StrictlyIPAs
Well-Known Member
I don't have enough bottles, so before I run to the brew supply store, I was wondering if I could siphon 64oz of beer into my growler and let it bottle condition for a month... Could this work?
Thanks!
Thanks!
i've had two growlers break on me. they were really thick, but still not designed to hold pressure...two different types of bottles, both with swing-tops.
Good to know, thanks Death.
(from a post I made a while back, nearly a year ago, as I look at the date)
Ok, this bashing of proper screw on growlers has got to stop. I use them regularly (1-2 for each brew, more if I have them empty).
You simply have to use the right screw-on-top. Air locks - Rubber stoppers - Screw caps - Bungs - Wine making supplies - Beer Polyseal caps will solve any and all carbonation problems. I've opened growlers 9 months past bottling, and they are as carbonated then, as they were a month after... and the same carbonation as the traditional capped bottles.
In fact, it's likely that in my next visit to the LHBS, I'll be picking up a couple more... or perhaps grabbing a few that are already full of beer.
From my experience they typically fail where the bottom meets the sides, and don't really make bottle "bombs", so much as just turn into removeable bottom bottles at inconvenient times. I used a couple growlers when bottling my first several brews without a problem, probably 9 or 10 times. The first time I had to clean up 64oz of beer while SWMBO yelled at me, I stopped bottling in growlers.
Yeah, mine just cracked under the pressure and the beer soaked the boxes they were sitting in. I didn't even notice until I pulled it out and the bottom came off.
I'm resurecting this thread as I have two kegs, and hate bottling in small bottles but like to have additional beers around. I have amassed 4 growlers and plan to get to 8 so I can try and bottle condition in them. I have asked around and the guys at Stone brewery (two of them) said they routinely put homebrew in their growlers....the stone growlers are rubber lock tops and they are heavy...i.e. the glass is thick. Question...if the beer comes out of the tap at a certain carbonation, and is filled to the brim...shouldn't the bottle condtioned beer end up at the same carb or 'explosiveness' level assuming you shoot for that in the amount of sugar you add? Stone and Ballast Point in SD fill their growlers to the very top...and also offer higher carb belgian type beers in the same growlers....
just curious...has anyone had any trouble bottle conditioning in Stone, Ballast Point, Alesmith, or Russian River growlers?
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/
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.
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I'm resurecting this thread as I have two kegs, and hate bottling in small bottles but like to have additional beers around. I have amassed 4 growlers and plan to get to 8 so I can try and bottle condition in them. I have asked around and the guys at Stone brewery (two of them) said they routinely put homebrew in their growlers....the stone growlers are rubber lock tops and they are heavy...i.e. the glass is thick. Question...if the beer comes out of the tap at a certain carbonation, and is filled to the brim...shouldn't the bottle condtioned beer end up at the same carb or 'explosiveness' level assuming you shoot for that in the amount of sugar you add? Stone and Ballast Point in SD fill their growlers to the very top...and also offer higher carb belgian type beers in the same growlers....
just curious...has anyone had any trouble bottle conditioning in Stone, Ballast Point, Alesmith, or Russian River growlers?
So... I now have 3 growlers sitting around, because I thought I could bottle-condition in them. What good are they now that they are empty, other than decoration?
I'm not suggesting this is safe, but it has worked for me without issue:
Bottle as you normally would into a growler. Put the growler into a bucket filled with water. (Unless seriously under filled, they sink.) Wait a couple weeks to carbonate. Being under water, they are under some external pressure - roughly double ambient pressure, IIRC - to balance the pressure building inside. A happy benefit is that they are effectively in a swamp cooler, so you could add some hot water to regulate conditioning temp above room temp (my house is cool in the winter).
I'm not saying nothing could ever go wrong, but at least being under water they are pretty safe in case of fracture.
That actually makes a lot of sense... except when you have to take them out of the water to serve?
By then they are carbonatED and not carbonatING. Which is (in my understanding) where there are issues.
... but the pressure increase is the problem - if the carbonation has ceased, the pressure inside would still be greater than it was when you put the beer in, no?
Wow! It did make it all the way to 260psi very impressive.
I actually think wine bottles should handle pressure quite well because of the concave bottom. The issue with the growlers is that they don't have a concave bottom and so the pressure within the bottle creates more stress on the glass.
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