First timer looking for help (bottling)..

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
S

shallowzend

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
New Orleans
Howdy everyone, I'm looking to make my first batch of beer soon. I have been doing a little research but I'm sure experience is everything when brewing beer.

I want to make a very simple small batch of beer, darker the better. I've read you can cook it and then let it ferment in growler jugs (carlo rossi jugs in my case)

how important is bottling the beer? It seems it ferments the beer a little more and carbonates it, does it do more? I also read I can just bottle it in plastic bottles (for like juice and soda). I'm always traveling so I need to keep equipment to a minimum.

If anyone has any good links for a starter or instructions on making a small batch (about a gallon) of beer, any help or direction is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
If you just want to get started and experiment Mr. Beer isn't a bad way to go. It's how I started. Beware though, if you catch the brew bug, you WILL want to move on from it. Mr. Beer can come out just fine, especially if you use different yeast.
 
Thanks Jon,

I'd like to make a beer that is somewhat complex and use quality ingredients, I just want to make a few small batches using basic equipment from around the house to start (like growlers and 64 oz plastic bottles). I've been scanning the forums and it has answered a lot of questions. Do you know how detrimental it is to skip the bottling process? I like all beer, but prefer thick dark beer like guinness
 
Bottling is the easiest way for a beginner to carbonate. All you need is some used bottles, new caps and a handheld capper. But you can certainly use plastic bottles if that's what you want.
 
Growlers are often NOT recommended for bottling as the glass can sometimes be thinner than your standard bottles...they are meant for transporting beer, not for carbing-up and conditioning...
 
Why not get a beer kit for a under 200 bucks and an extract kit from Austin Homebrew or Northern Brewer?
 
Smokeater233 said:
Growlers are often NOT recommended for bottling as the glass can sometimes be thinner than your standard bottles...they are meant for transporting beer, not for carbing-up and conditioning...
Click to expand...

+1

Carbed beer and carbonating beer are 2 seperate things.

To carb a beer whether or not is is done naturally or with co2 you are forcing the gas into the solution. The pressure builds up, then there's a point where either the bottle fails or the co2, seeking the path of least resistance, forces itself into solution. You could call it a peak point, where there is a lot of pressure in the bottle, both already in solution and in the headspace trying to go into the solution, eventually it balances out and the beer is carbed.

Beer bottles, champagne bottles and kegs are rated with a higher psi/volume of co2 than wine bottles and growlers.

Already carbed and kegged beer is at a stable volume of co2 which is below the volume that growlers and winebottles are rated at. The FORCING of the co2 already happened. Why do you think kegs are made of metal and very very strong? To handle the pressure.

Our Buddy Rukus

RukusDM said:
This is because during carbing, the pressure can go above 30 or 40 PSI. I have a thread in the cider forum where I did several tests bottle carbing sweet hard cider. There is allot of data there if your interested.

I have a bottle with a pressure gauge on it. I recorded pressures during the carbing process. This is how the data was generated. I also recorded pressures while pasteurizing the cider.

I recently bottled some lager I made. I also filled my gauge bottle and my lower pressure gauge bottle pegged at 35 PSI as that was the limit of the gauge. It probably ended up in the 40's, but no way to tell for sure.


When we bottle condition beer, we are really simulating force carbing like the keg folks do. We cause a ferment by adding sugar. This creates a high pressure in the bottle. CO2 doesn't like to dissolve in a warm liquid. We then put some bottles in the fridge. The temperature of the liquid drops and the CO2 then begins to dissolve in the liquid.

It seems to take several days at fridge temperatures for the CO2 to fully saturate the liquid for a maximum saturation for that liquid temperature.

While the CO2 is moving into the liquid, the pressure slowly drops. I've monitored this process as well with the pressure gauge.

Pressures go way higher than folks think while bottle conditioning. In the following data, I carbed sweet hard cider and stopped the carbing and then pasteurized the cider when the bottle was at 22 PSI. My Lager went above 35 PSI. The data doesn't show the extremes the pressure rises with beer as I stopped the cider at 22 PSI, but it would have continued if i hadn't stopped it.

The gauge bottle has a nice side effect, it tells you when your bottles are conditioned as the pressure rise stops. I then throw them in the Fridge to cold condition for several days before I open. The gauge also tells you when they are carbed as the pressure drop stops. Pretty basic really.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/bottle-carbing-idea-final-data-review-205862/

PressureTest-1.jpg
Click to expand...

RukusDM said:
No, when you bottle condition, the slight fermentation we cause by adding priming sugar just builds pressure up in the bottle. The pressures seem to go up into the 30's and 40's PSI from what I've seen.

The CO2 doesn't really move into the liquid until the temperature drops. Some CO2 may, but not the majority of it. CO2 doesn't dissolve into solution until a lower temperature.

This is really what we do when we force carb in a keg. We raise the pressure up when the beer is cold. The CO2 moves into the solution. The tap pressure is lowered for proper delivery and the beer either sets for cold aging, or it is consumed at that time.

What you would see with the pressure gauge (if you use one bigger than my first bottle had. Should use a 100 PSI Gauge) is that the pressure climbs over time and will level off.

Once the pressure levels off, that means all of the priming sugar has been used up by the yeast. Next, you put them into the fridge. You will see the pressure drop over several days. Eventually, it also will level off. I like to let them sit for a few more days after that, but really if the pressure stops dropping, all of the CO2 that can be dissolved at that temperature has been achieved.
.
Click to expand...

I think it goes down to this.....is it worth playing Russian Roulette with your money and the time you spent bringing your brew along from grain to bottling day???

russian-roulette.jpg
 
Thanks for the info guys.

Revvy, I wouldn't skip bottling if there was a chance it would ruin the batch. It seems the main reason to bottle beer is to carbonate it, I'm curious how crucial that is to the overall batch. Does to take away from taste? lower the alcohol content?

The reason I ask is because I have a friend who has made a few batches, and I believe he kept one in the same container he fermented it in, and just siphoned beer out whenever he wanted some. It was a decent.

It seems there are several processes in brewing, and I'd like to acquire a thorough understanding of all of them.

Cravej: It probably would be a good idea to just save some dark bottles, buy a few caps and a capper, they are small enough for traveling.

As an alternative, do you think it would be better to bottle in a small glass jug or a plastic container? (4L Carlo Rossi jug / 2L soda bottle / 1 gallon water jug) How about for fermenting?

There is much more pressure involved in bottling then fermenting right? I've read somewhere about fermenting with a carlo rossi just and a stopper.

PUD: For whatever reason I have no interest in a kit right now, although I may get one eventually if my efforts fail.
 
The carbonation of the beer has a large impact on the overall taste. In some belgian styles (Golden Strong) the beers are carbonated to 3 - 4 volumes (fairly high average beers are 2.5) because they add a certain type of astringency which can often be tasted as bitterness. Guiness is famous for using nitrogen for bubbles which lends to a certain silkiness.

Honestly with homebrewing you're going to get out of it what you put into it. If you want to make some good beer, buy yourself a plastic bucket for fermenting (my best beers have been made in open fermenters) and take the time to bottle. If you don't feel like measuring out sugar, boiling it in water to sanitize, cooling it etc... pick up some cooper's carbonation tabs. Great time saver.

If you have the money to invest get yourself a kegging system. For $150(ish) you can get yourself a used corny keg, C02 tank and tubing. It's also a lot quicker than bottling. You can rack straight from primary into your keg.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks homebrew. I'll have to look into open fermenting. So what you bottle in is more important than what you ferment in as long as everything is completely sanitary?
 
Yes and no. Both are important. Yes everything needs to be completely sanitary.

You can ferment in a Carlo Rossi jug with a stopper (basically a small glass carboy). But you can also ferment in plastic buckets loosely covered with a lid, or a sanitized piece of foil. Different fermentation vessels can change the flavor of your beer. I prefer "open" or loosely covered buckets because there is far less pressure in them than in a traditional carboy. The pressure created by the CO2 in a carboy can suppress a lot of the flavors yeast make.

But as far as making beer and then not carbonating it goes... why even bother homebrewing to begin with if you're not going to finish it properly? In terms of the overall process carbonating your beer is the easiest and least time consuming activity; especially if you decide to keg.
 
Homebrewtastic said:
Yes and no. Both are important. Yes everything needs to be completely sanitary.

You can ferment in a Carlo Rossi jug with a stopper (basically a small glass carboy). But you can also ferment in plastic buckets loosely covered with a lid, or a sanitized piece of foil. Different fermentation vessels can change the flavor of your beer. I prefer "open" or loosely covered buckets because there is far less pressure in them than in a traditional carboy. The pressure created by the CO2 in a carboy can suppress a lot of the flavors yeast make.
Click to expand...

If my airlock/blowoff tubing is bubbling, it means the gasses produced by fermentation are escaping- I can't imaging the pressure inside the carboy needs to be much more than 1psi to push itself out of the airlock/tube. Is that really enough to make a difference between fermenting in a carboy vs. a bucket?
 
cedar_lake said:
If my airlock/blowoff tubing is bubbling, it means the gasses produced by fermentation are escaping- I can't imaging the pressure inside the carboy needs to be much more than 1psi to push itself out of the airlock/tube. Is that really enough to make a difference between fermenting in a carboy vs. a bucket?
Click to expand...

I switched to open fermentation after a great episode of the Jamil Show. He said he went to Sierra Nevada Brewery and was talking to the brewer about their lagers. The brewer said that they can churn out their "lagers" much faster with great results if they ferment warmer (I believe he said around 62 degrees but I could be wrong) and just keep the beer under pressure. You know how much? 2 PSI!!! Just two pounds of pressure was enough to keep the yeast from producing the esters and phenols they normally would at that temperature.

So yeah. I really believe it makes a difference. If you want to experiment with it for yourself (I really wanted to the first time I heard that) then take a recipe you've made before that's very yeast driven in flavor (hefeweisen, saison, abbey, belgian etc...) and make it in a plastic bucket covered with nothing more than a sanitized piece of foil. You'll be amazed at how the beer changes.

If you download the Jamil Show Saison Episode, I believe that's the one where he talks about it. He also has Chris White of Whitelabs on there and they get into a bit of a discussion about it too I think.
 
Your on the right track, if your moving a lot, I would invest in a few dozen grolsh(with the pop tops) you don't need a capper this way... You only news about 48 to do a 6gallon batch... The rubber seals will last a few years or more... Besides, then you have a decent brew to drink while your batch is doing it's thing... I've had decent sucsess with the 2litre plastic bottles as well, but then you have to drink it all( yeah yeah... It real rough, lol) iv found that they don't hold the carbonation once they've been opened... Either way it sound like your on the right track...
 
Thanks guys. I guess I'm going to try fermenting in a carlo rossi jug or a large bucket.

I'm definitely going to bottle/carbonate it in some way. I may experiment and try bottling some of the batch in 64 oz plastic jugs, some in large 24 oz bottles, and some in a carlo rossi jug. This way I can get a real feel for the differences.
 
If you carbonate in the Carlo rossie jug, your going to have a glass grenade in your closet, it's not ment to have internal pressure... The growlers can take a little bit, but it's ment for storage in cold temperatures... Good luck...
 
JonK331 said:
If you just want to get started and experiment Mr. Beer isn't a bad way to go. It's how I started. Beware though, if you catch the brew bug, you WILL want to move on from it. Mr. Beer can come out just fine, especially if you use different yeast.
Click to expand...


Yes Mr. Beer is a great way to get started. I brewed and bottled my first Mr. Beer batch in used soda bottles. The beer was good and the soda bottles worked great. Good luck.

Roger
 
Revvy said:
+1

Carbed beer and carbonating beer are 2 seperate things.

To carb a beer whether or not is is done naturally or with co2 you are forcing the gas into the solution. The pressure builds up, then there's a point where either the bottle fails or the co2, seeking the path of least resistance, forces itself into solution. You could call it a peak point, where there is a lot of pressure in the bottle, both already in solution and in the headspace trying to go into the solution, eventually it balances out and the beer is carbed.

Beer bottles, champagne bottles and kegs are rated with a higher psi/volume of co2 than wine bottles and growlers.

Already carbed and kegged beer is at a stable volume of co2 which is below the volume that growlers and winebottles are rated at. The FORCING of the co2 already happened. Why do you think kegs are made of metal and very very strong? To handle the pressure.

Our Buddy Rukus





I think it goes down to this.....is it worth playing Russian Roulette with your money and the time you spent bringing your brew along from grain to bottling day???

russian-roulette.jpg
Click to expand...

Very cool.

Roger
 

Similar threads

R
First timer
Replies
17
Views
798
oakbarn
oakbarn
A
Cold Crashing ?
Replies
11
Views
1K
mac_1103
mac_1103
D
Looking for a Kettle
Replies
28
Views
1K
DuhokBrewer
D
C
First Timer, what now?
Replies
6
Views
944
bwible
bwible
Dyfrgi
First timer experimenting with cider
Replies
3
Views
748
OakIslandBrewery
OakIslandBrewery
Yakima 300

Latest posts

Back
Top