Aging Sour Beers in Better Bottles
About a week ago a bottled my first sour beer that had been aged in a Better Bottle. It was the Temptation clone that Seth and I brewed back in November. First I'll say the aroma of the uncarbonated beer was outstanding, deliciously funky in that magical Russian River way.
The interesting thing is that the wild yeast and/or bacteria formed tiny little colonies all over the plastic, it was difficult to see when there was beer in there, but once it was emptied it was clear. My assumption is that the microbes are acting just like when they live in the oak of a barrel, scavenging the oxygen as it diffuses in.
I think it is very good sign for the viability of this method, and if the aroma of the beer is any indication this may be one of the best batches I have done so far.
Don't expect a full tasting of this one for a few months, but it is going to be hard to wait too long before I crack one of these open.
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How did the BB clean up? Does it still smell like the original beer?
Oh lord, is that bottle a write off or what?
It actually came right off, the "colonies" weren't imbeded into the plastic, they are just adhered to it. A quick soak in hot water and oxyclean and it looks like new. Anyway, I'm not too worried about it infecting the next beer, because I am going to be using it for a Flanders Red.
I thought the Better Bottles were impermeable to oxygen?
The Better Bottle website says "Virtually impermeable to oxygen"
According to Raj Apte ( http://www2.parc.com/emdl/members/apte/GingerBeer.pdf ) the material Better Bottles are made of (PETG) has an oxygen permeability about 1/6 as much as HDPE. A standard 5 gallon HDPE bucket lets in 220 cc/L per year, I assume the Better Bottle will let in about 1/6 of that or 37 cc/L per year. A regular wine barrel lets in about four times less at 8.5 cc/L per year.
I think you can reasonably assume that a barrel may let in a bit more than the math says because as a small headspace develops due to evaporation the wood above it will dry out and become more permeable.
This is all just a back of the envelope scratch calculation to give you an idea of approximately how much oxygen is getting in there. I sent an message to the folks at Better Bottle requesting any oxygen permeability stats they have, hopefully they will get back to me with some hard data.
Cool, let us know what they say.
I may have to get one for my beers if that info is correct.
After a series of emails with Walter, Better Bottle Tech guy, I have some interesting things to report. First they believe that the 400 cc-mil/m2-day-Bar Raj gives for PETG is probably for a “extrusion blow material” which is different from what Better Bottles are made from, this is good news as it drags the oxygen permeability down closer to that of a regular barrel (how close I don’t know). They believe that the minimal amount of O2 coming through the plastic is dwarfed by the amount coming from the airlock/stopper which are made of much more permeable materials.
He also shot down my Brett lives on the walls because there is O2 argument. Apparently it is a biofilm, which is just something that some microbes form on wet surfaces when they are in a low nutrient environment (like fermented beer). I have seen this before on infected bottles of beer, but I have never seen it before on a carboy/fermenter.
I still think Better Bottles are a great choice for aging sour beers because it really comes down to the results.
very cool.
thanks for the update. i may have to buy one for some of my sour/wild beers
Did you get a pellicle on your beer? I'm doing the research for my first sour beer, and I'd rather avoid the wooden dowel/chair leg method, so if Better Bottles allow enough oxygen in, that's great.
Some of my sour beers get pellicles, others don't. I actually don't notice much flavor difference between the ones that do and the ones that don't.
I'm still very happy with my results from aging in better bottles and glass carboys with airlocks. I think micro-oxygenation is one of the last issues you need to worry about.
Good luck!
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