Was all set and ready to bottle my red last night. I had my bottles wash and sanitized, my bottling bucket set up and sanitized and then when I grabbed my caps to sanitize them next I noticed they were all rusty! These were the O2 obsorbing kind from B3. Although I'm not out a wad of cash I was needless to say a bit PO'd last night.
Most likely my problem was that I threw the whole bunch in the sanitizer when I bottled my last batch of scotch instead of counting precisely how many I needed. In hindsight it wouldn't have been that hard to count out the caps, however I had no idea caps would rust like this. Has anyone else had such problems? Are there different qualities of caps out there that won't rust? Can I complain to B3?
There was a guy in the City of orange last week selling all his homebrew stuff including 2 cornies and a CO2 set up for $160. I hope someone else here got their hands on it as I'm kicking myself for not. I can't wait to forget about this business with bottling.
Yes, caps will rust if you get them wet. I've had this happen with multiple batches of caps from different sources. I usually just count out the three or four I need these days... Call on that kegging setup if it is still listed.
lars wrote:Yes, caps will rust if you get them wet. I've had this happen with multiple batches of caps from different sources. I usually just count out the three or four I need these days... Call on that kegging setup if it is still listed.
Yea, the post is no longer listed on CL or I would. Thanks for the info. Sometimes it's the hard way, but I'm learning.
You probably don't want to soak more caps than needed if you are using the O2 absorbing caps, anyways. As I believe getting them wet activates the cap to start absorbing the oxygen. Not that they wouldn't have worked (if not for the rust) they just wouldn't have performed the function of absorbing O2.
I did something similar a few years back when I could not find my caps (I had just moved recently)!! I had the bottles sanitized and had already transferred the beer to my bottling bucket onto the priming sugar solution. Crap! I ended up bottling anyway and putting saran wrap over the top of the bottles with rubber bands. The next day I rushed to a homebrew shop for some caps and rushed back home to cap off the bottles. A few weeks later the batch was seriously under carbonated so I ended up using a pipette to remove 30ml of beer from each bottle and replaced it with 30 ml of yeast laden priming sugar. In the end it turned out fine...
Lesson learned!
At least you found out before you got to a point of no return!
brew captain wrote:I did something similar a few years back when I could not find my caps (I had just moved recently)!! I had the bottles sanitized and had already transferred the beer to my bottling bucket onto the priming sugar solution. Crap! I ended up bottling anyway and putting saran wrap over the top of the bottles with rubber bands. The next day I rushed to a homebrew shop for some caps and rushed back home to cap off the bottles. A few weeks later the batch was seriously under carbonated so I ended up using a pipette to remove 30ml of beer from each bottle and replaced it with 30 ml of yeast laden priming sugar. In the end it turned out fine...
Lesson learned!
At least you found out before you got to a point of no return!
Cheers!
Wow, glad to hear yours turned out ok in the end. Hopefully it wasn't a 10 gallon batch of 12oz bottles though.
You are so right though, I was seriously thanking my lucky stars I hadn't primed the beer before realizing the problem.
These were the O2 obsorbing kind from B3. Although I'm not out a wad of cash I was needless to say a bit PO'd last night.
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