Abstract
Background and goals Wines in aluminum beverage cans (“canned wines”) are a rapidly growing packaging segment due to several factors, including convenience and sustainability advantages. However, canned wines have higher concentrations of hydrogen sulfide (H2S; “rotten egg”) than wines in glass packaging. It was hypothesized that wine composition and liner selection affect H2S formation in canned wines.
Methods and key findings Commercial wines (n=10) were stored in either glass or aluminum beverage cans with one of three liners for up to 32 weeks. Wines stored in glass showed negligible H2S production after 32 weeks. Wines stored in acrylic lined cans produced up to 1307 μg/L H2S (median = 162 μg/L) within 8 weeks. Wines stored in BPA epoxy cans produced less H2S (maximum = 51.8 μg/L median = 11.8 μg/L after 32 weeks), with comparable performance observed for BPA non-intent (BPA-NI) epoxy liners. H2S formation was well-correlated with visible damage to the interior liners, but poorly correlated with dissolved aluminum. H2S from accelerated aging of wines with lined aluminum coupons (50 ºC, up to 14 d, anoxic conditions) correlated with H2S produced during long-term aging, but not with H2S produced by unlined aluminum coupons. Molecular SO2 was best correlated with increased H2S production in epoxy lined cans during long-term aging of commercial wines, and similar results were observed under accelerated conditions with coupons in a model-wine factorial experiment.
Conclusions and significance Maintaining low molecular SO2 (less than ~0.4 mg/L) and using epoxy liners (BPA or BPA-NI) appear critical for ensuring low H2S during long-term can storage up to 8 months. The accelerated aging approach described in this work may be applicable to other corrosive beverages.
- Received August 2022.
- Accepted November 2022.
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
