Long time lurker, first time poster. I know this is a beer brewers forum, but I literally have no where else to turn. I just started Kegging and Canning my handcraft non alcoholic sodas about 9 months ago. I make flavored simple syrups mostly from fresh fruit (or flower) juice, and added them along with citrus juice as well as sparkling water from an old fashioned soda fountain. When we first introduced the cans, everything went along just fine, but as the months have gone on, more and more of the sodas are exploding at our distributors'.
We did preliminary "hand-canned" (were never inside a keg or beer gun) tests that we still have even 9 months later, stored at room temp and still have a little give to them. However, it's currently taking about 5 days for our cans off the production line to explode from the canning date. Thinking this was a fermentation issue, I first attempted to halt it with potassium sorbate and metabisulfite, but that only turned my naturally red soda (from the fresh rose petals) a urine yellow and totally homogenized the flavor and didn't allow for the different notes of citrus and florals to have levels. And while no cans exploded, after about 2 weeks, the sodas smelled and tasted like sulfur.
So then instead of halting fermentation, I figure I just create an environment too acidic for fermentation. Since most of the sodas already have an average of 25oz of citrus juice, I just made 25oz of a Citric Acid Solution around 1.8ph that would take any soda above a 3.1ph down to 2.8ph (since any soda that had more lemon juice than other citrus, or a ph of 2.8 or lower like the coffee soda was completely stable) and added it to the syrup and citrus "mash". And while that didn't affect the color or flavor, we still had exploding cans.
So then I created a number of experimental cans with varying CA ingredient baths, and/or added CA solutions, and of course an ingredient-only control soda, all by hand and not on the production line. To my surprise, about a month has gone by and not one can has exploded and they all feel the right balance of firm but not rock hard. So now I'm thinking this is a packaging issue and makes sense as to why early production line sodas were stable. It's a relief that I may not have to reformulate my flavors, however finding the root of the issue is a needle in a haystack situation.
Does anyone with a similar set up have any idea as to where I can begin to find and address the issue?
We brew in 5 gallon corny kegs. Generally the "mash" is about 50-75 oz syrup as well as 25-50oz fresh citrus juice (if that matters) and filled with cold carbonated water directly from the same old fashioned fountain (Literally with 3 feet of 1/2" beer line attached to the fountain tap and fed into the open corny keg). We then Force carb it at 34F and 18psi for at least 3 days. And because I'm not sure it's NOT the carb lines, our force carb set up is a 10lbs CO2 canister with a 3-line manifold. I can using a Blichmann beer gun into 12oz aluminum cans and seam with an Oktober Can seamer. The cans and lids get star san sprayed and drained prior to filling as well as the Blichmann being submerged in a star san solution and the lines flushed through.
Sani procedure is a 25 minute soak in PBW solution (3oz of powder to 2.5 gallons of water) after canning. The keg and Blichmann feeds enough solution to fill the gun and allow to soak then run it through. Rinse, then run a star san solution through. Maintain keg pressure and keep sealed until ready to keg again. All measuring equipment gets star san sprayed and drained before use.
I've heard that maybe I'm supposed to be taking the kegs apart about once a quarter but that seems really intimidating. Does anyone have any idea where to start?
Topic: Exploding Cans Problem (Read 1292 times)
