Keeping beer from going flat in a growler.

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juandela

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hey all,

great forum. i've used these almighty pages for inspiration as i slowly amass my brewing empire but rarely posted.

i've got a question..... for the perfect holiday gift for my father i'm looking for a way to extend his growler beer's carbonation. at 71 he loves bringing a growler home from one of southwest michigan's brewpubs but it almost always goes flat before he can finish it (a problem i don't have. :rockin:).

i had seen the 2-liter flip top growler at northern brewer and i'm curious about the hand-squeeze tapping device that comes with it. while searching for answers here i noticed someone suggested mrbeer.com for an even better price.

i'm sure you know what i'm talking about but here are the links:
http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/48/nm/2_Liter_Classic_Growler
http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/49/nm/Growler_Tapping_Device

my questions are these....

how long will beer stay carbonated in this combination device? i'm assuming part of the allure is the draft effect but will it keep beer from going flat for a few days while my pops' liver moderates his greatness?

i also read that there is an issue with the introduction of O2 in the beer but if he's going to drink it in a couple days or week, is that really an issue?

does anyone know how tall this combination is? will it stand up in most fridges?

thank you in advance for your help
 
You hit the jackpot. I'm the one who posted on NorthernBrewer.com about that tapper.

The growler itself won't help with keeping your beer carbonated, but the addition of the tap means you don't have to break the seal on the top everytime you need a beer. This is certainly a plus. Mine stays good for about two days before I start to notice it's going flat.

As for oxydation from introducing air into the beer... unless you plan on leaving beer in the growler for a week or two, you probably won't notice it. By that time, it'll be flat anyways. So no...oxygen won't be a factor.

Mine fits in my fridge, but I had to adjust the shelving a bit. I just took out the shelve that I usually put my beer on. The growler by itself is 13" high, and I believe the tap adds an additional 4-5" onto that. A bigger fridge shouldn't have a problem fitting this...I've still got an 18cuft.

I mainly use mine for taking my kegged beer to partys and homebrew meetings. I figure the walk out to the garage to fill my glass will work off 1/100th of the 200+ calorie beers I'm drinking.
 
There isn't any way to maintain carbonation as the head space increases, except adding CO2 at pressure. I don't know of any growler that has provisions for CO2. His best bet is to decant half of it into a 1L PET bottle and store that in the fridge.
 
I'm going to look at mine a little more closely and see if I can attach a co2 injector to it. If I figure something out, I'll post a how-to.
 
I'm going to look at mine a little more closely and see if I can attach a co2 injector to it. If I figure something out, I'll post a how-to.

I'd recommend that you do not try to pressurize a growler.
They are not designed to be pressurized and you risk injury and a certain mess if one explodes.

Ed
 
I'd recommend that you do not try to pressurize a growler.
They are not designed to be pressurized and you risk injury and a certain mess if one explodes.

Ed

I don't think this is a true statement. I've read up on the German growlers that I own (flip-tops) and they're pressure rated to 58psi. This is well above what I will be pressurizing to. You may be right when referring to the cheap growlers that most breweries sell.
 
They can hold pressure, but I wouldn't try to carbonate in them. Many places that sell growlers already filled at offsite locations counter pressure fill them.
 
They can hold pressure, but I wouldn't try to carbonate in them. Many places that sell growlers already filled at offsite locations counter pressure fill them.

Counter pressure filling does not pressurize a bottle/growler. And if you are thinking of using a co2 charger like those that take the cartridges, you really have no way to regulate how much pressure you are applying. Just a little to much priming sugar and yeast turns standard bottles (that hold carbonated beer) into "Bottle Bombs".

The one in the link from Suthrncomfrt1884, certainly suggests it would withstand pressure, but I still would not recommend you modify the growler to pressurize it... Replacing the top would be modifying. It says it will "contain even highly carbonated Belgian beers", nothing about pressurizing it.

I'm really not trying to be an idiot, and YOU may get away with it but I still stand by the statement that pressurize glass has the potential for serious damage.

Ed
 
Counter pressure filling does not pressurize a bottle/growler. And if you are thinking of using a co2 charger like those that take the cartridges, you really have no way to regulate how much pressure you are applying. Just a little to much priming sugar and yeast turns standard bottles (that hold carbonated beer) into "Bottle Bombs".

The one in the link from Suthrncomfrt1884, certainly suggests it would withstand pressure, but I still would not recommend you modify the growler to pressurize it... Replacing the top would be modifying. It says it will "contain even highly carbonated Belgian beers", nothing about pressurizing it.

I'm really not trying to be an idiot, and YOU may get away with it but I still stand by the statement that pressurize glass has the potential for serious damage.

Ed

Actually counter pressure filling does pressurize the container, thats why its called "counter pressure filling"
 
Actually counter pressure filling does pressurize the container, thats why its called "counter pressure filling"
Yeah, if the beer itself is holding the proper volume of CO2, it will exert a vapor pressure on the container which is almost the same magnitude as if you pressurized the bottle during capping.
 
Actually counter pressure filling does pressurize the container, thats why its called "counter pressure filling"

Very little pressure, typically not more than a couple PSI, and as soon as the filler is removed so is the pressure. The point of counter pressure filling is to keep the co2 in solution, not to pressurize the bottles.

The pressure that is there when you open a bottle, natural carbed, orcounter pressure filled is from the co2 that is coming out of the solution. I said before that I agree that a growler will withstand that pressure. I still think it is a BAD IDEA to suggest to someone else that they try to modify a growler so they can pressurize it with co2.

Ed
 
Very little pressure, typically not more than a couple PSI, and as soon as the filler is removed so is the pressure. The point of counter pressure filling is to keep the co2 in solution, not to pressurize the bottles.

The pressure that is there when you open a bottle, natural carbed, orcounter pressure filled is from the co2 that is coming out of the solution. I said before that I agree that a growler will withstand that pressure. I still think it is a BAD IDEA to suggest to someone else that they try to modify a growler so they can pressurize it with co2.

Ed

The keg and the gas to the CPF have to be pretty much the same, typically 10-12psi.

Here are a few links to some instructions on using a CPF that confirm this
http://www.hoptech.com/pdf/cpfiller.pdf
http://hbd.org/mtippin/cpfiller.html
 
The keg and the gas to the CPF have to be pretty much the same, typically 10-12psi.

Here are a few links to some instructions on using a CPF that confirm this
http://www.hoptech.com/pdf/cpfiller.pdf
http://hbd.org/mtippin/cpfiller.html

From your references:
"When the bottle is full, the beer is shut off, the remaining pressure is released, and the bottle is capped."

and

"Common sense would dictate that you use some sort of eye protection while using the filler- both to protect against spraying beer and the remote chance of an exploding bottle."

And that's with a cpf... no way that is comparable to installing a one way valve and pressurizing a glass vessel with out a regulator.

I'm done... my advice is "be careful".

Good Luck,
Ed
 
Just to be clear...I wasn't telling anyone to go out and modify their growler to accept CO2. I simply said if I get it to work fine, I will post a thread. As far as regulating the amount of CO2 coming from my portable cartrigdes...I plan on using this...

Mini CO2 Regulator Kit

I'm also not talking about continuously carbing at 12psi like a keg... I would probably only give it a shot of co2 once or twice to keep it from going flat.
 
man, you guys are a wealth of knowledge. thanks to all for the input.

i checked out the tap a draft system in the hopes that he could bring home a growler and transfer it into this system to hold for a couple days to a week int he fridge. i thought i saw that they are typically larger than the standard growler (6 liter versus 2 liter) and wrote that of as impractical (for him, high potential for me!)

we also have problems filling non-proprietary growlers here in southwest michigan (darkhorse, arcadia, founders, new holland, livery, etc...). bells won't even fill growlers.

as much of a hassle as it's been i'm surprised my dad even bothers with dragging growlers home but since does and that keeps him from drinking coors light (HOORAY!), i'm just trying to clear the one last hurdle.

i have spent numerous hours scanning the internet looking for plausible solutions and even saw a site where someone was pressurizing 2-liter soda bottles with paint-gun cartridges. that idea was as close to nirvana as i've seen but still a little rough around the edges. plastic is probably better anyway and i'm sure a specialty bottle can provide extra rigidity for a couple dollars. i do like the dispenser that comes with the gate-mouth growler that i posted at the top of this thread. i would think that it would be easy to swap out the hand-prime ball for a co2 device not unlike the mini regulator mentioned last (sweet little kit - not-so-sweet price).

anyway, i see now that what i'm looking for isn't yet commercially available (or you guys would certainly know about it). i'm just hoping there is enough interest to motivate some of the fabrication-wizards of this site (which brought me here in the first place - the brew station that started out as wood and then morphed into the mother ship is still my fave) to serve the beer godz with engineering brilliance.

again, thanks to all for your time.... you guys are great! :rockin:
 
While I do not know of any way to keep a growler from going flat, other than drinking it quickly ;) , one thing that might work for your dad is to pick up a Party Pig from a brewpub that sells them.

In Michigan, there appear to be three pubs that sell filled Party Pigs

http://www.partypig.com/micros.html#MICHIGAN

In case you are not familiar with these, they are a disposable, sealed 2.5 gallon PET bottle with a pouch inside that expands as the liquid is dispensed to keep a constant pressure on the beer. They contain roughly the same amount of beer as a case. They WILL keep virtually forever if kept refrigerated.

These are not quite the same things as used by homebrewers. These are sold to brewpubs and micros only. They are thinner plastic and are designed not to be re-filled. They are quite convenient and easy to use.

There are quite a few places here in Colorado where you can buy them filled. When you are done, just put them out with the recyclables.

I am not sure if any of the pubs that sell Pigs are close to you, but this is the only way I can think of to have fresh, brewpub beer at home for an extended time.
 
Very little pressure, typically not more than a couple PSI, and as soon as the filler is removed so is the pressure. The point of counter pressure filling is to keep the co2 in solution, not to pressurize the bottles.

The pressure that is there when you open a bottle, natural carbed, orcounter pressure filled is from the co2 that is coming out of the solution. I said before that I agree that a growler will withstand that pressure. I still think it is a BAD IDEA to suggest to someone else that they try to modify a growler so they can pressurize it with co2.

Ed
Even if you bottle without actively pressurizing the bottle before the cap seals, the bottle will still end up at nearly the same pressure as the keg the beer came from. The CO2 coming out of solution exerts a vapor pressure that will cause it to work its way out of the beer until the pressure balance is achieved again, and that balance will be a bit lower than the pressure in the keg.
 
Even if you bottle without actively pressurizing the bottle before the cap seals, the bottle will still end up at nearly the same pressure as the keg the beer came from. The CO2 coming out of solution exerts a vapor pressure that will cause it to work its way out of the beer until the pressure balance is achieved again, and that balance will be a bit lower than the pressure in the keg.

The problem is that when pressurized glass vessels break, they do so catastrophically, with glass shards and shrapnel. As I have said repeatedly... growlers are designed and made to hold carbonated beverages... If you choose to add co2 pressure beyond that point you are pressing your luck. It might well hold up to the pressure and you may not have any problem... But drop a pressurized growler on a tile floor and watch what happens. I highly disagree with the idea of suggesting to a novice that they modify a growler to add co2. There is a simple solution... use a PET bottle.
 
The problem is that when pressurized glass vessels break, they do so catastrophically, with glass shards and shrapnel. As I have said repeatedly... growlers are designed and made to hold carbonated beverages... If you choose to add co2 pressure beyond that point you are pressing your luck. It might well hold up to the pressure and you may not have any problem... But drop a pressurized growler on a tile floor and watch what happens. I highly disagree with the idea of suggesting to a novice that they modify a growler to add co2. There is a simple solution... use a PET bottle.
What I'm saying, is that if your keg is pressurized to, say, 10 psi, and you want to dispense that into a growler, you could fill the growler and cap it without pressurization, and it will pressurize itself to about 10 PSI. Or, you can pressurize it with 10 PSI using a CO2 tank before it gets capped, so it's pressurized from the get-go. In the end, the bottle sees essentially the same pressure.
 
Reese is correct. Once a bottle of carbonated beverage is capped, CO2 will come out of solution to pressurize the headspace until it reaches an equilibrium. With a small amount of headspace, the pressure is going to be just a tad lower than the serving pressure the keg was at. It's just basic physics, folks. :)

The cheap solution to the $135 regulator (bad a$$, BTW) is simply a relief valve plumbed into the pressurization fittings. You could use those cheap brass adjustable ones from McMaster that guys are using as spunding valves for pressurized fermentation.


Suthrncomfrt1884,

You've got experience with the growler tap. How does the squeeze bulb thingy attach to the neck of the device? Is there a thread that could be utilized there?
 
You have a capper? Why not just fill 12oz bottles to the top and cap them? If there is no head space there should be min. Co2 that you lose rite? A growler only holds a six pack rite so that should be preaty easy to do. Just a thought
 
Reese is correct. Once a bottle of carbonated beverage is capped, CO2 will come out of solution to pressurize the headspace until it reaches an equilibrium. With a small amount of headspace, the pressure is going to be just a tad lower than the serving pressure the keg was at. It's just basic physics, folks. :)

The cheap solution to the $135 regulator (bad a$$, BTW) is simply a relief valve plumbed into the pressurization fittings. You could use those cheap brass adjustable ones from McMaster that guys are using as spunding valves for pressurized fermentation.


Suthrncomfrt1884,

You've got experience with the growler tap. How does the squeeze bulb thingy attach to the neck of the device? Is there a thread that could be utilized there?


Unfortunately, no threads. Basically all the bulb consists of is a stainless steel rod extending into the rubber ball. There's a little lip to hold the ball on, but nothing fancy. I bet it you utilized the same design of the Poor Man's Bottle filler, only backwards...it might work. Get a big rubber stopper...insert a stainless racking cane. Somehow insert a shut off valve on the racking cane to stop liquid flow. Then have some sort of co2 delivery system running through the stopper into the growler. If you let off pressure by pouring a pint before you hit it again with co2, you'll probably be fine.

Might be an issue keeping the stopper from flying out though...
 
While I do not know of any way to keep a growler from going flat, other than drinking it quickly ;) , one thing that might work for your dad is to pick up a Party Pig from a brewpub that sells them.



These are not quite the same things as used by homebrewers. These are sold to brewpubs and micros only. They are thinner plastic and are designed not to be re-filled. They are quite convenient and easy to use..



For the pub selling beer in them they have to be made cheaper, the ones online are close to fifty apiece. I had four, that I bought online (gave them away after I started kegging). They work, but hard to get the pack to pressurize, I started using my compressor. What came with it was a foot ball, you had to open valve put hose in and hold it so tight while stomping on foot ball. Real pain! Then it seemed if you didn't use those packs fast enough,or recieve older ones in your shipment, they would not inflate fully. Your beer was then wasted from not being pressurized.

Would not recommend Party Pigs for bottling, I told the guy I gave them to about the problems, he was just getting started with HBing. I charged him nothing for them, I used them for over a year (paid 200 bucks after extra activation packs).
here is the link:

http://partypig.com/doodads.html

However, if the pub guarantees the pig to empty correctly, go with the pigs, they take up little space hold a case, when they work correctly they are great!

Last note, I agree with ED that little CO2 bulb will almost push a whole five gallon carboy (I have the set up). I believe it just might make a bomb out of a growler. Just my opinion, be careful.

I have a home made setup for a beer gun, I dial it to three or so pounds. I do not think 3 to 5 lbs. of pressure would break a growler. I would wrap it in a towel and look for cracks very carefully the first few times.
 
I also have the same co2 injector. It takes me around two cylinders to push an entire 5 gallon batch out. I'm not suggesting that anyone should use an entire cylinder on a growler...that's insane!

At the same time...all this talk about it being dangerous is a given. We all know the risks...and it's not like I'm going to be throwing this thing around like a football when it's fully pressurized. I'm not too worried when the seller says it withstands 58psi and I've only loaded my beer with 12-15psi....
 
Suthrncomfrt1884,

So, if you were to remove that squeeze ball, you'd have a piece of metal tubing sticking out of the gizmo. Cut the tubing to a shorter, more manageable length, install a compression to NPT adapter like this:

p455-RRC.jpg


Connect the threaded end to one of these:

p455-LLC.jpg


Install an over-pressure relief valve on one of the other ports:

48935kp1l.gif


And finally, attach a shrader valve stem to one of the other ports:

p455-NNAC.jpg


That would allow you to use one of those cheap emergency bicycle tire inflators. Just set the relief valve for around your target serving pressure, and lock the nut down to keep the setting.
 
It won't be inexpensive, but perhaps the easiest method would be to get him a carbonator cap and a small CO2 setup, and use 2 liter PET soda bottles.
 
The idea of decanting the growler into smaller flip top or PET bottles makes the most sense to me. It's pretty easy and it's free.

It would be nice to have a system that would allow you to dispense reliably from a growler, but it will be fairly expensive to make it safe. If you're willing to spend $200-$300 on the parts to do it, then go for it.
 
The idea of decanting the growler into smaller flip top or PET bottles makes the most sense to me. It's pretty easy and it's free.

It would be nice to have a system that would allow you to dispense reliably from a growler, but it will be fairly expensive to make it safe. If you're willing to spend $200-$300 on the parts to do it, then go for it.

$200-300! That's crazy. Maybe our interpretations of safe are two different things. Maybe you guys actually intend on throwing these things around once they're filled and pressurized???

I'm already going to be careful with it even before it's pressurized...these german growlers are expensive.

I concider the 58psi rating to be pretty darn safe when it comes to something blowing up...so I'm not worried about it sitting on a table and suddenly exploding. Add on the fittings mentioned above (one of them a pressure relief valve that makes it more safe) and you're talking an extra $20. -$100 for everything. If I intend on buying the CO2 gauge mentioned on the last page for $135, then yes...it's a little pricey. I don't think it's needed though. The 12gram cartridges don't have enough co2 in them to create 58psi anyways, I don't think.
 
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