Can I bottle condition in a growler

If I end up with too much beer and not enough bottles and I'm really desperate, I usually dump one of my wife's bottles of Club Soda / Diet Coke from the fridge, and buy it back later. The PET bottles are definitely built for carbonation, since it's original contents are far more carbed than your beer. If it contained something like Coke, it's practically disinfected already, since nothing survives in that acidity.

I'm getting ready to bottle a batch and have a new stainless steel growler I'm planning on using. My only concern is that the lid (screw top) won't hold the carbonation well enough. I'm still going to try it, though!
I have a couple of glass growlers but I don't trust them, and after reading this thread I'm definitely not going to use them.

wickman6 said:

I wouldn't, and here's why:

I had a gallon glass wine jug explode from the pressure of fermentation, cutting my calf muscle just above my Achilles.

I know others do condition in growlers, but to me its not worth it.

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I lived in Germany for teen years and can tell you that the Grolch style flip tops were used for decades before bottle caps became popular and are still preferred by some brewers in Europe. I also doubt that a wine jug is made to handle the same pressure as a beer bottle. That may have been the problem. I would be careful using wine bottles. Champaign bottles, probably OK. But I'm new to all this brew-haw What do I know?
I hope you don't suffer any permanent harm from your injuries!

I asked this same question about a month ago (after I had bought some 64oz growlers), was thoroughly persuaded not to do this. I returned them and instead got a bunch of 32oz & 16oz grolsch swing-top bottles and am very happy with those! Every time I pop one open I am glad I followed the advice considering how much pressure was being released.

Heflover said:

Yes. I have not tried with a screw top but it works fine with the Grolsch-style tops. In fact I think it tastes better because you get more beer pouring out that is not mixed up with yeast at the bottom of the glass.

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I have hear that the screw tops are about 50?50 bottle bombs

it has worked for me. I've ran out of cleaned/sanitized bottles when bottling before and ended up using a growler before, it carbed ok.

No; don't do it; if you do, be very careful when handling it; I had some leftover beer to bottle but ran out of bottles a few yeas ago, so I used the only thing I had left: a growler. After conditioning, I was rearranging my beer closet around. Within a minute after picking it up and putting it right back down again, it burst. What a mess!! Glass fragments everywhere. I think I created a lot of extra pressure when I picked it up, put it back down. I stirred it up.

wickman6 said:

I know others do condition in growlers, but to me its not worth it.

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I'm going to have to agree... While conditioning in a (swing top) growler is theoretically no different than conditioning in a smaller swing top "Grolsch" bottle the potential for disaster far out weighs the benefits.

Small bottle exploding = scared wife.
Growler exploding = wife bans homebrewing (-and/or trip to the hospital.)

I was one of the lucky ones... I caught a batch going bad before "detonation." However having to open the over pressurized growler to dump the brew was enough to scare me away.

-cheers

wickman6 said:

I wouldn't, and here's why:

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I had a gallon glass wine jug explode from the pressure of fermentation, cutting my calf muscle just above my Achilles.

I know others do condition in growlers, but to me its not worth it.

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OK.. Tell the truth. What hurt worse: The injury, or the loss of a gallon of wine?

After racking to a keg I would always run the leftovers into a growler. After doing this a dozen times my experience was that I could never get a high enough level of carbonation from the beer. If i put enough sugar it to actually get it where i wanted it, it would leak under the cap and the resulting beer would be flat.

And every time you poured the growler it would get stirred up so it was more or less a 1 tilt to fill a few glasses, and those last few were yeasty!

So I'd recommend against it personally. Not worth the trouble.

schematix said:

After racking to a keg I would always run the leftovers into a growler. After doing this a dozen times my experience was that I could never get a high enough level of carbonation from the beer. If i put enough sugar it to actually get it where i wanted it, it would leak under the cap and the resulting beer would be flat.

And every time you poured the growler it would get stirred up so it was more or less a 1 tilt to fill a few glasses, and those last few were yeasty!

So I'd recommend against it personally. Not worth the trouble.

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I condition in a growler frequently, and have never had a problem with carbonation. I just use teflon tape on the growler's thread. Never had any bottle bombs either.

I also have bottle conditioned in a growler, although it was the swing top grolsch style. Came out just fine. Although you have to be ready to drink the whole growler cause it does stay carbed for days on end.

I do it all the time, my LHBS sells plastic screw caps for the growlers and they hold pressure very well, every brew I make and my brew buddy, we always bottle 2 growlers each, these are the ones we swap with each other.

trbig said:

OK.. Tell the truth. What hurt worse: The injury, or the loss of a gallon of wine?

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Actually, my leg hurt like a b!*@# but the idea that my 2yo coulda been the target was the worst feeling. Could care less Ab the wine, it was runoff that I woulda used for topping up.

Can always make more wine....

We have designed our Stainless Steel Growlers to allow the home brewer to do exactly this.. bottle condition, worry free. Our growlers can hold 30psi without any problems. This is exactly what we do with a lot of our beer we make. It’s very convenient and you do not have to commit to 5 gallons of the same beer until its gone before you keg another. :

DeepWoodBrew said:

We have designed our Stainless Steel Growlers to allow the home brewer to do exactly this.. bottle condition, worry free. Our growlers can hold 30psi without any problems. This is exactly what we do with a lot of our beer we make. It’s very convenient and you do not have to commit to 5 gallons of the same beer until its gone before you keg another. :

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Yeah I was looking at your site a few days back. I then and there decided that I would be buying your product when I could manage it. That was just based on the coolness factor and the fact that you can also use the gas cap.

After reading this thread I will NEVER even attempt bottle conditioning in a glass growler. SS will have it's day in my brew set-up though. Your carboys looked really sweet too!

Babybatch said:

Yeah I was looking at your site a few days back. I then and there decided that I would be buying your product when I could manage it. That was just based on the coolness factor and the fact that you can also use the gas cap.

After reading this thread I will NEVER even attempt bottle conditioning in a glass growler. SS will have it's day in my brew set-up though. Your carboys looked really sweet too!

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Thank you for the complements, if you want to read a few reviews about our fermenters there is a post under vendor reviews and under product reviews there is another. We look forward to having you as one of our customers.

Cheers!

Just to clarify, glass thickness does not directly relate to what pressure you can hold. The dimension of the bottle/container is also a factor. As you increase the diameter of the container you need thicker sidewalls to hold the same pressure. The thickness of glass has a force/thickness breaking point. But this force exerted scales will bottle diameter if pressure is constant, increasing as the diameter of the bottle increase. I don't remember the exact calculation off the top of my head, but it would be pretty easy to track down.

I have bottle conditioned in two Lazy Magnolia half gallon growlers in the past - maybe a half dozen times. Never had any problems but got concerned about using them after having a 12 oz bottle bomb (my guess is dirty bottle/not sanitized properly) and stopped. The 12 oz bomb was a bad enough explosion. Also as others have mentioned, you end up consuming more of the sediment/yeast in the bottom of the growler since you have to make several pours. I got around that somewhat by not drinking the entire growler in one night - drinking a couple of glasses worth one night, another glass second night, then finishing it up another night - thus giving the sediment/yeast 24 hours to settle back down after getting stirred up by pouring. Not worth the trouble and potential risk though. Grolsch & other flip tops, and 22 oz bombers make bottling easier/faster and are safer.

I've had an English Pale Ale in a growler for 5 weeks and it's still good. I put it inside a little cooler in case it explodes. Hopefully it's not a bomb like wickman's

The metal caps that I have for my growler do not hold pressure. I bottle fill off the keg and the growler caps leak very slowly. I capped one with foam and noticed the cap weaping ever so slightly.

I also have a big heavy 2 liter growler with flip top, that doesn't leak a bit.

I need to find a couple plastic caps, the metal growler caps don't seal well IME...and NO, i'm not going to teflon tape a beer bottle.

I condition in growlers, using this type of polyseal screw cap: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/28mm-polyseal-screw-30ct.html

They hold the pressure, carbing has been fine.

One thing, though. I don't use the tablets.

I use a carbonation calculator (NB has an online one, there are others) to calculate the amount of white sugar I will need to carbonate my whole batch.

If it says I need 4.5 oz sugar per 5 gallons of beer, I dissolve the sugar in sterile water (1 cup), then add to my bottling bucket, and stir, stir, stir.

When the solution is mixed, I bottle some, and put the rest in growlers. Cap it and wait.

Good luck.

pdxal said:

How about an option instead of growlers? You can use plastic 2L soda bottles instead. They're meant to hold pressure/carbonation, they do it well, and if they ever do explode you won't have glass flying.
I would never use a growler, both for safety and the fact they don't hold carbonation well anyway. Plus, even if it holds the pressure and doesn't explode, after the first pour the yeast is mixed in with the beer and if you try to re cap it you won't have much carbonation in subsequent pours. If you're going to drink all 4 pints in one sitting, I guess that's a non issue.

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Did this two weeks ago will be trying it soon,

pdxal said:

How about an option instead of growlers? You can use plastic 2L soda bottles instead. They're meant to hold pressure/carbonation, they do it well, and if they ever do explode you won't have glass flying.
I would never use a growler, both for safety and the fact they don't hold carbonation well anyway. Plus, even if it holds the pressure and doesn't explode, after the first pour the yeast is mixed in with the beer and if you try to re cap it you won't have much carbonation in subsequent pours. If you're going to drink all 4 pints in one sitting, I guess that's a non issue.

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Just watch for sales on Sam Adams. A Buck a bottle and free beer ;-).

UnDeadly said:

I would say do so at your own risk.

If you are going to get an explosion, it would probably happen within the first week or two, when the yeast is actually active and producing CO2. There's a thread around here somewhere (I'll find it if someone really wants it) that shows pressure inside a vessel spikes in the first part of conditioning, before the CO2 is absorbed back into the liquid. Basically, CO2 gets produced faster than the liquid can accommodate it. It's during this time you are most in danger.

That said, I just got 2 SS growlers for my wedding, and they are friggen AMAZING. And yes, I do condition in those with zero worries.

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I think it is safe to say that anything we do in brewing is at our own risk. the only bottle I had explode was actually 2-3 months after bottling - no temperature change or movement. I put all other bottles of that batch in the fridge just for safety

UnDeadly said:

I would say do so at your own risk.

If you are going to get an explosion, it would probably happen within the first week or two, when the yeast is actually active and producing CO2. There's a thread around here somewhere (I'll find it if someone really wants it) that shows pressure inside a vessel spikes in the first part of conditioning, before the CO2 is absorbed back into the liquid. Basically, CO2 gets produced faster than the liquid can accommodate it. It's during this time you are most in danger.

That said, I just got 2 SS growlers for my wedding, and they are friggen AMAZING. And yes, I do condition in those with zero worries.

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I think it is safe to say that anything we do in brewing is at our own risk. the only bottle I had explode was actually 2-3 months after bottling - no temperature change or movement. I put all other bottles of that batch in the fridge just for safety

I once conditioned in a couple of 1/2 inch growlers. I remember it taking a while to carb, but once it did, they were fine. The 12oz bottles that I aged were overcarbed after a couple months, so I think the growler worked out ok holding pressure.

That being said, I may not try again with anything even moderately carbed given this thread, though I have kinda been known to take other people's experiences with a grain of salt compared to my own.

I promise not to say I wasn't warned.

This thread convinced me - no bottle carbing in growlers. The wall area of a growler is much larger than a 12 oz, and it is force per AREA that I have to worry about. My family would not tolerate catastrophic failure like that.

I trust them to transfer poured beer.

I have carbed in many plastic soda bottles, no problem. They are designed for the bottom to bow downwards before they blow. Like the mead that kept working for 6 months. That bottle was... firm. Nice to take to picnics, too. Just throw in the recycling barrel.

I think conditioning in a glass growler should work. It's just like a beer bottle with a different cap. The one I have had carbonated beer in it from Rogue. Bought it at my beverage store for $15. I don't see why it wouldn't work since it held pressure over the miles. The only issue I could see is if you over carb your brew when you bottle it.

junior said:

llll

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Cheers

LookingGlass said:

I think conditioning in a glass growler should work. It's just like a beer bottle with a different cap. The one I have had carbonated beer in it from Rogue. Bought it at my beverage store for $15. I don't see why it wouldn't work since it held pressure over the miles. The only issue I could see is if you over carb your brew when you bottle it.

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Or it's not done attenuating before you put it in the bottle. Bottle Bombs is a phenomenon because this is a common problem for homebrewers.

I've seen the Rogue growler...it's a twist off cap. You can bottle condition in one if you want, but they're not designed for that and Rogue doesn't do that. They finish the beer then put it into the growler. No conditioning happens in the growler, since when beer carbonates, the pressure in the headspace actually spikes (breakage risks..issues with your screw cap) prior to the Co2 dissolving back into the liquid.

I've bottle conditioned in a growler two or three times without any problems. However, that doesn't mean it's a good idea, it just means I didn't have problems.

Since growlers weren't designed to withstand the increased pressures of bottle conditioning, I wouldn't recommend using them for carbonation. There is danger in taking anecdotal evidence as justification.

Any time we are using glass, we need to do everything we can to use them within the parameters set by the manufacturer. You might get away with pouring hot wort into a carboy and setting it somewhere cold a few times, but eventually the stress from temp change will break it.

After reading this thread and doing some research, I won't be using growlers to condition my beer.

Happy Brewing!

I actually change my mind from what I said earlier. I recently had a raspberry wheat beer in a growler and it exploded in my hands. Glass shards everywhere, but thankfully no serious harm.

I will not be bottle conditioning in a growler any longer. (but even if I wanted to, SWMBO says I won't be!)

Benedetto said:

I actually change my mind from what I said earlier. I recently had a raspberry wheat beer in a growler and it exploded in my hands. Glass shards everywhere, but thankfully no serious harm.

I will not be bottle conditioning in a growler any longer. (but even if I wanted to, SWMBO says I won't be!)

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Glad you weren't harmed, those things are nasty when they go off.

This thread hasn't been active for a while, but I just wanted to share my experience.

I've used growlers with twist on caps without issues for about 4 batches, but 1 of 2 growlers exploded in my last batch. I used more priming sugar in this last batch (hef) than any of the previous batches, so perhaps that was part of the reason? It was also the first time that I used that growler for carbonation (I think it was Whole Foods brand or something like that).

Since I'll never know the exact reason why I had an explosion in this batch, I'm inclined to stop carbonating in growlers. Bummer because it's a time saver, and nice for "get-togethers."

I just came across this thread and now i am a little nervous about bottling my first batch. I will be using 12oz Sam Adams bottles. Would it hurt to store them in a cooler while they carbonate?
I dont have a good place to keep them out of the way and i would hate for them to explode if my wife or kids are near them.

I've never understood this "Growlers aren't made to withstand pressure" stuff. You pour a growler at the brewery, put it in the car or leave it on the counter for a couple hours, the 12 psi that makes 2.5vols of CO2 at 40 degrees becomes 30psi at 64 degrees. This is the same pressure the glass is exposed to when you're bottle carving to 2.5 vols at 64 degrees. It shouldn't make any difference!

Maybe I'm way off base, but if somebody can explain it to me, I'd appreciate it.

Pressure during bottle carbing can exceed 12 psi as the yeast may generate c02 faster than it is absorbed into the beer, sort of like force carbing. The resultant pressure when all the co2 is absorbed will be the same eventually, but can spike upward while the yeast consume the prime.


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

The fact that Rogue growlers sit in the 75 degree Costco for weeks tells me that the glass growlers can easily withstand 30psi and more due to safety standards. I'm sure we would have heard about rogue bottle bombs killing local costco shoppers if there was a problem.


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