Implications of not bottling

[wheela426]

Hello,

I have a question. I just got into home brewing. I was wondering instead of putting my beer into bottles can I put it in 1 gallon containers when it is ready? Are there any implications of bottling this at a later date after it's been in my 1 gallon containers in the fridge?

 

[Fiery Sword]

It doesn't sound like the best of ideas to me, but more importantly might I ask why you'd want to do this? You are always best off letting the primed/bottled beer age out for a few months anyway, so why not just bottle it all and let it mature in the bottles? Just curious....

 

[david_42]

Your biggest risk is contamination. You can't tighten the bottle caps enough to get a good seal because no gallon jug will handle pressure. If you chilled the brew before jugging it, didn't prime it and kept it cold until bottling; that might be ok, but it would be a good idea to add some yeast along with the priming sugar.

The brew will not age properly while in the fridge, so once you do bottle you'll have to wait the usual three weeks.

 

[wheela426]

Well... to answer your question as to "why not bottle them". I just dont' feel like sitting around all day bottling 52 bottles of beer. I'd like to bottle half of them and then stick the rest away in the fridge. 5 gallons typically would make about 52 12-ounce bottles right?

 

[chillHayze]

I ran out of bottles once and used a 1/2 gallon glass growler I had as well as a 2-litre bottle. The growler (with screw-on lid) did not hold pressure and the beer was oxigenated as he77 when I drank it. The 2-litre just tasted like plastic. I dumped both, wasting over a gallon of beer.
I would think a milk jug to be worse at both sealing and keeping out light (skunking the beer). It doesn't take anywhere near "all day" to bottle a batch. I usually am around 2.5 hours start to finish cleanup included. With help I have finished under 2 hrs. If you have all the bottles now, I'd bottle the whole thing at once.
A tip for the future: start switching to 16oz, 500mL, 22oz, and 1L containers. This saves a ton of work on bottling day as well. Also swing tops eliminate much of the pain of capping bottles. Look for brands like Grolsh (green) and Schwelmers (brown - preferred) bottles with the swing mechanism on the top. I use a lot of Grolsh b/c they are readily avail., and the labels come off very easily.

 

[debtman7]

Sounds like you want one of these:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/mini-kegs.html

You can also get screw on tops for 2 liter soda bottles that let you carb them, but you'd need a co2 tank which costs more than a tap a draft or similar setup.

Of course you can also go for a full kegging setup if you have fridge space and money...

Bottling never bothered me much, didn't take more than 30 minutes to fill 50 bottles. The big pain was rinsing out the bottles and stacking them by the basement door until they filled the doorway then finally putting them in boxes carrying them downstairs only to carry them back up a few weeks later to sanitize and refill...