Transfer beer after secondary fermentation.

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zhendershot

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Hi Everyone,

I'm pretty new to the homebrew space. I'm on my third brew using the Cooper's kit and I recently acquired some glass bottles and capper from a friend. My beer is currently in secondary fermentation (fermenting in the PET bottles). I'm wondering if I'm going to lose all my carbonation or other bad things if I transfer the beer from the PET bottles to the glass bottles to serve. Its a long story why I'd want them in the glass bottles to serve, but I would :). Any ideas? Thanks a ton!

Zach
 
I'm wondering if I'm going to lose all my carbonation or other bad things if I transfer the beer from the PET bottles to the glass bottles to serve.

So I'm a little confused you said you had them in a secondary meaning you got the PET like 16 oz bottles or you have a PET better bottle carboy that you are using.

If you are talking about the 12 or 16 oz PET bottles, then you will lose carbonation. What you can do is have some more priming sugar into the bottling bucket and pour the bottles back in, where you would risk oxidizing the beer. unless you filled the bottling bucket with CO2 before hand. Then you could bottle them in the glass bottles. The only thing is I would use about half the sugar that you originally used.

If you are talking about the 5-6 gallon Better Bottle PET carboy, then no worries, when you go to bottle, just add priming sugar to the bottling bucket, and bottle them as usual.
 
I too am a little confused as to what you are doing/asking, but will try and answer what I think you are asking.

The beer is currently in PET bottles (12 oz, 16 oz, etc), is capped/sealed, and is fully carbonated. You want to transfer it to glass bottles, for presentation I suppose).

You could place the PET bottles in the fridge for several days. That way the beer will absorb the CO2. The colder (not freezing) the beer is, the more CO2 it will absorb. It takes a while for the CO2 to go into solution, so it should be a few days at least.

Then open a bottle and transfer the beer to a glass bottle as gently as possible. Using a racking cane would be best (I've never done it), but you need to minimize any oxidation. Oxidation does not immediately ruin a beer, but will make it deteriorate quickly. Fill the glass bottle to the brim (no airspace), and cap it immediately. Leaving room in the bottle, only allows some space for the CO2 to come out of solution.

I suspect you will get some frothing. You can let it settle and then top-up, but I suspect you will need to sacrifice some beer too to ensure you do not loose too much carbonation.

I don't think this question has been asked before.
 
The only good way is to deal with the current batch in plastic and put your next batch in glass.
 
You all hit my purpose dead on. Due to the circumstances and potential problems that might arise I think I'll stay away from the PET bottles -> Glass bottle transfer for now. Its not that important. Thanks a ton for your help!
 
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