Bombers vs 12oz bottles.

[sportscrazed2]

I want to bottle next weekend. I have 9 empty bombers right now. I was thinking of going to the store and picking up about 7 more full ones and drinking 1 a night until bottling day and then picking up a case of 12 at the local homebrew shop. I was just curious if there is any benefit or downside to doing this? I am saving all my 12oz bottles as well and probably have about 30 or so sitting around but I want to process as streamlined as possible.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

I prefer 12oz bottles just because they are a single serving, which makes it easier to keep the sediment in the bottom of the bottle and out of your glass. If you pour half a bomber into your glass, then go back for the other half, you'll notice it's much, much hazier than the first.

 

[TheWeeb]

For me, this one is easy, as you simply have to ask yourself the question: Do you ever, in an evening, consume only one 12 oz beer? Or split one 12 oz beer with others? I try and bottle in 22oz bombers, half-liter bottles, and even have 20 one-liter (34 oz) flip-tops. I find the fewer bottles, the faster bottling, and of course less cleaning and sanitizing and fewer labels to make if you are into that kind of thing. Go Big!

 

[deezy]

I don't see a downside as long as you finish the opened bomber that night. I'm doing a mix of 12oz and bombers on my next couple of batches. The bombers help for taking to HB meetings or friends homes for tasting.

 

[bknifefight]

I always bottle half in 12s and half in 22s. It saves time and give me best of both worlds

 

[TheWeeb]

. .. and it seems that the bombers are made with thicker glass than most of the 12 oz, maybe a consideration from a handling standpoint.

 

[VTBrewer]

I do a mix of both as well. 12oz if you're going to enter a contest. They don't need 3 bommbers from me. And 12oz for my friends. Plus, they pretty much have to return the bottles or learn to brew their own.

The 22's are for me.

 

[dschof]

I find a combination is good to have. 12 oz. bottles are always good. Bombers are good for nights/days when you know that you want more than 1 beer and sharing your homebrew with friends and family are nice with bombers. You may even save some beer since sharing big bottles seems to go further. PLUS +++ you will wash and disinfect fewer bottles and use fewer caps = faster bottling...

 

[Beer_Guy]

I don't see a downside as long as you finish the opened bomber that night.
...

I got one of those pop top type stoppers for wine bottles. It holds the carb on those big beers or big bottles just fine.

 

[sportscrazed2]

i always consume 1 or 2 in sitting. i guess i could do about 12 12oz bottles and the rest in bombers. i already have a bunch of full/empty 12 oz bottles lying around I should use

 

[Revvy]

I have some pints, 22 oz bombers and other sizes that I often use, but since I enter contests I usually also do a sixer or two of standard 12 ouncers for entering. And inevitably the 12 ouncers are done at least a week faster than the larger bottles....some times two weeks ahead of time...

 

[sportscrazed2]

1 final question is there a way to prevent sediment from forming at bottom of bottle so i don't accidently get any in my beer while pouring or have to throw away the last few oz of beer to make sure no sediment gets in glass?

 

[Beer_Guy]

Use 12oz bottles and pour gently into a glass without stopping. (Or force carb using a keg.)

Or get bigger glasses.

 

[sportscrazed2]

so tilt bottle so that it is parallel with table?

 

[Beer_Guy]

Just do a constant slow pour to monitor foam. Do not let the beer wash back and disturb the sediment. Simple enough, right?

Edit: You may still get a little sediment, but oh well, beats wasting good beer.

 

[Revvy]

1 final question is there a way to prevent sediment from forming at bottom of bottle so i don't accidently get any in my beer while pouring or have to throw away the last few oz of beer to make sure no sediment gets in glass?

Not if you are bottle conditiong beers with priming sugar. Any bottle conditioned beer will have sediment. It's a natural byprodcut of living beers. You add sugar to yeast in a bottle to make the beer carb, you will have sediment. Even in many commercial microbrews. That's how we harvest the yeast.

No good beer, micro or homebrew should be drunk out of the bottle. We're not talking little flavored pizzwater here like bud light. Good beer has flavor and aroma that can't be truly appreciated coming out of a nickle sized hole.

Do yourself a favor and pour your good beer in a glass heck, even a plastic cup is better than drinking it out of the bottle. And do it right and leave the sediment behind by pouring to the shoulder.



But some tips. I find that leaving my beers in primary for a months helps to have less sediment in the bottles. Since I have a tight yeastcake, I can pretty much vacuum the beer off of it, and therefore there is only the barest minimum transfered to the bottling bucket needed to carb the beer. In fact I actually rub my autosiphon across the bottom once to make sure I have plenty to do the job. Because of this, I tend to get 48 to 54 bottles from a batch. And only a tiny bit of sediment.

Additionally, the longer you chill the beer in the fridge, the tighter the yeast cake. I had a beer in the back of my fridge for 3 months, that I could completely upend and no yeast came out. Longer in the cold the tighter the yeast cake becomes. Even just chilling for a week (besides getting rid of chill haze) will go to great lengths to allow you to leave the yeast behind, but with only a minimum amount of beer.

Bottom line though, great beers often have yeast in the bottle, because they are bottle conditioned. They are alive rather than those pasturiezed and filtered "dead beers" like Bud, Miller Coors.

So rather than hating it, learn to embrace it.

 

[Mrclasen]

Revvy, why do the 12 oz bottles carbonate a week earlier than the 22oz bottles? I just bottled using both so I figured that I would ask?

I have some pints, 22 oz bombers and other sizes that I often use, but since I enter contests I usually also do a sixer or two of standard 12 ouncers for entering. And inevitably the 12 ouncers are done at least a week faster than the larger bottles....some times two weeks ahead of time...

 

[sportscrazed2]

allright cool. mine has been in primary for 3 weeks on sunday. i will leave it for 1 more week then bottle next sunday. if i have time before the football game. how about rubber banding a piece of cheese cloth over the bottling bucket spigot?

 

[Revvy]

.It takes longer for the yeasties to convert the larger volume in the bigger bottles to enough co2 in the headspace to be reabsorbed back into the solution...A ration I don't know how much...

Big Kahuna gives a good explanation here...

Simple. It's the ration of contact area just like in a keg. The c02 will need to pressurize the head space (Which takes LESS TIME) in a bigger bottle (More Yeast and sugar, roughly the same head space) but then it has to force that c02 into solution through the same contact area...thus it takes longer.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Bombers poured in one motion: I thought that's why the Germans invented the moss?

 

[CortexBomb]

Bombers are more convenient to bottle, but as has been noted, if you don't leave them in the fridge long enough it can be harder to get the beer out without bringing more yeast sediment with you.

I actually bought some 25 oz. monster mugs that I usually use with the bombers so that the trub doesn't get disturbed, though I suppose you could also decant.

I think mostly it's a question of when you want the inconvenience: bombers are more inconvenient when you're serving, 12 oz. bottles moreso when you're bottling.

 

[sportscrazed2]

so can i just pour the beer through a strainer of some sort?

 

[CortexBomb]

Yeast particles are too small to be strained out. It's much easier to just watch the beer as you're pouring it and capture the stuff on the inner lip of the bottle where the neck joins the larger, barrel portion of the bottle. You lose a bit of liquid, but not a lot.

The key is to not get the crap into suspension. The easiest way to do that is to, first, try to keep beers in cold storage as long as possible before drinking, as the yeast cake will harden over time. Second, make sure to pour the beer in one smooth motion. Any backwash can disturb the trub. This is why I have the 25 oz. glasses, so I can pour a bomber out at once. I also sometimes pour bombers into growlers to decant them when I'm going to parties, so that the people drinking my beers don't pour a bunch of crap into their glass and have a bad experience with it.

 

[jfr1111]

I bottle almost everything in bombers, except for a few 12 oz bottles for tasting and giving to people who might not like the style. But it's true that for sharing, unless you put them in the fridge for a whole week, you risk loosening sediments if you don't pour it in one shot. I don't have that problem with single serving 12 oz.

I just get bigger glasses and mugs.

 

[david58]

Um, sometimes I actually swirl the beer for the second pour from the bomber, just to see how it tastes with the yeast. It actually ain't that bad, but more than one glass like that over a couple of days and I get to experience what they talk about in those Activa commercials, only about three fast trips more emphatically.

 

[jfr1111]

It depends on the yeast. My batch of Mild was done with the troublesome Notty and repitched with US-05. If I let any of the yeast get into the pint, I can taste it: grainy, bready, biting. It's bad.

All the other batches I've done, even when taking cloudy, yeast laden samples, the yeast taste wasn't bad at all. The notty probably was off, thus the horrible nasty taste and the beer waste (some bottles, I had to leave two inches of beer behind...). Some beer styles even need the yeast in suspension for taste and aroma.