Bottling in growlers

A friend is about to bottle his first batch and asked me if it is OK to bottle in 72 oz growlers (as if I'm some sort of expert). I'm assuming it would work, but those suckers might take forever to carbonate.

Right or wrong?

shecky said:

A friend is about to bottle his first batch and asked me if it is OK to bottle in 72 oz growlers (as if I'm some sort of expert). I'm assuming it would work, but those suckers might take forever to carbonate.

Right or wrong?

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Im no expert on that either, but im bored so I thought I would chime in. The ratio of sugar to beer in the bottle stays consistent (if you pre-mix in a bottling bucket anyway), so carbonation should take roughly the same time regardless. As far as do growlers work, I am guessing if the seals are good they should.

Growlers work just fine for bottling and hold carb well. Mix your priming sugar the same in the bucket and you'll be good to go.

BTW, growlers are usually half-gallon or 64oz in the states.

I use my swing-top half gallon growlers for bottling all the time. They don't seem to take any longer to carb and are great for parties.

I thought they were more prone to becoming bottle bombs as they were not made for that sort of carbonation.

Good for taking beer home but not for actual carbing.

This gets discussed ad nauseum, almost weekly.

http://www.google.com/search?q=growler+site:homebrewtalk.com

Bottom line: Possible, even sometimes feasible, but not 100% guaranteed safe. I won't personally risk it, not because I don't want to lose beer (well, that too), but because I don't want to lose my $10 etched growler from the local brewpub. Your choice, it could/should work. But what if it doesn't?

Chriso said:

This gets discussed ad nauseum, almost weekly.

http://www.google.com/search?q=growler+site:homebrewtalk.com

Bottom line: Possible, even sometimes feasible, but not 100% guaranteed safe. I won't personally risk it, not because I don't want to lose beer (well, that too), but because I don't want to lose my $10 etched growler from the local brewpub. Your choice, it could/should work. But what if it doesn't?

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Sorry about not doing a search first.

As for it not working, it's not my beer so no skin off my nose. It might actually be interesting to see something go wrong from somone else's end

Come to think of it, we're supposed to be exchanging brews since this is a result of a day during which three of us brewed at my house. I will advise him against it. He's got plenty of 12 oz bottles hanging around.

It's quite okay -- it just gets discussed a lot, i was just identifying that. no harsh buzz here. Basically, it's the "Aluminum vs Stainless Steel" of the Bottling forum.

I'll admit, I have a single growler that I very gently carbonated, in the fridge right now. But that's the thing.... it's only one, it's not quite full, and it's in a big mixing bowl in case it kablooies. (It was just a scoche of extra wheat beer that wouldn't fit in my secondary for Apricot'ing.) Would I trust it for "real" beer not "extra" beer? Probably not.

:fro:

Thanks Chriso. Didn't mean to imply I was hurt by the search thing. I take no offense to anything anybody here says. It's the most civil forum I've ever seen.