Hot answers tagged bottle
9
I would strongly recommend brown glass bottles for bottling (hey why not ditch bottles and switch to kegging!). As mentioned there are many potential issues with reusing plastic bottles.
Water Bottles are not designed to hold pressure. I keep my kegs around 11PSI. Homebrewers always recommend to be careful with naturally carbed bottles as they might ...
8
If you are sure your primed the bottles then they should most definitely carbonate. It could be a temperature issue creating sluggish yeast. What temperature are your bottles at? Get them to 70F or better and they'll start carbonating.
Put one on top of your water heater for a few days and see what happens.
EDIT: You know another great place to warm ...
5
It's very much temperature dependent. In an episode of brewstrong, Charlie Bamforth mentions that the rate of oxidization is proportional to temperature, and increases 3 fold for each temperature increase of 10°C/18°F.
So, if your beer is stored at 4°C (39°F), it will oxidize 9 times slower than if it's stored at 24°C (75°F). Loosely speaking, if it takes ...
5
Many people trade beer all the time.
It is legal, except via US Postal Service.
I think the laws around shipping via USPS are in flux, but without confirmation I'll suggest you stick to FedEx and UPS.
More info at:
http://www.reddit.com/r/beertrade/comments/atztu/trading_and_packaging_tips/
...
5
You can pop one open now, and it's a good learning experience to keep drinking your beer regularly so that you can see how it develops. I know, tough life! And you'll probably find like I do that the beer is at it's peak when there's one or two bottles left.
8 days may not be enough time for all the CO2 in the headspace to dissolve back into the beer, so ...
4
If you laser print onto Avery labels (or probably almost any brand of label), it's pretty resilient without a protective coat - I have some labels on bottles that I printed two years ago, that have survived 4 or 5 batches, soaks in StarSan, etc. In fact, the labels I have are harder to get off than almost every commercial label, which is why I stopped ...
3
K-meta alone will not. You need the one-two punch of Potassium Sorbate (to prevent the yeast from reproducing) and Potassium metabisulfite (to kill existing cells). Note that this will take a bit of time, so you should expect to see a bit more of a gravity drop in the mean time. Using cold to slow yeast growth at the same time is advised.
3
It can be hard to see a thin ring of black mold in an amber bottle, even when holding it up against the light.
I'd strongly recommend you use a bottle washer on a faucet. Really hot water doesn't kill everything but it does tend to clean well. Here's one as an example:
http://morebeer.com/view_product/15964//Bottle_and_Carboy_Washer
I'd also recommend ...
3
In the strictest sense, yes. You just need a container that will hold pressure.
However, plastic scratches more easily than glass, which means they could be harboring wild yeast or bacteria that are very difficult to remove. Also, most beer bottles are brown glass because that particular color blocks most of the wavelengths of light that cause the ...
3
I had the same issue with an oatmeal stout. I also used 4oz of sugar. It ended up okay in the end though after turning the bottles upside down, gently rousing the yeast and raising the temperature. Not familiar with that yeast strain, but I'd imagine 64 is too low for the yeast to be happy. Raise the temp, swirl the bottles upside down and give it a couple ...
2
Check out weatherproof vinyl labels. According to this site, you can print on them with a standard inkjet printer:
The material is weatherproof and the
ink from a standard inkjet printer
will encapsulate into a specially
formulated top-coating upon printing.
They make it sound like as the ink dries it soaks into the vinyl label.
I know that ...
2
Have you considered either having the bottles etched (like people do for weddings) or (screen?) printed on with paint?
Etching usually just involes an acid or mild abrasive to take the gloss off the glass--it's permanent and shouldn't compromise the bottles.
Painting should be near-permanent, hot water and possibly cleansers might fade or peel the paint ...
2
According to this cidermaker, "regular" beer bottles can hold up to 3 atm (45 psi), and "champagne" bottles can hold up to 6 atm (90 psi).
Champagne-style bottles with the large dimple in the bottom are the strongest. That bottom will withstand more pressure before failure than a flat bottom. I bet a standard crown cap would fail before the bottle--you'd ...
2
Actually, yes. I've read that a longneck industry standard bottle is only rated to about 4 volumes of CO2 - so more highly carbonated beer styles, like weizens, lambics, and certain Belgians, need heavier glass bottles.
The last thing a brewery wants is to release a batch of bottle bombs, so the ratings typically have a generous safety factor applied, but ...
2
Water bottles should be alright. My only concern is that they are not intended to hold pressure. Water bottles tend to be a thinner plastic than their carbonated soda bottle counterpart. I suspect that the pressure created by the beer is not enough to burst even the thinnest plastic bottle (assuming there are no weak spots), so it should work.
I have used ...
2
FedEx and UPS both require special alcohol shipping contracts that I assume are not available to consumers. USPS prohibits all alcohol shipments. However, you could just report the contents as "glassware" and I'm sure they would never know.
As for packaging, just use common sense. Glass bottles are not really that fragile — think about how they are stacked ...
2
IMPO I wouldn't do anything. I have have some batches that have taken 5 weeks to carbonate. You mentioned that the last time you tried them they didn't taste as flat as the first time, which would indicate that they are carbing up, just slowly. Good call on rotating them and putting at a little higher temp. This should get them going, just have patience. I ...
2
The metallic/chemical taste to me suggests contamination at the bottle level. Maybe some of these were insufficiently cleaned or sterilized. The wrong microbes could also impact the flavor by breaking down the flavors you want into ones you don't. Is there any possibility you put more care into cleaning the longer bottles (as they would be possibly more ...
1
Mason jars are your friend. You can buy them at Wal-Mart by the dozen, they are leak-proof and easy to sanitize. They come in a variety of sizes as well. Mason jars are used to can fruit preserves (among other things) in a completely sterile manner (which is beyond sanitary). Screw-on lids will give you plenty of protection, especially if you ...
1
Sulfites don't actually kill yeast. They only inhibit it for a while. The yeast will eventually recover. Sulfites are used in winemaking to knock out the wild yeasts long enough so that the cultured yeast added by the winemaker eats up most of the sugar. So, when the wild yeasts recover, most of the sugar is gone and they end up contributing little or no ...
1
Some generic HP toner cartridges come packed in handy cylindrical bubble wrap things that are just the right size for a beer bottle. I've used those successfully, as well as just bubble wrap and paper or peanuts. As long as the bottles will not contact each other or the ground, you should be fine.
1
Agreed with above poster. I made an American Amber ale with 4 whole vanilla beans added in secondary and bottled it. I tried one 2 weeks after bottling and their was a bitter taste I didnt expect and the vanila after taste was so pronounced as to make a negative impression. I thought I had wasted 5 gallons of beer. I waited another week and tried again, and ...
1
Didn't reach target FG, pitched more yeast, gravity same after a week. Should I just bottle already?
Final Gravity is final gravity, it's when the yeast is done. If you measure the gravity and it doesn't change after several days, it is done fermenting. You're probably correct in that you probably mashed on the high side and got more unfermentables than expected for the recipe.
I definitely wouldn't pitch again, but might consider racking to secondary for ...
1
I just don't know why you would chance it. IMHO, this is not a shortcut to take. You risk light damage, loss of carbonation, and a host of sanitization issues.
See if a local craft beer bar would hook you up with spent bottles. If there's a homebrew club in yor area, see if any members would be willing to hook you up. I was short on bottles once, and ...
1
If you use heavy plastic soda bottles, use the smaller (20 oz) root beer bottles as they tend to be colored brown. But, you will need to wash them thoroughly, or you'll end up with clove overtones in the beer (something that can be desirable if that suits your taste). Boiling them in water with baking soda added to it helps remove the residual root beer ...
1
As mentioned, skunking, sanitation and pressure are all issues. I would also be concerned with oxygen permeability. If O₂ can get through the plastic and into your beer, oxidation will result, which will cause quite noticeable off-flavors.
There's a reason we use glass and stainless steel.
1
Don't know really why you'd cold condition a Saison. If its to clarify it doesn't need to be that cold. Just put it at 50F and you'll get just as effective a flocculation. Then you still have plenty of yeast to carbonate.
A better option would be to just bottle it, and store the bottles cold after they carb up. Stuff will settle out in the bottle, and ...
1
A last resort is to use dry ice as you serve it. Cools and carbonates at the same time. Used to rescue flat soda this way (poor chemistry students, you know ;-)) and I have used it on hard cider to improve the carbonation while serving. Dry ice can be found in most large chain supermarkets these days.
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