Can You Bottle Rootbeer in Growlers

My 16yo son, who helps me with my brewing, would like to make some rootbeer. We asked the guy at the LHBS about what it entails and when he got to the point of telling us that you have to put ALL the bottles into the fridge after a couple days to stop the conditioning, my son became discouraged. We currently don't have the room to put a case of bottles into the fridge and I am not kegging yet :-(

Fast forward to today. My gentleman friend and I were talking about what to do with the growlers we have been accumulating and he wondered if my son could use those to bottle rootbeer in. These would take up less space in the fridge.

Thoughts?

No. You shouldn't even bottle beer in growlers, and beer is far less carbonated. Sorry But you don't want people getting injured from exploding growlers.

Just use 2 liter soda bottles. No-brainer. I am about to do some experimenting myself. If you are doing it with yeast it's best to use the plastic. You let them carb up until the bottle feels hard and then put them in the fridge. It's too much guess work with glass and yeah they are designed to hold that kinda pressure anyway.

Thanks :-( guess we are just gonna wait until we have that beer fridge again. Apartment fridge sucks.

You don't have to do a 4 gallon batch of root beer. "All" the bottles can be just one or two bottles, or however many you decide on.
For example, you can get the root beer concentrate, divide it up into portions to make enough of the flavor for one or two two liter bottles, then add the sugar and yeast and then just fridge the two when they're ready.

I make syrups I add to carbonated water for my sodas, but for example, I used a measuring device. Either a table/teasppon or a glass measuring cup (shotglass sized). I've done this and I still have the concentrate containers waiting for another syrup batch to be made. Only use a little over a third of the bottle I think.

But you could use partial amounts of the concentrate to one or more 2 liter bottles and save the concentrate for when those are finished. (Rainbow extracts instructions say for 1 gallon, you'd use 1 Tbsp or 1/2 oz. This would make about 3.7 liters. Thus two 2-liter bottles, maybe with a drop or two more of concentrate)

also: The reason you need to fridge them is to slow the yeast activity, since otherwise, the yeast will keep eating the sugars until either the bottle explodes or the sugar is all eaten.

I frequently do 1 gallon batches.

I do mine with carbonated water + syrup, so I don't worry about not fridging my bottles, but that's bottling from a keg and I see how it can take a lot of fun out of the brewing portion of it.

You might want to try smaller carbonation setups like carbonator caps:
http://morebeer.com/view_product/18250/102290/Carbonator_Cap

You can couple the carbonator cap with a carbonation setup based on paint ball setups:
http://morebeer.com/view_product/18301/102290/CO2_Injector_Ball_Lock

Or you can invest in a CO2 cylinder now if you're anticipating kegging at some point for your beer:
http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/gas-cylinders-pid-430A-5E.html
By buying this cylinder, you can exchange it at your local airgas store. Your nearest store is at (based on the location you gave from your profile...):
1212 Belvidere St.,
Waukegan, IL 60085

Another alternative is the tap-a-draft system. It is ideal for people who don't have a lot of refrigerator space to homebrewing:
http://morebeer.com/view_product/18291/102300/Tap-A-Draft_Homebrew_Setup

If you really want to get your son into the DIY side of things, you can always take one of the coors/miller small keg systems and convert it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/miller-coors-home-draft-regular-paintball-co2-220880/

There are options, so your son doesn't get frustrated. You can also use it as an opportunity to teach him how gases dissolve in liquids (if he's into that type of thing).