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tmautobody

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I work at a bar and want to try and make my own beer (not to resale). We throw away tons of glass liquor bottles, Jack and the like. After I brew, and ferment, can i bottle in these if i sanitize them correctly? My friend, who gave me the crazy idea of brewing for fun, says that the shape of the beer bottles is important to the flavor. I'd just use old beer bottles but we don't have any that aren't screw tops. I'm going to start fermenting with my own recipe, risky, but i wanna try it, as soon as my hops and barley get here in the mail.. Thanks guys!
 
I work at a bar and want to try and make my own beer (not to resale). We throw away tons of glass liquor bottles, Jack and the like. After I brew, and ferment, can i bottle in these if i sanitize them correctly? My friend, who gave me the crazy idea of brewing for fun, says that the shape of the beer bottles is important to the flavor. I'd just use old beer bottles but we don't have any that aren't screw tops. I'm going to start fermenting with my own recipe, risky, but i wanna try it, as soon as my hops and barley get here in the mail.. Thanks guys!

sure, that's what most of us use. beer bottles that we just re-used after drinking said nectar of the gods out of. soak em in oxyclean/pbw and use a bottle brush to clean them out. then use something like Starsan to sanitize and you're good to go.

and you can't use twist off bottles to bottle. traditional bottle cappers won't cap them. you need pry off bottles, or grolsch bottles.
 
No twist caps, but boos bottles are okay. And another question since I finally have people to ask, is it okay if the fermentor is stored where its closer to eighty degrees?
 
No twist caps, but boos bottles are okay. And another question since I finally have people to ask, is it okay if the fermentor is stored where its closer to eighty degrees?

you could do a saison at those temps but you'll make other ales with some really nasty off flavors. best temps are BEER temps ranging in the 60's. best way to get around that issue is the swamp cooler technique or a dedicated brew fridge with a thermostat
 
I can put it in the basment. Its one o six outside in the days but its still a nice sixty five in the basement. Any other tips for a beginner?
 
I can put it in the basment. Its one o six outside in the days but its still a nice sixty five in the basement. Any other tips for a beginner?

65 isn't bad. however remember that fermentation will be 5-10 degrees hotter than the ambient temps so you beer could get as hot as 75 degrees in 65 degree ambient. that's not that bad but you still might wanna invest in a rope tub and toss a frozen water bottle in there every once in a while or just put a wet t-shirt around it and turn a fan on. that'll drop the temps enough to get mid to high 60's for ferm temps.
 
Beer bottles are made to withstand the pressure of carbonation. You need recappable bottles. Booze and wine bottles will not do; they will break (explode) when carbonated. A cheap plastic soda bottle with the twist cap can be used and will hold the pressure when the beer is primed for carbonation. Your basement in the mid 60s would be good for most home brew fermentation temps. Bottles with pop tops are still in use, you just have to look around. Carona, Ginnus, Harp, are a few. Enjoy
 
I don't think the booze bottles will hold the carbonation. I doubt you can get a good seal with the screw on caps and they may explode if you manage to get a seal. Also, light is bad for beer and most liquor bottles are clear.

Oh, and the shape of the bottle doesn't affect the flavor of the beer.
 
The shape really doesn't matter, but the material does. To echo earlier advice, liquor and wine bottles aren't designed to withstand the amounts of pressure exerted from carbonating. You're really limited to beer or champagne bottles. Just pick up some New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Boulevard (since they apparently just switched to pry off caps. Hallelujah!), or the like. Drink, rinse, sanitize, fill, cap, wait, repeat. Simple as that.
 
In my experience,ferment temps do not go 5-10 degrees higher.I've measured them at more like 2-3 degrees higher than ambient temp. But wet tee shirts & a 12" turbo fan can take that couple degrees off.
Most craft beers,including imports like Paulaner & Franziskaner have pop top bottles. The German bottles are more like amber brown,some with a touch of green as well. And those German bottles always seem to carbonate well.
Dito with Sam Adams' bottles. And the SA bottles have a bulge in the neck that prevents that "glub glub" when you're trying to pour without disturbing the trub layer at the bottom. Michelobe still has pop tops as well,& the ring at the base of the neck makes them look like the old fused neck bottles of yore. I think they're cool.
 
sure, that's what most of us use. beer bottles that we just re-used after drinking said nectar of the gods out of. soak em in oxyclean/pbw and use a bottle brush to clean them out. then use something like Starsan to sanitize and you're good to go.

If you rinse within, say, a day after drinking, you can simply rinse all visible gunk out. They're ready for a Star San and a fill after this. No cleaning necessary :D
 
2 liter soda bottles will work just fine, very easy and cheap, your basement temp is good for ale beers, the $6 tub with water and your fermenter in it, will help keep fermenting temps under control, the first 3 to 5 days of fermentation are when the brew makes a lot of heat, if you want to ferment at 80 deg, try a Belgian saison yeast brew, fermentation temps from 70deg to 95deg but they are a bit tricky as they are known to have what is called a stuck fermentation.

I would highly recommend for your first attempt at brewing to just order a ingredient kit and follow the instructions, as there is a lot you will learn from your first batch, also this way you wont have to try to come up with a balanced recipe, kits are also fairly cheap, if you don't have your fermenting bucket, bottling bucket, hydrometer, thermometer, bubbler, racking cane, yada yada yada, Midwest Brewing Supplies sells a complete beer making kit with all ingredients to make 5 gal of beer, and I think its only $64 sold through Groupon, call midwest and ask them to help you find an active Groupon for the beginner kit.

Good luck with your brewing tmautobody and I hope this helps.

Cheers :mug:
 
If you rinse within, say, a day after drinking, you can simply rinse all visible gunk out. They're ready for a Star San and a fill after this. No cleaning necessary :D

That's been generally true. But after repeated use,I'vee noticed some trubs compact tighter than others. Or if they sit a couple days till I get a chance to clean them. Not hard to fix. Just rinse well,then add steamy water & a bottle brush. Works pretty quick. I'm beginning to think that it might be wise to scrub'em with the bottle brush to also make sure the PBW,etc doesn't build up a film inside. Could cause carbonation problems.
 
If you rinse within, say, a day after drinking, you can simply rinse all visible gunk out. They're ready for a Star San and a fill after this. No cleaning necessary :D

+1 to this. I never use bottle brushes. I just rinse a couple of times right after drinking with regular tap water (I usually shake it too to make sure any remaining yeast is dislodged from the bottle) and put the bottle away. This will prevent formation of crust and gunk in the bottles. Then during the bottling day I put the bottles in the dishwasher, fire it up on high-temp wash with a bit of starsan and that's it. If you don't have a dishwasher soaking them in starsan will do instead.

And on a related note - I actually had a few cases where I ran out of bottles in the dishwasher and I still had a few bottles worth of beer left in the bucket. So what I did in those cases is I just grabbed a few bottles from the basement (remember - these are already clean of gunk since they were rinsed at some earlier point) , rinsed them with tap water to get rid of dust particles that may have settled there (no sanitizer or anything) and bottled them. This was actually both to try to save the leftover beer as well to experiment and see what would happen (I'd mark those bottles with X as a reminder not to serve them to anyone but myself - thinking they would most likely get infected). They never got infected and the beer in those was just as good as the one in the sanitized bottles.

Now, I m absolutely not suggesting anyone should go without sanitizing the bottles - I certainly wouldn't do it - but this has been my personal experience with it.
 
You'll see what I'm talking about sooner or later. I preached that rinse right away dry & stor mantra for quite some time. Then I started noticing,slowly but surely,specs of build up on the bottom rim of some bottles. Brush & warm water time.
I'm seeing that the bottle brush is good for more than just recycled bottles. Good idea to make sure it's clean visually,not just procedurally.
 
The only reason I'm not using a kit is because I have a lot of stuff laying around that I can use, like a fermenter, bubbler, etc. I've already bought the barley, so I can make my own malt, and I'm just going to kinda wing it and see how this goes. It's not like im out a million. So far, I've got almost everything, yeast, and etc, and it's only cost me like thirty dollars.
 
The only reason I'm not using a kit is because I have a lot of stuff laying around that I can use, like a fermenter, bubbler, etc. I've already bought the barley, so I can make my own malt, and I'm just going to kinda wing it and see how this goes. It's not like im out a million. So far, I've got almost everything, yeast, and etc, and it's only cost me like thirty dollars.

Nice, Keep us updated on your brewing adventure, like to hear how it go's.

Cheers :mug:
 
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