Growler's did not carb

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franks160

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I bottled 12 bottler and 4 growlers. The bottles came out great but the growlers did not carb. Is there a different way to carb growlers?
 
Consider yourself lucky then, Your growler might explode long before it gets the chance to carbonate....Growlers are meant to hold carbonaTED beer, not carbonATING beer.

There is a difference.Carbonating beer and carbonated beer are not the same. A growler is meant for CARBONATED beer, like from a tap, not beer that is bottle conditioning.

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.
Civilian Brewing Division Growler : Northern Brewer

I would hate to see you have a mess.

There's always a few who say they have no problem, but folks also have sex without condoms- Or still smoke, despite knowing its risks.

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???

For every guy that says they do it, we have 2-3 guys who posts threads like "Growler goes Boom"

Like this-

Don't do it. I used to and had a couple explode.
 
I never thought about growlers not being made to withstand pressure. That's good to know. Now it's time to decide if I should buy 22 oz bottles or go the keg route.
 
This idea that head pressure builds up higher than the dissolved partial pressure during bottle conditioning is persistent but completely false.

The reason why growlers do not typically pose problems is twofold. First is that they are typically filled off a faucet when the beer is cold and the beer stays cold until served. Therefore the pressure is 15psi or less. Also, during the fill, some of the carbonation is lost to the atmosphere as well as the headspace. At that point, if it is allowed to warm to room temp, you are still down at 20psi or less.

When people blow up their growlers, it is almost certainly based on poor calculation of residual co2, priming solution, incomplete primary ferment, and more likely a combo of at least two of those. The reason why it is so dangerous is that the liquid volume to headspace ratio is usually much higher in a growler and people will prime the same amount as if they were all 12oz bottles.

It's still a bad idea regardless of why they blow up.
 
the average cost for a used soda keg is probably in the $20-$40 range.. if you mean an actual pony keg they you are probably talking much more than that, whether you obtain it legally or not
 
the average cost for a used soda keg is probably in the $20-$40 range.. if you mean an actual pony keg they you are probably talking much more than that, whether you obtain it legally or not

The more recent posts (and my recent shopping) has revealed that if you can get a corny keg for 40 delivered you're way ahead of the game. If you can get one for $20, you've bought one from a buyer that doesn't know how scarce they're becoming. Search for "cheap corny keg" on this forum and read the best prices people all over the country are getting. Unless you buy in bulk from the guy in florida (he'll sell you 4 shiped for about 40 bucks) you're going to pay 50-60 shipped for corny kegs.

I shopped around for quite a while last month, and eventually bought them from him, but the vast majority of Internet shops will charge you 50+ before shipping.

In just 6 months I've watched the price of corny kegs accelerate upward. Buy them sooner rather then later because eventually they're all gone, and the new ones are going to run you 120 each.
 
This idea that head pressure builds up higher than the dissolved partial pressure during bottle conditioning is persistent but completely false.

+1

When bottle conditioning is happening, there is an equilibrium between the CO2 pressure in solution and the head space. Since the yeast producing the CO2 is in solution, the CO2 pressure in the beer is momentarily higher than the head space for an instance. Then, CO2 is off gassed from the solution and equilibrium is regained. In the closed environment of the bottle, the pressure of gasses in and out of solution will always be equal and regulated by the solubility of the gas.
 
I was pretty concerned about this when I started brewing and had a couple of conversations with the good folks at Midwest. I was told that although it's never a good idea to carb in the regular cheap screw cap growlers, there are growler's that are made for carbing such as this one (pic below).

41fufPzIQpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg


Edit: And safe as long as you don't fill above the 2 L line mark...
 
+1 on revvvy

Fortunately for the bottler, it appears the caps were not capable of holding the pressure either.
 
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