bottle sizes

[narl79]

hey guys i hope your all doing well. do any of you think it matters what size bottle you put your beer into. im going to be testing 12oz 22oz and 1 liter bottles just for the hell of it but i was just wondering what you thought on the subject. cheers

 

[eric19312]

Matter how?


Bigger bottles make the process faster and make more impressive gifts. But 12 oz bottles are easier to accumulate. I use both and also some odd balls.

 

[unionrdr]

The only problem is that the larger the bottle,the longer it takes you to finish it,the less carbonation is left for the last glass.

 

[Revvy]

Is this a duplicate thread? I swear I just answered this 10 minutes ago....The beer doesn't care what you put it in. Just realize they take longer to carb and condition than a 12 ouncer. The 3 weeks @70 degrees that we talk about here is for average gravity 12 ounce bottles to carb up. It can be a week to two longer for bombers.

 

[eric19312]

Is this a duplicate thread? I swear I just answered this 10 minutes ago....The beer doesn't care what you put it in. Just realize they take longer to carb and condition than a 12 ouncer. The 3 weeks @70 degrees that we talk about here is for average gravity 12 ounce bottles to carb up. It can be a week to two longer for bombers.

I'm reluctant to question your experience but I've not seen the larger bottles taking longer. Seems like head space volume in the larger bottle is probably similar to the smaller bottle. I'm thinking 2x co2 in same head space should help the bombers carb faster.

 

[buzbey]

I'm reluctant to question your experience but I've not seen the larger bottles taking longer. Seems like head space volume in the larger bottle is probably similar to the smaller bottle. I'm thinking 2x co2 in same head space should help the bombers carb faster.

I agree with you I have not noticed my 22oz bottles carbing any slower my 12oz bottles. But have not noticed them carbing faster either

 

[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...

Also the rule of thumb is 3 weeks at 70 degrees for a normal grav 12 ounce bottle....to carb and condition....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 ratio I don't know how much by...

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.

Here's some folks who have actually experienced it.

In my experience, a 22-oz container will condition more slowly. This has only been apparent to me with beers that are really slow-conditioning anyway, like my red ale that I screwed up. It had some pretty significant heat-related off flavors that disappeared from the 12-ounce bottles WAY before they left the 22s.

I have done both 12 and 22 oz bottles. About the only difference I have seen is the big bottles take a few days longer to carb. They do save bottling time (less bottles to sanitize,fill,cap). Somehow I seem to run out of beer faster though

I regularly use both 12oz and 22oz bottles with no noticeable taste difference. The 22 ouncers might take longer to carb up but by the time I get around to drinking them I have never noticed a difference.

I always bottle my batches into 2 cases of 22oz bombers and then end up with a little left over that goes into a couple of 12oz bottles. In my experience, the 22oz bottles usually take longer to carb. Sometimes 1 to 2 weeks longer (4 to 5 weeks total bottle conditioning time).

Well here's one to support the 22oz taking longer.

When trying to convince people to not carbonate in growlers, you have talked about the CO2 pressure building up in the headspace and then being absorbed into the liquid. There's the same amount of surface area and volume in the neck of a 22 or 12 ounce bottle. Wouldn't the greater ratio beer to surface area make the CO2 absorb slower in the larger bottle?


edit:
Should of read the whole thread first.
Now I see your BigKahuna quote.

Good on you if you haven't but plenty of us have, just if someone discovers that their bigger bottles haven't carbed like those and the hundreds of folks over the years have posted threads because they freaked, just know that it's common....*shrug*

 

[Rbeckett]

12 Oz bottles just piss me off, I gotta drink at least 2 to get satisfied. A 22 Oz is really the way to go, It takes fewer bottles to do a 5 gallon batch and the bottle size is big enough to not have to do the 2 bottle quick step to the fridge. I usually use a chilled 1 liter german beer mug (stolen from the Killeany Fest in Nurnberg Germany) and pour the entire 22 oz into it with a nice head. I prefer Hefe's so I like the yeasty smell and flufffy head I get , and it makes the nose of the beer very nice to smell and enjoy while tasting all of the different esters and flavors that you have developed. Just my .02 though, if you are doing competitions then you will need 12's to enter.
Wheelchair Bob

 

[buzbey]

Alright then I guess they do take longer. Maybe I've never noticed because I never pop one open tell around three weeks.

 

[Yooper]

I've never had bigger bottles take longer, but I've never really done a scientific test or anything. I just open them when I want to, in a mix of 22 ouncers and 12 ounces, and I've never noticed a difference

In other words, size doesn't matter.

 

[Revvy]

Alright then I guess they do take longer. Maybe I've never noticed because I never pop one open tell around three weeks.

Yeah, if you're not doing it, like if you have a pipeline, and give your beer plenty of time, you don't notice. But if your one of the new brewers that start the threads asking why it happens, then you do. My belief is that 1 occurrance is an anamoly, 2 may be a coincidence, BUT 3 or more occurances is an epidemic, or the truth. And we have several thread on here, and several brewers that back it up.

 

[eric19312]

Fair enough. Funny thing is this would be easy to test. I've got a batch that have been in bottles 9 days tonight. Will put a couple in the fridge and check in a couple days and see if there is any difference.

 

[More_Hops_Please]

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.

I'm new to home brewing, but I can tell you that this explanation is wrong.

A lower relative volume of headspace will mean less relative contact area, but it will also mean a higher relative vapor pressure for your solute. Henry's law states that as vapor pressure of the solute increases, so does the solubility of the gas. This would make up for any perceived loss in contact area. In fact at such small volumes and relatively low pressures, the variable of contact area is negligible even under the worst conditions.

I'm not saying that your experiences aren't genuine or that it doesn't take longer to carb larger bottles. But if that's the case, its not because of a smaller relative solvent surface area. Scientifically, that reason doesn't hold up.

 

[Revvy]

The thing you have to realize is, we're not inside the bottles, ANY reasoning about nearly anything is just supposition and conjecture. Remember the old chestnut of how scientifically it was proven that bumble bees are incapable of flight? The point really is, there's tons of folks besides me, who've experienced it. The reasons why, are anyone's guess. Does it matter? Only if you're impatient or think something's wrong......

I don't really care why. Or that it happens...It's just that in the world newb brewing, these are the situations that start panic threads.....folks think there's something wrong, but it's just the course of affairs in the wonderful world of yeaties.

 

[thadius856]

The only problem is that the larger the bottle,the longer it takes you to finish it,the less carbonation is left for the last glass.

Use one of these style openers. They don't bend the lid so much as dimple it, so you can re-cap with your thumb and place it back in the fridge for a few hours to preserve carb levels.

 

[thadius856]

I'm new to home brewing, but I can tell you that this explanation is wrong.

A lower relative volume of headspace will mean less relative contact area, but it will also mean a higher relative vapor pressure for your solute. Henry's law states that as vapor pressure of the solute increases, so does the solubility of the gas. This would make up for any perceived loss in contact area. In fact at such small volumes and relatively low pressures, the variable of contact area is negligible even under the worst conditions.

I'm not saying that your experiences aren't genuine or that it doesn't take longer to carb larger bottles. But if that's the case, its not because of a smaller relative solvent surface area. Scientifically, that reason doesn't hold up.

This is probably right on. When I force carb kegs where I've overfilled them to the point that the gas in dip tube is submerged in the liquid, I don't notice any longer times requires to carbonate.

I always though it was an oddity that they'd carb the same in the same amount of time without any headspace to speak of, but your post made me realize that the cross-section of the dip-tube is the headspace.

 

[eric19312]

I'm new to home brewing, but I can tell you that this explanation is wrong.

A lower relative volume of headspace will mean less relative contact area, but it will also mean a higher relative vapor pressure for your solute. Henry's law states that as vapor pressure of the solute increases, so does the solubility of the gas. This would make up for any perceived loss in contact area. In fact at such small volumes and relatively low pressures, the variable of contact area is negligible even under the worst conditions.

I'm not saying that your experiences aren't genuine or that it doesn't take longer to carb larger bottles. But if that's the case, its not because of a smaller relative solvent surface area. Scientifically, that reason doesn't hold up.

That was bugging me too.

But I'm wondering if maybe you get to half carbed faster with large bottle but maybe different time to get to fully carbed? I'm thinking about the recommendations for force carbing kegs. I don't keg yet but have been reading about high pressure - like I imagine you get in larger bottles - and shaking, I suppose to increase solvent surface area.

As for conditioning I'm really at a loss to explain how bottle size would effect conditioning. Doesn't much of the argument in favor of secondary fermentation come from advantage of bulk conditioning?

I'm really not looking to argue for sake of arguing, based on what I've read here I do tend to drink my 12 oz bottles first and save the larger bottles for later.

 

[More_Hops_Please]

The reasons why, are anyone's guess. Does it matter? Only if you're impatient or think something's wrong......

I don't really care why.

Yes, I always want to know why. Not to be argumentative or even dispute what somebody's experience might be, but because if you don't know why(or why not) then it is not a fact.

One thing I have learned from lurking on these forums and reading everything I can get my hands on about homebrewing is that the craft has a history of "rules" that are followed for years only to be later debunked as dogmatic nonsense.

That's not to say I don't greatly value everyone's experiences and opinions. But I've learned that even as a newb, it is valuable to separate the facts from the "probably" facts from the downright fiction as you're learning from others.

I guess I'm just a skeptic by nature

 

[brewguyver]

The thing you have to realize is, we're not inside the bottles, ANY reasoning about nearly anything is just supposition and conjecture. Remember the old chestnut of how scientifically it was proven that bumble bees are incapable of flight? The point really is, there's tons of folks besides me, who've experienced it. The reasons why, are anyone's guess. Does it matter? Only if you're impatient or think something's wrong......but it's just the course of affairs in the wonderful world of yeaties.

I'm going to have to blame this on quality control, but I've seen significant differences in bottles of different sizes at the same time that have aged for 6 months or more. These are specifically IPA/2xIPA that i brewed and then bottle conditioned in whatever I had on hand (22z vs. 12z vs. dogfish hellhound style (750ml?))

I can't guarantee that they were stored the same, or that something else didn't affect the perceived flavor. Given Revvy's comments I'm going to pin the culprits on 4 things - different rates of oxidation due to storage conditions (heating and cooling can cause air to transfer under a beer cap over time), poorly mixed bottling sugar causing uneven distribution, more yeast in some bottles vs others (first fill vs last fill), or different foods consumed while tasting the beers.

It *seems* like they are different, but without doing repeated triangle tests for beers under the same conditions, there's no way to prove that the bottle sizes make a difference. I've also never had this with my force-carbed beers, which leads me to believe even stronger that this is a QA problem in my bottling/storage process.

 

[brewguyver]

Or to say it more succinctly - the more consistent you are with your brewing, the less it will matter.

From a purely effort and bottle cost standpoint, 22s are probably your best bet unless you're planning on competing or worried about drinking too much in a sitting.

 

[narl79]

man i love making beer. not only do you get to drink somthing you create but also so far the people in the brewing world are a very helpfull. theres so many ideas and possibilitys that no one is ever going to be perfect. thank you all who respond to my post and since i am a novice brewer ....for now... i really appreciate all the input and answering even some of my stupider questions. cheers to all thanks again.

 

[Revvy]

I'm going to have to blame this on quality control, but I've seen significant differences in bottles of different sizes at the same time that have aged for 6 months or more. These are specifically IPA/2xIPA that i brewed and then bottle conditioned in whatever I had on hand (22z vs. 12z vs. dogfish hellhound style (750ml?))

I can't guarantee that they were stored the same, or that something else didn't affect the perceived flavor. Given Revvy's comments I'm going to pin the culprits on 4 things - different rates of oxidation due to storage conditions (heating and cooling can cause air to transfer under a beer cap over time), poorly mixed bottling sugar causing uneven distribution, more yeast in some bottles vs others (first fill vs last fill), or different foods consumed while tasting the beers.

It *seems* like they are different, but without doing repeated triangle tests for beers under the same conditions, there's no way to prove that the bottle sizes make a difference. I've also never had this with my force-carbed beers, which leads me to believe even stronger that this is a QA problem in my bottling/storage process.

WTF? How is there "quality control" in bulk priming? You put the beer in the bucket with the priming sugar, it mixes on it's own just fine then you grab the bottles and fill them, the beer doesn't know what order the bottles are getting filled, you put them in a warm place. At three weeks you grab one of each, and find that the bigger bottles may not be carbed yet while the little one is?

You went through this overly complex answer on how we must be "doing it wrong" when the point is TONS of folks have noticed this phenomenon in there brews.

As a matter of fact when I'm bottling a mix of sizes I don't have any particular order where I fill them big bottles are getting filled from the top, bottom and middle of the bucket.

I don't have any Inconsistant carbonation issues when I fill ONLY 12 ounce bottles, due to the "theory" of improperly mixed sugar (which I've argued is bunk for years) and I don't do anything different when bottling different sized bottles than when I'm bottling all one sized bottles. I bottle exactly as I've outlined in my bottling sticky.

So you mean in you're world I'm somehow doing something different when I'm bottling a mix of bottles.

And all of us who've ever experienced this phenomen are haveing "quality control" issues. There's LOTS of threads on this, and LOTS of people beyond what I've quoted have experienced this. I can assure you I don't HAVE "quality control issues" in my process.

 

[Revvy]

Or to say it more succinctly - the more consistent you are with your brewing, the less it will matter.

From a purely effort and bottle cost standpoint, 22s are probably your best bet unless you're planning on competing or worried about drinking too much in a sitting.

Again how is bulking priming the same way every time, regardless of the sized bottles I used, having no issues when I'm bottling ALL THE SAME SIZE, yet noticing that when it's a mix of bottles (WHEN THAT'S THE ONLY VARIABLE THAT IS DIFFERENT) that the larger bottles simply take a little while longer, not being consistant in my process?

 

[buzbey]

I'm not saying your wrong. I have never tested bottle sizes. but couldn't a bottle near the end of the bottling process have more yeast in it then the first? This would cause it to carb up faster correct? Soo the order you bottle could effect carb levels.

 

[freisste]

I'm not saying your wrong. I have never tested bottle sizes. but couldn't a bottle near the end of the bottling process have more yeast in it then the first? This would cause it to carb up faster correct? Soo the order you bottle could effect carb levels.

Rev is saying that he bottles without regard for bottle size. So to assume there is a difference from beginning to end is irrelevant. That could possibly affect things (I don't think it is likely, though), but if you bottle randomly you can't really attribute an effect to the order.

Randomness = no order

 

[buzbey]

I agree. All I was saying was that the first bottle compared to the last bottle could have different carb levels due to amounts of yeast. Regardless of bottle size

 

[eric19312]

I don't think amount of yeast would matter much. Amount of priming sugar yes, but assuming there is enough yeast to produce some carbonation in the bottles it should be enough to convert all the available sugar.

I also have pretty good faith in the bulk mixing of the priming sugar. Certainly don't see enough variation in bottle to bottle carb level to imagine that the bulk mixing isn't effective.

If there are any quality control failures I believe they would be due to sanitation error -- either a foul bottle (one or multiple failures) or bottling bucket issue (whole batch going bad when it tasted good at bottling), or a capping failure.

 

[buzbey]

A bottle with more yeast would carb up "faster" not have more carbonation than a bottle with less yeast. think of over pitching your brew. It takes off in an hour or so. if you under pitch it can take days. This is just my theory.

 

[brewguyver]

WTF? How is there "quality control" in bulk priming? You put the beer in the bucket with the priming sugar, it mixes on it's own just fine then you grab the bottles and fill them, the beer doesn't know what order the bottles are getting filled, you put them in a warm place. At three weeks you grab one of each, and find that the bigger bottles may not be carbed yet while the little one is?

You went through this overly complex answer on how we must be "doing it wrong" when the point is TONS of folks have noticed this phenomenon in there brews.
:

Revvy - I'm going to stop you right there. With all due respect, you are doing something wrong - failing to read my post and then jumping all over me with the assumption that I'm a troll or an idiot (or both).

I've been on these forums long enough to know you have a lot of experience. So take a deep breath and count to 10 before you unleash that holy wrath of yours.

Unless i misread your posts in this thread (there were several), you stated that the bottle size thing is bogus, other than carb time. Therefore I assumed, based on your experience, that my experience is due to sampling error or quality control.

This is *MY* quality control issue with *MY* beer that *I* brewed. My post states that pretty clearly. And I've had about 10 other brewers confirm it - e.g. "hey, are these different batches? Hey, it's interesting that these taste different." without letting them know ahead of time that I thought there was a difference in bottle sizes. My post in no way states you or anyone else has a problem, unless you assume I was being sarcastic. I'm just not that type of trolling @hole.

Also note I called this out about beers at 6 months. The OP asked about bottle size differences, not just 3-week carb rates.

So given your experience, and those of others, I hypothesized why *I* (not *YOU*) have a documented difference in results in bottle sizes based on (again) MY PERSONAL QC ISSUES.

Hopefully that's clear enough for you.

 

[More_Hops_Please]

So you mean in you're world I'm somehow doing something different when I'm bottling a mix of bottles.

And all of us who've ever experienced this phenomen are haveing "quality control" issues. There's LOTS of threads on this, and LOTS of people beyond what I've quoted have experienced this. I can assure you I don't HAVE "quality control issues" in my process.

Talk about misunderstanding a post. He was talking about his own quality control issues, not yours.

You are right though, there are LOTS of threads on this, and LOTS of people DO mention they've experienced this. But, here's the kicker... just as many have said they DON'T experience this phenomenon. I know, I just read like 13 of the threads ... There's no consensus that I could detect.

So there's no reason to get the panties in a bunch just because we're giving those other people the same benefit of the doubt that we give you.

 

[brewguyver]

I agree. All I was saying was that the first bottle compared to the last bottle could have different carb levels due to amounts of yeast. Regardless of bottle size

I can't weigh in much on the carb levels since my beer had aged a little bit. - my comment on yeast was directed at the flavor of the beer. The "just gonna wing it*" DIPA I made in the style of Dogfish Head 90 was markedly different when I broke out 12z and 750ml bottles for a special occasion. The 12z tasted much hopier whereas the 750ml tasted much sweeter. I've had flavor with other batches over time, but nothing else that drastic.

*NB had the grains i wanted, but no falconers flight hops. Morebeer had the hops, but not the grains. I went with NB and just "wung" the hop bill based on the description of falconers flavor vs. descriptions of different hops available with NB.

 

[eric19312]

Ok tried 2 bottles of recently bottled IPA today, same batch, 1.075 OG, 1.015 FG, bottled 2/19. Primed with corn sugar measured for 2.4 volumes CO2. Bottles stored at about 65F till 2/27 then moved to fridge (8 days room temp + 2 days in fridge). One was a 12 oz, other was 22oz. Blinded triangle test.

Slight differences, if any. Spouse did pick odd sample (was the 12 oz) thought it was less hoppy. I picked wrong sample to be odd one. Neither of us could detect any difference in carb level. FWIW all three were carbed fine, all tasted green to me. Really could not tell difference between either carb level or "greeness" sample to sample.