can you condition in growlers?

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hardman

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I am going to bottle my second batch of beer next week and was wondering if it would be ok to condition the beer in a few growlers. I see ni reason not to, since they are made to hold carbonated beer in the first place....
 
In general...

Swing top growlers can be carbonated in.

Twist top growlers cannot be carbonated in.
 
I switched to 2l Grolsch bottles since I am lazy and hate bottling and so far they've been working great. You can find them at just about any online homebrew store.
 
I successfully did one batch in screw top growlers, but you are asking for trouble... I got lucky even though the tops were visibly pushed out due to carbonation forces
 
At your own risk, and before I thought better of it,,,I would do half a batch (5 gal) in bottles and half in growlers, I purchased the black screw tops (at local brewshop) that have a milky white insert in them to make them air tight I presumed. I did this for probably 3 dozen batches without incident. In fact I am thinking of doing it for a few batches in the future as a easy way to give beer away...
 
I only use fips and never had a problem, and done many brews in them.
 
What about mason jars? I bet that would work

Why do people always wanna f-around with stuff NOT holding beer, when beer bottles are practically free and easy to come by?

Mason jars are meant to hold a vaccum, not the outward pressure of carbonation pressing on the screw ring.

Drink out of them, but don't bottle in them.

They work by creating a vacuum when you can under pressure... WHen you put your food in the jar, seal the jar and stick it inside the boiling water bath, the vacuum draws the seal downward or inward that's why the dimple on a can is supposed to be pushed inward, and if you ever come a cross a can where it is bulging outward you are in trouble...

When you bottle, the gas builds up til it maxes out the head room (held in place by the crimped cap or the cork with wire or the gasket on a grolh bottle.....The co2 hits the barrier, maxes it and then goes back into solution/

With a mason jar you would either blow the seal and all the co2 would escape or if you were lucky enough that the seal held, more than likely the glass of the jar would explode and you would have a nice bottle grenade....

The tops for a mason jar typically is a thin metal lid with a rubberized "grommet" attached to is, really just a silicon band around the edge of the lid, and a retaining ring.

Mason-jar-lids.jpg


canning1.jpg


When you can, the cooling of the once heated container and it's goodies creates a vaccuum, it sucks inward. It pulls the flat tightly Downward.

In fact many of the lids actually has a small indentation in the center of it, that when the vacuum occurs it is pulled inward on the top and leaves a little dimple. That's a sign that there is a vacuum pulling the lid down and keeping the veggies or jam sealed up nicely and protected from infection.

And usually after you remove the retaining ring, if everything is OK with the jar, you usually can feel/hear the the vaccum break, with a little *POP*

However any of you who have ACTUALLY canned before, probably knows that one of the ways you can tell if your food in the can spoiled is if the little dimple is pushed outword. In jars without the dimple it is really hard, usually the lid might feel loose or there might actually be wetness around the lid when you unscrew the retaining

Because usually the rotting food give of a gas which expands to push up the dimple OR it breaks the seal where the little lid gasket meets the rim of the glass.

There is considerably MORE pressure in the carbonation process of beer, often enough pressure to cause a BOTTLE BOMB, in bottles specifically made to handle the OUTWARD pressure of carbonation.

Now if you managed to find one of these older style, thick walled jars with big gaskets and flip tops...We MIGHT be having a different discussion.

mason-jar.jpg


But your typical jars from the grocery store...NOT.

A crown bottles cap is designed to contain the Outward and upward pressure of a beer bottle, we crimp it down, we don't create a vacuum that seats it on the bottle.
 
Growlers are meant to hold CARBONATED beer, not contain the pressures of CARBONATING beer, there is a difference.

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...


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

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

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.
.

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
 
I have done around 20 batches and more than half have been partially conditioned in growlers with no problem. My LHBS has been around for 20 years and said it was fine.

Several local breweries bottle condition in growlers including Berkshire Brewing Company out of South Deerfield, MA.

They make a special plastic growler cap that looks like a big medicine bottle cap that you can get and reuse. They carry new standard metal growler caps at the LHBS for this purpose and I frequently get new ones to make sure the seal is good.
 
My LHBS has been around for 20 years and said it was fine.

And other LHBS have other opinions.

This is direct from northern brewer website:
Standard issue 64 oz liquid libation transport vessel for the Civilian Brewing Division. This growler features a blank white space for adding in details on the beer inside and date bottled; using a dry-erase marker allows you to change it at any time. Takes a #6 stopper or a 38 mm screw cap. Pressure capable to 2.4 volumes of co2, not recommended for highly carbonated beers. Avoid bottle carbonating or priming with these growlers, as an unintentionally high level of carbonation could cause the glass to break.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/civilian-brewing-division-growler.html

I would hate to see you have a mess.
 
You can always use your old plastic cola bottles. They are designed to hold twice the pressure of carbonating beer and you all ready paid for them and were just going to throw them away anyways.

Any time I am going to brew a dark beer I always bottle up two 1 liter diet coke bottles. If you give them away who cares if you lose the bottle. also if I am drinking them outside everyone thinks I am drinking diet coke.
 
I too, often condition in growlers. Have been doing so for some time. I wouldn't dispute the advice from the more seasoned brewers on here, but in my experience I have never had a problem. You obviously run a little risk, but based off my experience, it works for me. I'm sure once I have my first "bomb" my stance may change.
 
I think the key is to make sure the headspace is minimal. Since I've started kegging I haven't utilized growlers, but if I remember correctly a quarter inch was optimal, meaning a quarter inch below the very top of the growler. Too much headspace and you may have a problem.
 
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