Oxygen scavenging crown corks in Europe

[grnis]

We're going to two manual counter pressure filling heads for bottling and that raises more concern about oxygen levels in packaged product.
Therefore I want to use oxygen scavenging crown corks to reduce the oxygen levels a bit.

Anyone here has any experience with one or several of the types of oxygen reducing crown corks?

And I'm looking for a european supplier of caps, but I'm having trouble finding one.

[dick murton]

Don't forget that oxygen scavenging caps are no substitute for good oxygen control procedures. I am not sure what level of oxygen they will mop up, but it is not much, a fw parts per billion I think. They are there to remove a few more ppb oxygen to extend shelf life, not as a cure for poor beer handling. Get the handling right and you can get six months or more shelf life without the expense of oxygen scavenging caps.

Check also the conditions of use. For instance, do they need pasteurising to activate the oxygen scavenging material? I don't know the answer to that.

Cheers

[TL Services]

Just to second dick's comments - good beer handling and oxygen control throughout the process means fresher-tasting beer!

Worrying to recall, but I can remember when beer in maturation (or even in bright tank) with a high out-of-spec dissolved oxygen was simply left for a day or so until the level had dropped into spec...

...thankfully times have changed since then!

[Hazell]

Pelliconi OS crowns work well for us. They are an Italian company.

There are also barrier crowns which allow far less oxygen ingress than normal crowns. Either would be advantageous but as mentioned, it will not fix any process issues you have. Also, temperature of storage is a HUGE factor in beer aging.