How do you guys store your bottles of homebrew?

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GroosBrewz

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Hey all,

I bottle all my homebrew and I am wondering how you guys store your bottled brew. the reason I ask is because I have always stored mine at room temp and just throw a few in the fridge as I want to drink them.. So they may be at room temp for 2 or 3 months.. Is this ok? Should they be refrigerated after they are fully carbed?
 
That's what I do. It's not the best, but it seems to work alright.
 
I bottle as well and do the same thing. AFAIK the longer the beer sits at a little below room temperature the better, up to a certain amount of time (six months maybe). The yeast never really stop working in there until you put the beer in the fridge.

I might be wrong though, maybe Revvy or someone else will chime in here...
 
I have a whole set of shelves full of various home brews in the cellar. Stays between 60F and 65F which is a great stable temp for long term aging of beer or wine. Many more beers than i have room for under refrigeration.
Craig
 
My cases are stored at room temp, and I load up the fridge when they are ready...hopefully it's with two or three ready batches...

But this is the best storage way I have ever seen...I wish I had the space.

is a legal size filing cabinet. It fits 10 6-packs per drawer perfectly for a grand total of 240 bottles per cabinet. This one is an old Steelcase of good quality so it handles the weight of full bottles quite well. I love the fact I can store so many bottles in such a small footprint but also have good access to any of my batches. And its nice and dark in there!

cabinet1.jpg
cabinet2.jpg
 
i keep mine in a cabinet in the bar in the man cave. They are 65 deg most of the time. Works great for conditioning the medium gravity stuff.
 
I keep mine in a pit a dug in the basement. I just lower them down in a basket on a rope and the girl I have in the pit takes them out and loads empties back in for my next bottling session.

One thing I haven't figured out is what my beer tastes like. She only ever seems to send back empty bottles... Huh... And they are always covered in lotion...

Oh, well, they are at the right temp, and that's what matters!
 
That filing cabinet is brilliant. I've been trying to find a good spot to store my brews without sucking up much-needed closet space. I think I've found my answer!
 
I keep mine in a pit a dug in the basement. I just lower them down in a basket on a rope and the girl I have in the pit takes them out and loads empties back in for my next bottling session.

One thing I haven't figured out is what my beer tastes like. She only ever seems to send back empty bottles... Huh... And they are always covered in lotion...

Oh, well, they are at the right temp, and that's what matters!

Deathbrewer, what are you doing hacking into homercidal's account and posting, you trying to take the heat off of you again????:D
 
That filing cabinet is brilliant. I've been trying to find a good spot to store my brews without sucking up much-needed closet space. I think I've found my answer!

Yeah, this thread kind of cheese me off, because I had access to a free filing cabinet a short while ago and if I'd thought of this I would have kept it!! I can't even remember who offered it to me...
 
Not much room in my 850 sq ft. apartment, but I do have 1 room temperature closet and 1 that gets much cooler. 3 weeks in the warm and then to the cool (also my fermentation room). My Significant Other works at a bowling alley part time and she always brings me back the big 24pk BMC boxes with the little dividers for each bottle. They stack well.
 
My go to storage units are simple milk crates:
  • Stackable
  • They hold a case of bottles perfectly.
  • Very mobile.
  • Cheap.
  • They make a great drip dry container for freshly rinsed bottles (upside down on a paper towel).
  • They double as a carboy holder/drainer.
  • When empty I stack them upside down and use them as a work surface

RIS_6.jpg
 
I store my beers in 12 pack boxes on shelves in the closet that houses much of my equipment. The temp usually sits around the mid 60's. The filing cabinet idea is pretty cool and I have one in my garage I'm not using.... hmmm.. maybe I should haul it out of there and find a place for it.
 
Milk crates are a great idea, but where do you get them? I've looked for them at the usual suspects - Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, with no luck. Where are you guys finding them?
 
I keep mine in a pit a dug in the basement. I just lower them down in a basket on a rope and the girl I have in the pit takes them out and loads empties back in for my next bottling session.

One thing I haven't figured out is what my beer tastes like. She only ever seems to send back empty bottles... Huh... And they are always covered in lotion...

Oh, well, they are at the right temp, and that's what matters!

This is you??? :D

untitled8no.png
 
Milk crates are a great idea, but where do you get them? I've looked for them at the usual suspects - Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, with no luck. Where are you guys finding them?

you get milk crates at places that have "boxes of milk"

schools, cafeterias, hospital, ECT

milk.gif
 
Milk crates are a great idea, but where do you get them? I've looked for them at the usual suspects - Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, with no luck. Where are you guys finding them?

You seem them laying around at convenience stores as well.. Lots of c-stores keep them stacked up outside at the back of the store. You could ask a dumb nightclerk for some or maybe "borrow" one or two... We just had an article in the paper about milk crates going missing all over town and the local dairy was up in arms.... kinda funny:rockin:
 
I bottle all my homebrew and I am wondering how you guys store your bottled brew. the reason I ask is because I have always stored mine at room temp and just throw a few in the fridge as I want to drink them

That's what I do:



Normally the boxes are covered with a black tarp but they are uncovered for the pic.
 
I'm lucky, I was having a discussion with one of the Germans at work, he made apfelwein on the farm all through his youth, and told him I just needed bottles and my homebrew would be setup. He gave me 15 cases of empty weizen 0.5l bottles.

DSCI0007.JPG


What a score :)

<edit> they live under the stairs behind the door you see pictured.
 
My brother gave me tons of the same plastic german crates for my half-liter bottles.
I am still trying to find a way to get real sturdy actual milk crates for my other sizes of bottles and my canning jars and just general storage. I have a ton of the adjustable utility shelving to put things on, and the crates work like drawers there, but you can also stack them just about anywhere you ahve that is out of the way.
 
Right now they're in boxes. That filing cabinet idea is really cool though. And it would be a great way to store my brew at work :D
 
I don't store much in bottles any more anyway. I got a 25cuft chest freezer, dual stage controller, and small dome lamp and set up my cold-conditioning and storage space in the garage. :) And I bottle from kegs using the BMBF as needed to gift beer (unless it's to be drunk right away, then I use growlers). Also will use the bmbf to fill for competition bottles. Otherwise life is simpler with kegs.
 
I started out 16 years ago with 4 of the old Bud cases of returnable longneckers. I still have them & use them.
As I accumulated other recycled bottles, I made wooden cases, with the same inside dimensions, to hold 4 six-packs. They are all made out of 1/2 inch plywood, with a hinged lid. they are painted in a couple different colors.

At this point I have a total of 18 cases of bottles. Nine are full. And I have another case and a half of full bottles in the Beer Fridge.
They are all stacked in the big utility room of the basement. It has a nice constant temperature, all year round.
 
He gave me 15 cases of empty weizen 0.5l bottles.

DSCI0007.JPG

Dear lord, yer killin' me. I have been trolling craigslist, eBay, and the german eBay site trying to snag more of these. They cost so much to ship from The Fatherland that I'd basically given up.

I'll keep looking.
 
I just use one of the bottom cabinets in my kitchen, the kind you'd normally store pots and pans in.
 
Milk crates are a great idea, but where do you get them? I've looked for them at the usual suspects - Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, with no luck. Where are you guys finding them?

I have 8 from staples

Staples® File Storage Crates, Clear | Staples®

occasionally they will have them on sale for around 5$ some of the "off" colors that do not sell well, or I use my rewards check. I use them for kindling for the wood burner but after reading this thread and checking to see that they also fit my long necks found another use. Thanx
 
I store mine in something similar to this:

MRHP1688.JPG


I have a few of these kicking around from my deployments and whatnot. They hold 8 12pk's very nicely and can close to help keep out any light and contain any possible bottle bombs.
 
I have 8 from staples

Staples® File Storage Crates, Clear | Staples®

occasionally they will have them on sale for around 5$ some of the "off" colors that do not sell well, or I use my rewards check. I use them for kindling for the wood burner but after reading this thread and checking to see that they also fit my long necks found another use. Thanx

Nice! Thanks, I hadn't thought of Staples, or re-purposing a file-storage crate.
 
I keep mine in milk crates as well. A full 5 gallon batch always fits into 2 crates for me.
n1357013871_2166056_3546.jpg



I have a dark corner in my basement that is my beer area. I just stack them up in the corner, pretty much right in the same area that my fermenters are hangin out. Very little light ever reaches that space.

As for where I got them... I used to work at a very busy coffee shop and we went through dozens of gallons of milk everyday. There was literally a mountain of crates downstairs that the dairy delivery guy would occasionally pick up. Every once in awhile I would just nick one, so I have a whole bunch of them. I'm not really sure where you would obtain them legitimately.
 
I keep them in regulay beer boxes in the basement. The Liquor store by my gf's place is one of the few in the Denver area that actually let you take the empy boxes.
 
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