Carbonating with soda bottles

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utard

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Is it possible to carbonate my freshly brewed beer into a big 2 liter 7up bottle? They seem to take quite a bit of pressure, but I'm not about to try this if I can't find someone who has had success in the past.
 
Yip Yip.. go ahead.. I do it all the time

Well I dont use &up but I use the clear bottles.. same thing.. Just keep it out of the light to prevent skunkyness..

Also (if its a 2L) you will want to drink it pretty quick when you open it to prevent it from getting flat..

Cheers!!!!!!
 
Just bottle like normal. Make sure that you plan on drinking that whole 2 liter though, because it will go stale quick after you open it.
 
In Oct ran out of bottle caps and did not want to throw out 2 liters of good Belgian Wit so put it in a 2 liter bottle and carbed up great. Had it with friends this past week and enjoyed it. Looking at doing this with one or two bottles with every batch in the future. Anyone know a "how to" to add one of those small CO2 canisters and a tap to these types of bottles to make a mini TAD?
 
I have a friend who carbs in 2 liter Club Soda Bottles. He buys the club soda for $0.79 a bottle at a local grocery store. Real easy to clean and no odor.

He primes each 2 liter bottle with dry cane sugar (a tablespoon plus a little more is the usual amount), then fill with beer up to about 1.5 inches from the top. Then squeeze the sides to make the beer come up just to the lip and screw on the cap - this eliminates all air and gives the bottle room to handle the carbonation pressure. Give them a shake to dissolve the sugar, then let them sit until they are as hard as a rock and they're good to go.

I've had his beers and they rock. The sediment will settle into little caverns in the bottom of the bottle and after a few days in the fridge, they will stay put pretty well as they harden and stick to the bottom.
 
When I keg a batch, I usually rack some to a 2 liter soda bottle. Using a cabonator cap, I force carb the bottle with my CO2 tank. That way, I can get a taste of the new batch right away.

Getting the soda smell out is easy. Put a little oxyclean in the bottle with a little warm water. Shake the crap out of it, then fill the rest of the way with warm water and let the bottle sit for a couple of days. Repeat if needed (cola has a harder smell to remove, 7-Up and Sprite come clean easy).

That is also a good way to carry some beer around. I took some cream ale and dunkel weissen to my parents Christmas Eve that way.
 
A brewer buddy makes carbonator caps with a stainless Schrader valve (tire valve). Gives the beer a shot from the CO2 tank after filling. Works great for taking a small amount of beer to a party or the riverbank.
 
I know nobody likes reviving old threads, but I didn't want to post a new one.

Wouldn't it stand to truth that after opening the bottle, you could squeeze the air out of it and re-cap/refrigerate it with no air in it and lose little/no carbonation?

Considering doing this with a batch that I believe is infected, but still want to bottle/let sit. But sanitizing 50+ bottles and possibly needing to dump/clean them in the near future seems far less appealing than the ol' club soda bottles I've been saving.
 
I know nobody likes reviving old threads, but I didn't want to post a new one.

Wouldn't it stand to truth that after opening the bottle, you could squeeze the air out of it and re-cap/refrigerate it with no air in it and lose little/no carbonation?

Not really. Did you ever open a two day old bottle of soda? Generally flat, but maybe with some fizz.

Another issue is just the act of pouring it can mix up some sediment, as well as oxidize it.

If you keg, though, you can just use a carbonator cap and blast it with some CO2. If you don't keg, you'll have to drink it fairly quick. 2L isn't really very much anyway- only about 3-4 beers, right?
 
Not really. Did you ever open a two day old bottle of soda? Generally flat, but maybe with some fizz.

Another issue is just the act of pouring it can mix up some sediment, as well as oxidize it.

In any case, would a careful/quiet pour, a good squeeze, and tight capping at least keep the stuff better longer? I mean I've used growlers before and you get maybe a day or two out of those at best, but you're basically capping a fresh load of oxygen right on top if it. The advantage I saw with plastic was just that you could squeeze that air right out and maybe keep things good for a few more days.

Just a thought.
 
In any case, would a careful/quiet pour, a good squeeze, and tight capping at least keep the stuff better longer? I mean I've used growlers before and you get maybe a day or two out of those at best, but you're basically capping a fresh load of oxygen right on top if it. The advantage I saw with plastic was just that you could squeeze that air right out and maybe keep things good for a few more days.

Just a thought.

The CO2 will escape from the liquid if you don't keep it under pressure. It isn't just about oxygen.
 
Wait, you can bottle beer in plastic soda bottles? And the plastic wont affect the taste at all (as long as it's sanitized)? I'm new to the brewing scene, so I'm just wondering.
 
Soda bottles can work fine. But absolutely stay away from plastic bottles from root beer. The taste persists in the plastic like crazy and will trash the beer.

The taste persists in EVERYTHING. First beer I ever brewed was at a U-Brew place, and we wanted some of our beer in a keg. We brought an empty 5 gallon along with us, but the guy couldn't get it open... so he gave us a 15 gallon keg that had previously held, you guessed it, root beer.

"Root Beer Stout" is not good. No matter how intriguing it might sound.
 
I'm pretty new to brewing but have a little bit of experience in brewing in plastic bottles. I started out brewing in brown PET bottles. Lately I only brew in glass. One batch I brewed I used plastic and glass. I noticed they both tasted slightly different. I can't really describe the flavor difference, but the beer in the glass tasted better to me. There wasn't a big difference but it was noticeable to me

Hope that helps.

Dan
 
I'm pretty new to brewing but have a little bit of experience in brewing in plastic bottles. I started out brewing in brown PET bottles. Lately I only brew in glass. One batch I brewed I used plastic and glass. I noticed they both tasted slightly different. I can't really describe the flavor difference, but the beer in the glass tasted better to me. There wasn't a big difference but it was noticeable to me

Hope that helps.

Dan

That's less unusual than you might think. I've got a buddy who won't drink anything except water out of a plastic container. If he's at a party/picnic/gathering where beer is going to be served, he'll bring his own glass from home, rather than drink from plastic party cups.

That's fine by me, to each his own and all that, but living like that he's never learned the joys of beer pong. :(
 
I've used PET bottles for 90% of my beer. I've never noticed any off flavours when using them, and they can handle pressure better than glass, so even if you screw up your priming/bottling time you have almost no chance of bottle bombs (though I did once have to open and bleed huge amounts of CO2 off an ESB I bottled too early... Most of the hop aroma went with it.)

Fortunately there are two reasonably popular brands of soft drink in NZ that are sold in 1.5L brown PET bottles, so I just go out on recycling nights and get all my bottles from people's bins. I've got 60L worth of brown plastic to bottle in now, at a cost of $0.00 :)
 
I notice plastic flavors even with water or soda in PET bottles, but I think it's entirely psychological--if the same soda is poured into a glass I don't notice the taste, even though it was poured out of the plastic just moments ago. I get the same thing with aluminum cans, but even more strong an off "flavor" (and one that also vanishes instantaneously if I tranfer to another drinking glass).
 
Then squeeze the sides to make the beer come up just to the lip and screw on the cap - this eliminates all air and gives the bottle room to handle the carbonation pressure.

I read stuff like this and then think, "why the HELL didnt I think of this?!" so simple yet very effective..that is a very cool idea!
 
I read stuff like this and then think, "why the HELL didnt I think of this?!" so simple yet very effective..that is a very cool idea!

I don't think it would have much affect on carbonation. Once a small amount of CO2 is generated the bottle will be "unsqueezed" and you'll be right back where you started.
 
I don't think it would have much affect on carbonation. Once a small amount of CO2 is generated the bottle will be "unsqueezed" and you'll be right back where you started.

Well, yeah, after it is already carbonated this is true- but the quote from edwort is referring specifically to the bottle conditioning phase, before it is carbed. It allows expansion room without having to leave any head space at all, so you get zero chance of any oxidation.
 
If you've got someone to drink the soda or ready access to lots of discarded empties, a more convenient size is probably to look for the 24 ounce Pepsi 6-packs when they're frequently(around here at least) on sale. Pretty much two beers so it's not hard to use one up like a liter or more can be.
 
Well, yeah, after it is already carbonated this is true- but the quote from edwort is referring specifically to the bottle conditioning phase, before it is carbed. It allows expansion room without having to leave any head space at all, so you get zero chance of any oxidation.

Exactly! And it works very very well. He uses plain old white cane sugar to carb and his beer rocks! He's won several contests with his stuff. I will find out how much sugar he uses for the smaller bottles. Here's his two beer fridges.

BeerFridge1.jpg


BeerFridge2.jpg
 
Wow... he must have a raging club soda habit to have enough bottles! :D

Actually, at 79 cents he just dumps them out and fills them. They are already cleaned & sanitary and ready to go. For a five gallon batch he only needs 10, so for under 8 bucks he has new bottles that he does not have to wash ready to go.
 
I've been using the same 2 liter pop bottles for going on three years now. They work great. Same caps too. I have 4 of them with carbonator caps on them so as soon as I bottle the 4 of them, I will force carb them with a paintball cannister and shake like crazy...carb again.....shake....carb again and shake. Keep doing this until the bottle doesn't go soft after shaking. The next day it's ready to drink. This way I have 4 beers ready to go right away while the others carbonate for three weeks or so.

Must drink pretty quickly though, they do tend to go flat after a couple of days.
 
I'm sure for conventional beer sugar levels plastic soda bottles are fine. But I'm about to start my next batch of hard cranberry lemonade, and my last attempt had almost no sweetness to it. I have no access to a keg, so bottle carbonating is my only option, and many of my friends are lactose intolerant, AND I despise the taste of splenda. Quite restrictive eh?

I heard that soda bottles can withstand pressures up to 100psi, and also that most yeasts will go dormant long before this point (somewhere around 50-60psi, enough to blow a glass bottle). So if I simply backsweetened with plenty of corn/cane sugar, then bottled and let it carbonate, would the extra sugar stay there, unfermented, sweetening the batch? Or has there been a case of plastic bottle bombs?
 
I'm sure for conventional beer sugar levels plastic soda bottles are fine. But I'm about to start my next batch of hard cranberry lemonade, and my last attempt had almost no sweetness to it. I have no access to a keg, so bottle carbonating is my only option, and many of my friends are lactose intolerant, AND I despise the taste of splenda. Quite restrictive eh?

I heard that soda bottles can withstand pressures up to 100psi, and also that most yeasts will go dormant long before this point (somewhere around 50-60psi, enough to blow a glass bottle). So if I simply backsweetened with plenty of corn/cane sugar, then bottled and let it carbonate, would the extra sugar stay there, unfermented, sweetening the batch? Or has there been a case of plastic bottle bombs?

Well, even if the bottles don't blow up, the yeast will eat the sugar and when you open the bottles, you'll have lemonade volcanoes. The highly carbonated drink will take the path of least resistance- right out of the top when you open it. Shake a bottle of root beer really hard and open it, if you want to get an idea of what pressure does to liquids.

If you use sugar, the yeast don't know when to stop. They won't stop at a certain psi- why would they? They'll stop when there are no more fermentables, or when the temperature is low enough for them to go dormant.

This can work if you wait until the bottles are hard, and then chill them to stop the yeast. The yeast won't be totally dormant, but the cold will slow them down.
 
Thanks for the incredibly fast response, Yooper! I'm going to experiment with a bottle of water sugar and yeast with high levels of sugar and see how that fares over a few days of fermenting (filled nearly to the top), but I'll probably end up refrigerating the finished product.
 
Those bottles will hold an incredible amount of pressure. They will blow up like a balloon before they explode.

I did an experiment with a two liter bottle once after racking a brew to the secondary. I scooped about half a cup of yeast from the fermenter and put it in the bottle along with a bunch of pancake syrup and table sugar. I filled it all the way with water, capped it, and put it outside.

The next day, the bottle was doubled in size, the label had ripped and fallen off, and the flower pot bottom had popped off.

On the third day, the bottle was more than triple in size. It was the size and shape of a water mellon. Later that morning, when I returned from class, everything within a 10 ft. radius was covered with foam, and the bottle was an un-recognizable piece of plastic. I had just missed the explosion.

I could have pulled some pranks with some of them!
 
Regarding sweetening without creating geysers, you could add splenda. As far as I know, it's not fermentable, and will sweeten things up quite a bit.
 
I have bottled into both 1 L club soda bottles and capped glass bottles for my first two batches, priming and bottling out of the same bucket for the glass and plastic, and the plastic club soda bottles have worked great. No taste difference at all. I'm sold on the simplicity and cost ($0.50 each).
 
Thanks for the incredibly fast response, Yooper! I'm going to experiment with a bottle of water sugar and yeast with high levels of sugar and see how that fares over a few days of fermenting (filled nearly to the top), but I'll probably end up refrigerating the finished product.

Really your best bet would be to kill off the fermentation, and then force carbonate it instead of trying to walk the tightrope of carbing it naturally and keeping some residual sugars. Carbonator caps are pretty cheap, and you would just need to get a CO2 tank. It is more of an expense, but you'll have much finer control over your final product by doing it that way.
 
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