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Author Topic: Bulk or bottle aging?  (Read 3983 times)

Offline Phil_M

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Re: Bulk or bottle aging?
« Reply #15 on: April 29, 2015, 10:03:28 am »
I think that's Le Châtlier's Principle. Since a crown cap is not completely impermeable to oxygen and CO2, they two gases will seek to reach partial pressures inside the bottle in equilibrium to the external storage space. This is why the bottles both lose carbonation and become oxidized over time.

Now, if there was some way to store your bottles in a sealed container that has been purged of oxygen and pressurized to about 2 volumes or so of CO2, then you'd be in good shape.

That's similar, but not it. I did some digging, I'm pretty sure it's something from the partial pressure/Dalton's law.

Even though the pure CO2 environment is pressurized at, say, 10 psi, the O2 pressure is lower than the atmospheric O2 pressure. Thus, the O2 is moving from a region of high concentration to one of lower concentration, even though the lower concentration is at a higher overall pressure. Just like the CO2 inside the bottle wants to reach equilibrium with the partial pressure of air outside the bottle.

I could be really off base on this. I'll have to dig through my physics notes when I get a chance, but that may not happen till after finals...
« Last Edit: April 29, 2015, 10:12:12 am by Phil_M »
Corn is a fine adjunct in beer.

And don't buy stale beer.