About three months ago I had the last bottle of a batch of brown ale exactly one year after bottling; it was great. If properly done beer should be good for quite a while.
Really? So my regular caps on my Bourbon Barrel Porter and Belgian Trippel are a problem?
I had one of my 4th or so brews a year later. SNPA extract clone. It had a “twang” to it young. A year later it was fabulous.
I use only regular caps. I have had several brews go well over a year, and they all tasted great. I just don’t see the point in paying more for caps I don’t feel I need. I believe your BBP and BT will be just fine.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The special caps are a nice insurance policy for if you plan to age something for a really long time, and since they don’t cost much more I do recommend them, but they’re by no means essential. Sorry if I gave people the wrong idea.
I used to routinely hold back a bottle or two of even standard strength recipes for a year just to see what happened. Sometimes they were noticably past their prime, but I never once had one that I would say “went bad”. I’ve also bottled meads for years that still taste great with regular caps.
If I plan on aging something a REALLY long time, and I have the oxygen absorbing caps handy, I’ll use them, but its not something I lose sleep over.
edit: “really long time” to me means more than a year.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The special caps are a nice insurance policy for if you plan to age something for a really long time, and since they don’t cost much more I do recommend them, but they’re by no means essential. Sorry if I gave people the wrong idea.
I used to routinely hold back a bottle or two of even standard strength recipes for a year just to see what happened. Sometimes they were noticably past their prime, but I never once had one that I would say “went bad”. I’ve also bottled meads for years that still taste great with regular caps.
If I plan on aging something a REALLY long time, and I have the oxygen absorbing caps handy, I’ll use them, but its not something I lose sleep over.
edit: “really long time” to me means more than a year.[/quote]
I actually only have my trippel in the primary and have ordered oxygen caps with my next batch. And I do plan on aging some of them from each of those batches for at least a year.
So with these you can get them wet during sanitizing and they are good to go?
[quote=“dustinwwww”]
I actually only have my trippel in the primary and have ordered oxygen caps with my next batch. And I do plan on aging some of them from each of those batches for at least a year.
So with these you can get them wet during sanitizing and they are good to go?[/quote]
Yeah, but if you have any wet ones left over, don’t save them to reuse at a later time. Once they get wet they will use up their O2 absorbing capacity over the next week or so.
I’ve never seen the need for these unless you are bottling already carbed beer (and don’t have a counter-pressure filler). It seems to me that the normal practice of bottle carbing will include the yeast consuming a significant amount of the O2 trapped in the headspace. But even if that is not the case, my personal experience is that homebrew that is properly cared for rarely goes bad. I recently opened a bottle of ESB I made in 2006, and it showed no signs of oxidation or other staling effects. I’ve also entered 1+ year old bottles of beers into shows that have won their categories. In fact, the only beers that I’ve stored too long tend to be the hop-forward styles, and the problem with those is just faded flavor.
I only use the O2 caps but I only bottle already carbed keg beer. I have bottles from 2009 which are still fine.
Shoot, I suppose I will have to inquire about some O2 absorbing seals for all my Grolsch bottles now … 
[quote=“erockrph”][quote=“dustinwwww”]
I actually only have my trippel in the primary and have ordered oxygen caps with my next batch. And I do plan on aging some of them from each of those batches for at least a year.
So with these you can get them wet during sanitizing and they are good to go?[/quote]
Yeah, but if you have any wet ones left over, don’t save them to reuse at a later time. Once they get wet they will use up their O2 absorbing capacity over the next week or so.[/quote]
Why not save them for a short term beer that the O2 absorbing doesn’t matter?
[quote=“erockrph”][quote=“dustinwwww”]
I actually only have my trippel in the primary and have ordered oxygen caps with my next batch. And I do plan on aging some of them from each of those batches for at least a year.
So with these you can get them wet during sanitizing and they are good to go?[/quote]
Yeah, but if you have any wet ones left over, don’t save them to reuse at a later time. Once they get wet they will use up their O2 absorbing capacity over the next week or so.[/quote]
Why not save them for a short term beer that the O2 absorbing doesn’t matter?
I recently did a side by side tasting of a 2 year old batch of doppelbock that I purposely bottled with both regular and oxy absorbing caps. The regular capped beer had a slightly oxidized taste. Although it wasn’t bad, the oxy absorbing capped beer tasted more clean and crisp. The difference was enough that I’ll probably always use oxy absorbing caps when I can.
+1
They aren’t that much more expensive, and they do make a difference.
