guinness bottles

Has anyone used Guinness Draught bottles with the plastic capsules to bottle their home brew? My ? is about sanitation. Will the capsule sanitize if soaked in solution? Thanks

When I do bottle, I use guinness bottles, but I've taken the widget out. I've noticed when taking them out that there tends to be a small amount of brew in them. This small amount may affect your taste.

My recommendatin is to take them out, then sanitize the bottle. Very simple to do.

Just turn the bottle upside down...Give it a quick snap to get the widget stuck in the neck of the bottle....Take a set of needle nose pliers, grab on and start pulling. I can usually do about a dozen bottles in a couple of minutes.

Great bottles though. Hope this helps you!!!

IGOR

Thanks Igor, I had'nt tried to remove the widget, did'nt think it was possible.

I use a good bit of de-wigitized guiness bottles..

i have also (FWIW) experimented with leaving the widget in. just for fun really.
I've only done it once in a German Hefe and didn't have the pleasure of opening it.

SWMBO opened it and it spewed all over her.. tee hee..

I don't recall if there were any infection problems and i'm not really even sure if we drank the beer or not.


ws

waskelton4 said:

I use a good bit of de-wigitized guiness bottles..

i have also (FWIW) experimented with leaving the widget in. just for fun really.
I've only done it once in a German Hefe and didn't have the pleasure of opening it.

SWMBO opened it and it spewed all over her.. tee hee..

I don't recall if there were any infection problems and i'm not really even sure if we drank the beer or not.


ws

Click to expand...

Help a noob out. What does SWMBO stand for? Someone Who May Be Orange?

Thanks for the acronyms, I was having trouble with SWMBO also. Now my morbid curiosity is peaked. Do you have links to any of the classy marines threads. I will not sleep til I read at least one. Thanks, BeerMedic

the_bird said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=5349

Click to expand...

Thank you kind sir.

I wasn't around back then, but I think the controversial ones were deleted (I went looking in the thread where it all went down).

I do believe, however, that the phrase "No real brewer uses bleach!" was spoken...

I've read about widgets countless times and I still dont understand how they work

However, I suspect leaving the widget in the bottle wont give you the creamy Guinness head. The head is the result of nitrogen instead of CO2 that you can also get for your corny keg. I think Guinness is bottled in the factory with a drop of liquid nitrogen and the widget spins around dispersing it, or something

The nitrogen is inside the widget, which has many tiny holes.

Widgets are evil! Their sole purpose is to take up space in the bottle so you don't get as much beer as if the widget wasn't there.

Brilliant!

As the cost of the widget is considerably less than the cost of the beer that it displaces, it makes economic sense (to the accountants) to replace a few grams of beer with a widget.

Brilliant!

The really insidious thing about the widgets, is that they produce a long lasting, large, really ugly tasting head on the beer that makes the beer look larger than it really is so you don't realize you've been short changed.

Brilliant!

CAMRA does not endorse widgeted beers. That really is brilliant!

-a.

david_42 said:

The nitrogen is inside the widget, which has many tiny holes.

Click to expand...

Actually, the widget just contains beer.

When the beer is bottled, they add a drop of Nitrogen into the mix then seal it. As the nitrogen evaporates, the pressure in the bottle rises quickly, forcing beer into the widget. When the cap is popped, the pressure in the bottle reduces, and the beer trapped in the widget is released through the many tiny holes, forcing the widget to spin and produce the creamy head.

Nitrogen is used instead of CO2 as Guiness is supposed to be low in carbonation. Adding enough CO2 to do the same job as the nitrogen would overcarbonate it.

bikebryan said:

Actually, the widget just contains beer.

When the beer is bottled, they add a drop of Nitrogen into the mix then seal it. As the nitrogen evaporates, the pressure in the bottle rises quickly, forcing beer into the widget. When the cap is popped, the pressure in the bottle reduces, and the beer trapped in the widget is released through the many tiny holes, forcing the widget to spin and produce the creamy head.

Click to expand...

Wow, I never knew that. I always wondered what was going on when I heard the pop-whir-wiz when popping one open...