Where to put excess beer when transferring to secondary..

So I'm moving my cream ale over to secondary tomorrow to brew a new batch. I currently face a dilemma, however, since I overdid the water on that batch by about 1.5 gallons. My secondary is 5 gallons, so I'm trying to decide what to do with the excess beer. My bottling bucket is a 5 gallon homer (home depot) bucket, and I have read speculation as to whether it is truly food grade or not. If you were in my shoes, what would you do- transfer the excess, add some priming sugar, and bottle it (it's been in primary for a little over two weeks)? Or leave it to settle out in the bottling bucket, and hope I don't get some off flavors due to any number of things that cheap plastic could possibly do to a beer.

Also, the only sugars for priming I have beyond that which came with the kit, are brown sugar and pure cane sugar (In The Raw brand). Which should I go for?

1) Get some food grade bottles for the excess - 2liter pop bottles, one gallon cider jugs (these are very useful in general) or really really well washed out one gallon milk jugs.
2) you can't bottle until you hit a stable FG or you may wind up overcarbed (in the worst case expoding bottles)
use table sugar to prime if you dont have dextrose.

What about the one gallon plastic jugs they sell spring water in? I have about 4 empty ones, all of which have only had....spring water in them.

If I know I have excess I usually fill a growler and prime it.

arover said:

What about the one gallon plastic jugs they sell spring water in? I have about 4 empty ones, all of which have only had....spring water in them.

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Bottom line when it comes to plastic, #1 and #2 are 100% safe. #7 is up to personal preference, mostly because of the possible health risks associated with bisephenol a. Some of us will still use #7, some won't.

Oh, by the way, those Homer buckets are #2, and are totally safe.

If it was me, I'd totally forgo the secondary, wait a week and bottle the whole batch at the same time.

I agree with Yooper. Skip the secondary, and bottle the whole schmear one or two weeks from now.

I do have the same problem when racking to keg -- I often have 'extra' beer that won't fit in the keg. The extra goes into a 2l bottle with a carb cap, so I can force carb it and drink it. The 2l usually carbonates within a day or two, so I can drink it while waiting for the keg to stabilize. No reason you couldn't do the same thing, just with priming sugar.

Bert said:

If I know I have excess I usually fill a growler and prime it.

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Generally bad advice. Growlers are not pressure bottles. I have a growing collection of swing top bottles, that's where my excess goes (usually 2 16's per batch) and I prime with 1tsp of sugar.

Skipping secondary is a good idea (unless you want to fill up primary with another batch).

I also agree with the 1 gallon cidar jugs. Great to have around for any number of uses, but I really like to take out a gallon from every batch and do something weird to it.

HSM said:

Generally bad advice. Growlers are not pressure bottles. I have a growing collection of swing top bottles, that's where my excess goes (usually 2 16's per batch) and I prime with 1tsp of sugar.

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I see this often, but what about the breweries who sell 64 oz. jugs at the liquor store. They have a sediment layer and I think are bottle conditioned. Although they do have screw on caps witch I think lose there seal after they are opened.

I need the primary for a new batch on monday...Or else I would've forgone this topic altogether and leave it in the primary

How can you tell what # the plastic is? Also, what # is the plastic used for the crystal geyser bottles? I think I'll use the homer bucket, but, just for kicks, I'm wondering if the gallon jugs would work.

arover said:

I need the primary for a new batch on monday...Or else I would've forgone this topic altogether and leave it in the primary

How can you tell what # the plastic is? Also, what # is the plastic used for the crystal geyser bottles? I think I'll use the homer bucket, but, just for kicks, I'm wondering if the gallon jugs would work.

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On the bottom of the jug,bottle,pail there should be a triangular recycle symble.
The number will be in the center.

Clonefarmer said:

I see this often, but what about the breweries who sell 64 oz. jugs at the liquor store. They have a sediment layer and I think are bottle conditioned. Although they do have screw on caps witch I think lose there seal after they are opened.

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That's where I got the two I have. I've used them a number of times (even reusing the metal cap) with no issues at all.

Maybe I've just been lucky but I trust them as much as I trust reusing normal bottles.

I think you are better off with two liter pop bottles than with water bottles. I have never put beer in water bottles but I put ginger beer in them and they warped real bad before the carbination was achieved. the pop bottles did not do this.

I just had this situation a couple of weeks ago when my honey stout didn't boil off as much as I thought it would. I took the extra and put it in a growler with some mint (kinda like a dry hop) and some priming sugar solution. I wrapped it in a towel in case it tried to explode - so far it hasn't...

nomadjanet said:

I think you are better off with two liter pop bottles than with water bottles. I have never put beer in water bottles but I put ginger beer in them and they warped real bad before the carbination was achieved. the pop bottles did not do this.

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What do you mean by 'warped'? Like, the water bottle sucked inwards from the carbonation? I was planning on plugging it up with some sort of air seal contraption to let the excess CO2 out.

arover said:

What do you mean by 'warped'? Like, the water bottle sucked inwards from the carbonation? I was planning on plugging it up with some sort of air seal contraption to let the excess CO2 out.

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The flat bottoms on water bottles will bulge out since they aren't made for pressure. Pop bottles have that crown shaped bottom that resists pressure.