Why are my growlers always flat?

[Bobcatbrewing42]

Even after well-carbonating my Corny kegs, if I fill a growler to take with me to a friend's house, the beer is always flat and tastes like nothing. I'm talking clean growlers with tightly fitting caps. I have brought growler beer home from brew pubs and it always seems to travel and keep better. Suggestions?

 

[turkeyjerky214]

How are you filling them? Just straight from the tap? All the way to the top leaving no headroom?

I throw my growlers in the freezer for like 30 minutes, turn off the gas, vent the keg, then just barely give it a burst of gas (just enough to move the beer). If I'm not planning on drinking it for a few days, I'll use my bottle filler attachment in the faucet and go even slower.

 

[turkeyjerky214]

double post

 

[day_trippr]

[...]I throw my growlers in the freezer for like 30 minutes, turn off the gas, vent the keg, then just barely give it a burst of gas (just enough to move the beer).[...]

Pretty much the same thing here: I rinse out the growler with Star San and leave it wet, loosely cap it and stick it in one of the fridges for 15 minutes to chill down without frosting, dial the gas to "just barely moves beer" pressure, stick a hose up one of the Perls, then fill as "quietly" as possible, capping on foam.

fwiw, in case the actual issue isn't the filling but leaky caps, I replaced the original growler caps with polyseal style plastic caps. Not sure if they're better/worse than the original lined metal caps but I can get a better grip on the new ones and can really reef them down...

Cheers!

 

[turkeyjerky214]

Completely agree about the caps. One of my growlers is swing top, two of them have the plastic caps.

That being said, if you're drinking it within a couple hours, I can't imagine that even the crappiest cap would leak enough for it to go flat.

I've seen some people fill where they're not concerned with foam and just keep letting it overflow until the liquid is up at the top. If that's how you fill, that could be your problem.

 

[Bobcatbrewing42]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try those. I just got a stainless insulated growler as a gift. It should have a bombproof cap and would chill very quickly. I have tried to fill like the bartenders at the pubs do...nothing special, run down the side.
Is no airspace the way to go?

 

[turkeyjerky214]

When you leave headspace, the CO2 comes out of solution which causes the beer to go flat. The more headspace, the quicker it goes flat.

 

[JustLooking]

Why are my growlers always flat?

Damn! I'm not even sure how you'd get any beer into a flat growler.

 

[te-wa]

it's a slow process. if you are taking any less than two or three minutes to fill, you're going too fast. make sure a hose is long enough to reach the bottom of a cold growler, fill slowly. the above advice is solid.

 

[jekeane]

Agree with no headspace and a very slow fill speed. If you are seeing head in the growler that means you are releasing carbonation that should be there when you pour you pint from the growler.

 

[hifidelity]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try those. I just got a stainless insulated growler as a gift. It should have a bombproof cap and would chill very quickly. I have tried to fill like the bartenders at the pubs do...nothing special, run down the side.
Is no airspace the way to go?

If your growler is insulated don't forget to chill it with the lid off.