higher in front of BJCP judges?  To me, these are important answers to know.  Furthermore I’d like to see the data from this experiment repeated multiple times.  Otherwise the story is just what amounts to highly biased observations from one brewer.

[TXFlyGuy (Bel Air Brewing)]

@chinaski

@Village_Taphouse

Agreed.  Every minute that the beer sits in the bottle it’s losing comp points.  That’s just based on what the LO guys have said about the seal on a bottle compared to beer being stored in a keg.  If you want to help that situation you could do the wax coating over the cap to keep as much O2 out as possible.

I’ll tell this story from the LO forum:  The experiment was whether O2 got into sealed bottles.  The brewer filled six bottles the same way and three of those bottles went into the fridge while the other three bottles went inside a keg that was sealed and pressurized with CO2.  All of it was kept cold and X amount of time went by (2 months, 3 months?).  At the end the brewer opened a bottle that was stored inside the keg and the beer tasted fresh and the color was as it was on bottling day.  The bottles stored in the fridge outside of the keg were not as fresh-tasting and oxidation had darkened the color noticeably.  O2 and finished beer are not friends. 

I respect that this LODO story makes some sense, BUT what would be the result if the taste evaluation of those two beer samples were done blindly?  Would this difference be detected?  And, if so, would the beers from the kegged treatment be judged higher in front of BJCP judges?  To me, these are important answers to know.  Furthermore I’d like to see the data from this experiment repeated multiple times.  Otherwise the story is just what amounts to highly biased observations from one brewer.

This is what the airline training department refers to as “expectation bias”.

[Village_Taphouse]

@chinaski

I respect that this LODO story makes some sense, BUT what would be the result if the taste evaluation of those two beer samples were done blindly?  Would this difference be detected?  And, if so, would the beers from the kegged treatment be judged higher in front of BJCP judges?  To me, these are important answers to know.  Furthermore I’d like to see the data from this experiment repeated multiple times.  Otherwise the story is just what amounts to highly biased observations from one brewer.

I hear you and I thought the same thing.  What if you bottled all six of the beers and just put them all in the fridge, went back to the fridge after 2-3 months and opened one, tried it and said, “HEY, still good!” because you didn’t have the other sample to test against.  I get it and I agree.  I think the point is that the beer oxidized and if flavor was not a good enough indicator, color was there to make the experiment legit (there were pictures).  All of this was on the LO board which I am no longer a member of.  I do not necessarily defend it but it does bring the limitations of bottling to light.  I know myself that I have bottled some beer from kegs and tasted them a week later and thought they were very good.  Then went back and grabbed one 2-3 months later and winced a little bit.  O2 enters the bottle at the union between the bottle and the cap.  I think we can all agree that is the case.

[hopfenundmalz]

@TXFlyGuy

@Village_Taphouse

@hopfenundmalz

Not sure what you mean there.

I was just acknowledging that your information about the caps that we use is indeed bad news.  As homebrewers we bottle our beer and feel like it’s safe inside the bottle… but it’s really not.

Based on the responses here, no beer is safe once in the bottle, even a commercially brewed beer.

Got it, agree with both of you.

Cans are the best at keeping O2 out. I was seeing more in competitions, when we had competitions.

[system]

If bottle pressure is higher than atmosphere pressure, how can oxygen get in from outside the bottle ?
Isn’t the psst when opening a bottle, pressure coming out to equalize ?

Pound per square inch

Carbonation test

Thanks

[wdoucette (HighVoltageMan!)]

@chinaski

As someone who has judged many competitions, more likely than not the oxidation from a well-packaged beer will only matter if the beer is one of the top beers in a flight or at the best of show round.  Why?  Two reasons- the huge range of quality among entries and the fact that all entries have to be packaged at some point.  Brew and submit the best beer you can, package it carefully, and accept what comes.  Oxidation coming from outside into a capped bottle is probably one of the least likely variables to affect your score.

This makes the most sense to me. Oxidation will degrade beer over time, so waiting to bottle before a comp makes sense. But the biggest chance of contact with oxygen is at bottling. The oxidation from oxygen entering the bottle through a seal cap is minimal and is dwarfed by the oxidation in the bottling process. I compete a lot, I try to bottle as close to the comp as I can, but I’ve been in BOS in big comps with beers that were 1 month in the bottle.

[BrewBama (Dwain)]

If bottle pressure is higher than atmosphere pressure, how can oxygen get in from outside the bottle ?
Isn’t the psst when opening a bottle, pressure coming out to equalize ?

Pound per square inch - Wikipedia

Homebrewing Beer: Carbonation test

Thanks

Addressed in post #6. Dalton’s Law.

[TXFlyGuy (Bel Air Brewing)]

@chinaski

As someone who has judged many competitions, more likely than not the oxidation from a well-packaged beer will only matter if the beer is one of the top beers in a flight or at the best of show round.  Why?  Two reasons- the huge range of quality among entries and the fact that all entries have to be packaged at some point.  Brew and submit the best beer you can, package it carefully, and accept what comes.  Oxidation coming from outside into a capped bottle is probably one of the least likely variables to affect your score.

This makes the most sense to me. Oxidation will degrade beer over time, so waiting to bottle before a comp makes sense. But the biggest chance of contact with oxygen is at bottling. The oxidation from oxygen entering the bottle through a seal cap is minimal and is dwarfed by the oxidation in the bottling process. I compete a lot, I try to bottle as close to the comp as I can, but I’ve been in BOS in big comps with beers that were 1 month in the bottle.

I’m going out on a limb, and state that O2 ingression in a properly capped bottle will be non-detectable over a two month period. Maybe even longer than that. 6 months or longer could show some O2, but without scientific measuring equipment it is hard to quantify.

The biggest variable is the bottling process. Did you sanitize the bottles? Did you purge the bottles with CO2? Did you properly apply the caps on the bottles?

Using my V2.0 Beer Gun, we are confident that the beer has been packaged as well as it can be. Will the beer taste fresh in one, maybe two months? I’m certain that it will.

However, 6, 7, or more months from now I would not bet on it. We purchase beer of German / Dutch origin all the time, that is three or four months from the bottling date. And it tastes just fine. I have hand carried beers from Holland, Germany and Japan back home with me many times. These beers were fresh tasting, but always at least a month or more from the packaging date.

As I have bottled two entries now, they will be the entries submitted in 3 weeks.

[Village_Taphouse]

@TXFlyGuy

I’m going out on a limb, and state that O2 ingression in a properly capped bottle will be non-detectable over a two month period. Maybe even longer than that. 6 months or longer could show some O2, but without scientific measuring equipment it is hard to quantify.

The biggest variable is the bottling process. Did you sanitize the bottles? Did you purge the bottles with CO2? Did you properly apply the caps on the bottles?

Using my V2.0 Beer Gun, we are confident that the beer has been packaged as well as it can be. Will the beer taste fresh in one, maybe two months? I’m certain that it will.

However, 6, 7, or more months from now I would not bet on it. We purchase beer of German / Dutch origin all the time, that is three or four months from the bottling date. And it tastes just fine. I have hand carried beers from Holland, Germany and Japan back home with me many times. These beers were fresh tasting, but always at least a month or more from the packaging date.

As I have bottled two entries now, they will be the entries submitted in 3 weeks.

I believe you are indeed out on a limb.  You may also be late to the party.  People with scientific measuring equipment have already looked into this and 2-3 months after bottling was plenty to show that the beer had been damaged by O2.  Also, these beers were bottled by a person who adheres to low oxygen brewing so that would cover the part about the bottling process.  Sanitizing plays no role with regard to O2.  Purging the bottles and properly applying the caps is a given (at least in the case I mentioned).  Would the beer be drinkable?  Yes.  Would most people say it tastes fine?  Possibly.  Would the effects of oxidation make it past the senses of a trained beer judge?

[goschman (Iliff Ave)]

Sounds like you have convinced yourself regardless of the responses. I do that a lot myself.

[ynotbrusum]

The other thing to include in the analysis here is the bias toward oxidation, meaning, many folks have oxidized examples of European beers that become the “standard” for replication of a style or expected commercial example.  For those who have traveled to Europe - you probably had fresh examples and may have noticed a difference between fresh from the tap in Europe and staled by the trip to the US.  I have never been there, but I have had fresh examples brought back to me by visitors over there…the difference is often very noticeable between fresh brews and those that “survived” the ocean freighter trip.

Oxidation may present in many ways, including a simple sweetness that exceeds expectations.

[Village_Taphouse]

Sounds like you have convinced yourself regardless of the responses. I do that a lot myself.

Sometimes you just have to see for yourself.  I’m guilty too.

[Village_Taphouse]

@ynotbrusum

The other thing to include in the analysis here is the bias toward oxidation, meaning, many folks have oxidized examples of European beers that become the “standard” for replication of a style or expected commercial example.  For those who have traveled to Europe - you probably had fresh examples and may have noticed a difference between fresh from the tap in Europe and staled by the trip to the US.  I have never been there, but I have had fresh examples brought back to me by visitors over there…the difference is often very noticeable between fresh brews and those that “survived” the ocean freighter trip.

Oxidation may present in many ways, including a simple sweetness that exceeds expectations.

This is very true.  I have had fresh draft beer in Vienna, Brataslava, Prague, Munich and Frankfurt.  They do their best to get the stuff over to us in as good of shape as possible but they’re playing by the same rules we are.  The fresh draft beer you get over there is insane and it’s one of the reasons why there has been a low-oxygen push in homebrewing (I’m not attempting to support the low-oxygen brewers any more than I’m trying to advocate for the beer that is brewed that way).  Some beers have a character to them that could be from oxidation and we associate that flavor with that beer.  Pilsner Urquell over there is delicious but over here for some reason it DOES seem oxidized but also I pick up quite a bit of diacetyl in both cans and bottles of it… cans are worse.

[goschman (Iliff Ave)]

How does bottle conditioned beer fit into the equation? Just finished off last years Xmas beer that was over a year old. It was a dry hopped American strong ale. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it held up.

[erockrph]

@Village_Taphouse

@ynotbrusum

The other thing to include in the analysis here is the bias toward oxidation, meaning, many folks have oxidized examples of European beers that become the “standard” for replication of a style or expected commercial example.  For those who have traveled to Europe - you probably had fresh examples and may have noticed a difference between fresh from the tap in Europe and staled by the trip to the US.  I have never been there, but I have had fresh examples brought back to me by visitors over there…the difference is often very noticeable between fresh brews and those that “survived” the ocean freighter trip.

Oxidation may present in many ways, including a simple sweetness that exceeds expectations.

This is very true.  I have had fresh draft beer in Vienna, Brataslava, Prague, Munich and Frankfurt.  They do their best to get the stuff over to us in as good of shape as possible but they’re playing by the same rules we are.  The fresh draft beer you get over there is insane and it’s one of the reasons why there has been a low-oxygen push in homebrewing (I’m not attempting to support the low-oxygen brewers any more than I’m trying to advocate for the beer that is brewed that way).  Some beers have a character to them that could be from oxidation and we associate that flavor with that beer.  Pilsner Urquell over there is delicious but over here for some reason it DOES seem oxidized but also I pick up quite a bit of diacetyl in both cans and bottles of it… cans are worse.

Tangent - So does PU not have diacetyl when tasted fresh in Europe? I’ve always heard that a bit of diacetyl is allowable, if not desirable (yuck), in a Bo Pils. Is this yet another example of something that is being done solely because we get bad examples of the style over here?