Shrink wrap screw-top growlers?

I'm getting ready for my first brewing and have been collecting bottles. I've got some growlers that have screw top caps. I was wondering if it'd be wise to shrink wrap around the lids to fight off the potential for loss of carbonation?

What do you think?

Screw on top Growlers are traditionally used for transporting beer from one place to another in a short span. I wouldn't recommend using them to carbonate your first brew in. I would use flip top bottles or capable brown beer bottles. Good Luck!

If the cap can't hold in the CO2, shrink wrap certainly won't be able to. And these also may not be intended to hold the amount of pressure that a bottle conditioned beer has, so it may be pretty dangerous.

Thanks, I've got some flip-top bottles as well, but was thinking that bottling 1/2 gallon at a time would make bottling go quickly. I was hoping that the shrink wrap would buy storage time for the growlers.

lumpybat said:

Thanks, I've got some flip-top bottles as well, but was thinking that bottling 1/2 gallon at a time would make bottling go quickly. I was hoping that the shrink wrap would buy storage time for the growlers.

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you are aware they do have 1 and two liter flip top bottles for this purpose...

Ya, but I had some growlers from a local brewer. By the way I'm not sure how far afield it is available but my wife and I both have come to love 'Ten Penny Ale' from Olde Burnside Brewing - East Hartford, CT

I wouldn't bottle in the Growlers. They really aren't designed to hold the pressure. I have heard several stories of people breaking growler by bottling in them. (I have never seen this myself, so take it as a second hand warning.)

Now, not to encourage you otherwise, as thses guys make valid points, but there is a local brewery here that sells fully carbed beer by the growler in a few supermarkets around town. They may use special growlers, though they don't look all that special, and I've never had much luck getting any growler to hold pressure for long. I'm not sure how they do it.

My suggestion is to go buy an armful of yummy Rogue, Stone, or any other beers that come in 22 oz bottles. You get a great drinking experience and some nice, big bottles afterwards!

i have seen some breweries use mason jars....you could try that possibly. if your dead set on using growlers then try to seal the threads. if you have ever seen plumbing fixtures- they use white teflon tape to seal it so they dont leak. You need to do something similar to that if you want to try and get one to hold presure (unless it holds it on its own)...

Thanks everyone for your input.

I think I'm going to try 2 or 3 with heat shrink tubing around cap and bottle lip under cap. I'll have updates in a month or two, sooner if I'm mopping up by basement!

Sounds like you made up your mind before posting, but I will throw my $.02 in here.

With the amount of time and effort you put into brewing why risk ruining a couple gallons of your beer and possibly creating a dangerous situation?

For your original question regarding heat shrink - The only thing that would be able to do is to keep the caps from unscrewing. Growlers don't hold pressure because of the seal on the lid, not because they come unscrewed. So, basically your just wasting extra money in the tubing.

Heat shrink is used ONLY to provide a LEGALLY SEALED container for the purpose of driving the beer home from the brewpub.

Attempting to create a stronger seal with it is delusional.

My local brewpub sells growlers that they fill and store. I wouldn't recommend trying this at home though. Just get some 22oz bottles and bottling will go faster, or get something like the "tap-a-draft" kit.

Lumpy, here's your biggest obstacle:

GROWLERS ARE NOT PRESSURE VESSELS! PERIOD.

In order for beer to carbonate, it needs to be under pressure. When pressure builds in a container that wasn't designed to hold it, the results are unpredictable at best. At worst, the vessel EXPLODES!

Why then, do breweries/pubs use growlers at all? They dispense an ALREADY CARBONATED beverage into them, with the expectation that the growler will be kept chilled and the product will be consumed within a few days. Because of this, the growler doesn't have to hold pressure or even hold a seal.

However, it seems that your mind is already made up. You posted here to ask advice, then ignored the advice you got. Best wishes.

You can absolute positively bottle and bottle condition with screw top 64oz growlers. Anyone who says you can't obviously hasn't tried it and is giving an armchair answer. I know because I do it all the time. A lot. Over and over. You can, it works very well, and you you don't need to do anything differently when bottling. I use these caps. I recommend them because I've tried them and they work. These caps will not bulge as some people speculate. Other things may work but I can't comment on them because I haven't tried them. I hope this is the straight answer to the question. They carbonate at the same rate as 12oz bottles. (Great in 2 weeks.) I assume you could blow them up by keeping unsanitary conditions and contaminating them with bacteria or over priming but that can be said of any bottle.

Try it. Don't believe me? Just try 1. You'll see.

There is no reason to shrink wrap.

There is also the possibility that I've just been amazingly lucky the last (got to be near 100) times I've used them.

lynnmassguy said:

You can absolute positively bottle and bottle condition with screw top 64oz growlers. Anyone who says you can't obviously hasn't tried it and is giving an armchair answer. I know because I do it all the time. A lot. Over and over. You can, it works very well, and you you don't need to do anything differently when bottling. I use these caps. I recommend them because I've tried them and they work. These caps will not bulge as some people speculate. Other things may work but I can't comment on them because I haven't tried them. I hope this is the straight answer to the question. They carbonate at the same rate as 12oz bottles. (Great in 2 weeks.) I assume you could blow them up by keeping unsanitary conditions and contaminating them with bacteria or over priming but that can be said of any bottle.

Try it. Don't believe me? Just try 1. You'll see.

There is no reason to shrink wrap.

There is also the possibility that I've just been amazingly lucky the last (got to be near 100) times I've used them.

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I can't agree more. I came into the thread to post the link to those exact caps. Every batch of beer I brew is put into at least 2 of these, often 3 or 4. No problems with carbonation, no problems with pressure.

Good advice, even if it comes from someone from Lynn. (I come from a long line of Lynners.)

lynnmassguy said:

You can absolute positively bottle and bottle condition with screw top 64oz growlers. Anyone who says you can't obviously hasn't tried it and is giving an armchair answer. I know because I do it all the time. A lot. Over and over. You can, it works very well, and you you don't need to do anything differently when bottling. I use these caps. I recommend them because I've tried them and they work. These caps will not bulge as some people speculate. Other things may work but I can't comment on them because I haven't tried them. I hope this is the straight answer to the question. They carbonate at the same rate as 12oz bottles. (Great in 2 weeks.) I assume you could blow them up by keeping unsanitary conditions and contaminating them with bacteria or over priming but that can be said of any bottle.

There is also the possibility that I've just been amazingly lucky the last (got to be near 100) times I've used them.

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You must be lucky, cause you are stressing the growler by carbonating in it. There are loads of stories of folks doing that and after a few times, the bottom of the growler falls out for no apparent reason other than a slight thermal shock (like pouring cold beer into a room temp growler).

You either have heavy duty bottles, or are just very lucky to this point.

what if you put duck tape around the growlers? do you think there is a chance of it holding better and the glass might be able to handle the pressure

MalasaluD said:

what if you duck tape the growlers? do you think there is a chance of it holding better

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NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is it going to take to drive this point home?!?!?!

GROWLERS WERE NOT DESIGNED TO HOLD PRESSURE!!!

You are risking your beer and possibly injury should you naturally carbonate your beer inside them. Just because it COULD work doesn't mean you SHOULD do it. It's a bit like making an open fire on your kitchen floor to heat your house. Sure, it'll heat the house, and it's possible that the fire won't spread, but why chance it?!?!

The seal isn't really the issue, although that could be a problem with most of the growlers I've seen. The problem I see is that the glass is not meant to hold pressure. Yes, the beer you buy in them is carbonated, but not at a high pressure. Priming and bottling causes a mini-fermentation in the bottle, which can cause far more pressure per square inch than a simple carbonated brew storage vessel needs to be made to hold.

Some have done it, and have had no bottle bombs. I'm glad to hear that- but I would never chance that.

Edit- Yuri types faster than I do. Yeah, what he said.

We've gone on record. Do what you want to do, duct tape or no duct tape.

Yuri_Rage said:

[The biggest obstacle to carbonating in growlers is...]

GROWLERS ARE NOT PRESSURE VESSELS! PERIOD.

[etc., snip]

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Ok, I get the message, but now you've got me wondering about the science of it all.

(Yes, yes -- I see the big, bold, all-caps, red letters; that's not science! )

What is it about a growler that makes it "not a pressure vessel" that is different from a 12oz bottle that IS a "pressure vessel" (suitable for in-bottle carbonation)?

Is that a surface-area thing? A head-space thing? Something else?

Would there be something one could do to a growler to make it more suitable for carbonation? How about force carbonation (that's done at 20-30psi, right?) ?

Obviously, steel kegs aren't "pressure vessels" in the scuba sense (3000psi), but are plenty strong enough to deal with in-keg or even force carbonation. So the whole thing is a continuum, right?

Is it that case that somebody makes thicker, stronger growlers that can withstand the rigors of carbonation, but the typical ones we see in brew shops or on Amazon are just not up to the task?

Let's say I'm looking at a growler and the vendor tells me "perfectly suitable for carbonation!" -- what measurements (without risking breaking the bottle, of course!) would you suggest I apply to determine whether or not he's trying to pull a fast one on me?

Thanks!

P.S. Please be gentle; I'm a n00b! I'm really just curious how all this stuff works and how you make your determinations.

Is it that case that somebody makes thicker, stronger growlers that can withstand the rigors of carbonation, but the typical ones we see in brew shops or on Amazon are just not up to the task?

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Yes, they are called "2 liter pop bottles" (or soda bottles, depends what part of the country you are in.) I prefer 1 liter bottles; 2L is a lot of beer to drink in one pour.

lumpybat said:

Thanks everyone for your input.

I think I'm going to try 2 or 3 with heat shrink tubing around cap and bottle lip under cap. I'll have updates in a month or two, sooner if I'm mopping up by basement!

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Hey Lumpy! Was disappointed to not-see your follow up. Scientists the world over want to know!

(If, for no other reason, that to guide the desirability of trying to replicate your experiments )

Thanks!