filling growlers at home

I am heading out for the holidays and want to bring a few growlers of my HB with me.


I was thinking about using a racking cane attached to a picnic tap to fill it gently, and was going to purge the growler with a bit of co2 before i fill it. Then i was going to wrap the neck with saran wrap after i seal the screw top.


any ideas of other things to do that you may have had success with? I only plan on keeping the growlers for 24 hours max before they are drank

Sounds like a plan. Just keep them in a cooler and you should be good to go.

You need to use a bottle with a standard cap to be sure. I use a cut off stainless cane with a #2 stopper and tip it a bit when the beer stops flowing into the bottle. You want keg pressure just high enough so it will not foam. If you still use a screw cap and it does not stay sealed then the beer will be flat in less than 24 hours.

I think you could do well with just a foot of hose on a tap, or however much you need to reach the bottom of the growler. That's what I see them do at the bars who fill growlers. I think it ought to work just fine.

Also, no reason you can't use 2-liter soda bottles as long as you're mindful of the light exposure.

Coasterine, That sounds good to me too but how much foam do you get?

I bought swing top growler for this reason. If you pour very cold into a cold growler they seem to hold carbonation much better. I only use a screw top if I am drinking it within a couple of hours.

For club nights I fill up a 1 gallon jug. No stoppers, no cane, no fuss, no muss.

I chill the jug over night to near freezing. Fill til the foam reaches the top and cap it with a juice bottle cap. Chill again until the foam resides and repeat until jug is nicely filled. Takes all of 10 or 15 minutes.

I drive cross town in rough as hell riding truck and the caps hold the carbonation nicely. I have also had some leftover beer in the jug stay carbonated through the night.

I just chill my growler in the fridge for an hour or so, then fill right off the tap and cap with a screw cap. I've never had a problem even if I take up to a day to drink it.

I use the racking cane and stopper with screw top lids. The lids I have are plastic with a big "V" seal thing inside. They will hold carb for as long as you want.but once you start drinking it they will go flat in a day.

"The lids I have are plastic with a big "V" seal thing"

polyseal caps?



They are what I use for 1/2 and full gallon growlers. They hold pressure great.

dstar26t said:

"The lids I have are plastic with a big "V" seal thing"

polyseal caps?

They are what I use for 1/2 and full gallon growlers. They hold pressure great.

Click to expand...

Those are what I use as well.

The local brewpub distributes growlers that are pre-filled and stored. They don't fill growlers but rather exchange them for the customers. They are regular screw-top ones.

Coastarine said:

I think you could do well with just a foot of hose on a tap, or however much you need to reach the bottom of the growler. That's what I see them do at the bars who fill growlers. I think it ought to work just fine.

Click to expand...

+1... This is how I fill 'em at the bar and at home.

dstar26t said:

"The lids I have are plastic with a big "V" seal thing"

polyseal caps?

They are what I use for 1/2 and full gallon growlers. They hold pressure great.

Click to expand...

YUP those are them.

My local brewery fills growlers all the time. They just fill them up till theres no airspace in the top. They last at least a few days in the fridge. (maybe more, but I don't know because they're empty by then)