Hot answers tagged packaging
15
Well you carbonate the beer in the keg the same way as if you were going to serve from the keg. There is no carbonation procedure on the way into the bottle.
To get carbonated beer into the bottles however, the cheapest way to do it is to jam some 3/8ths inch tubing onto the end of your picnic tap. Using about an 12 inch piece of tubing you can put the ...
11
There are two parts - carbonation, and getting it in the bottles.
For carbonation, there are various methods, but I use the set-it-and-forget-it method. Beer goes in keg, keg goes in fridge, CO2 gas gets put on keg. Just set the pressure to the amount of CO2 you want in solution - "volumes" of CO2 - based on the style of beer and a handy temperature / ...
10
In short, it depends.
The April 10th, 2008 episode of Basic Brewing Radio is all about glass and skunking.
How Fast?
Unprotected beer will rapidly skunk. I had a keg of blonde ale in the sun one summer afternoon. The beer in the three feet of tubing spoiled in less than a minute. The small volume of skunky beer was strong enough to ruin an entire pint. ...
9
Cold Crashing
Why It's Done
To allow yeast and other matter to settle out
To improve flavor
To precipitate chill haze
To help prevent oxidation
When It's Done
After fermentation has finished
Usually also after diacetyl rest
If you crash the beer too early, the yeast will become inactive (below 40°F) and won't reabsorb fermentation byproducts like ...
8
Go to www.cwcrate.com - there you can get some pretty cool plastic beer cases.
They hold up really well too, I've been using mine for quite some time now and there no way they are going to fall apart. What's cool about them is that you can just take your case out in the yard, open it up and pour a bag of ice in and you're all set.
5
Cold crashing is a technique to get the yeast to flocculate (settle to the bottom of the fermenter). This is generally done to get clearer beer (or wine).
It should be done when fermentation is complete, since there will be very little (if any) fermentation activity afterwards. This is because you are effectively removing most of the yeast from the beer. ...
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_(beer)#Method
When the can is opened, the pressure
in the can quickly drops, causing the
pressurised gas and beer inside the
widget to jet out from the hole. This
agitation on the surrounding beer
causes a chain reaction of bubble
formation throughout the beer. The
result, when the can is then poured
...
4
I froze a keg of Hefeweizen totally stiff. I had accidentally pulled the temp control probe out of the deep freezer that the kegs were in. The freezer ran at its "normal" freezing temps for maybe 2 days before I noticed it, so the keg was TOTALLY frozen as far as I could tell.
Good news: the beer was still delicious! I had decent head on the hefe, and its ...
3
Nothing made of cardboard is going to last long or retain strength exposed to moisture - humidity alone will soften even the heaviest double ply corrugated cardboard over time.
Your best bets for transporting bottles would be plastic milk crates or wooden bottle crates. The bottles will rattle around in the milk crate and won't be a perfect fit. The ...
2
How long and how solid were they frozen? They couldn't have been all that frozen or the kegs would have deformed/ruptured. Have you tried any of the beer? It's probably just fine.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but off flavors associated with autolysis come from the living yeast munching on the dead ones. They'll all be dormant from the cold anyway, ...
2
In the UK we have access to 5L mini-kegs -> http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Easy_Kegs.html I don't know if you can get these in the States or not, but they're prefect for parties. Or if you want something a bit bigger, then there are things like -> http://www.barleybottom.com/menu/product/&ID=204
2
I'm not sure you can "easily" be assured that you have destroyed all of the mold spores embedded within the cork. There are chemicals that are used where interior flood damage has occurred to completely destroy mold spores in wood and other porous materials, however they are expensive, and not always available to "the public". Using anything like bleach, ...
1
What about a folding crate, like this one?
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200485109_200485109
(Credit to http://www.homebrewfinds.com for originally providing me with the lead on this.)
1
Before I switched to all-grain, I made dozens of Brew House kits. They are bagged wort kits that come in a super-sturdy carboard box. They hold a dozen or 16 of the bottles I use, depending on the bottle size, and they easily stack 5 or 6 high.
This probably doesn't help you much, since you probably don't have a couple dozen of these boxes lying around. ...
1
Beer for national competitions is normally shipped in glass bottles with just a couple wraps of bubble wrap around it. I have shipped beer multiple times this way and it works out great.
Line a box with a plastic bag, just in case there is a leak. Then just put your bubble wrapped bottles in there with a little newspaper to prevent movement in the box.
...
1
Take a shoebox and some of that expanding spray foam. Put a nice, thick layer of spray foam in the bottom of the shoebox. Place a layer of plastic wrap on top of that, then press your beer bottle(s) so they sink into the foam. Place another layer of plastic wrap on top of the beer, then cover them with spray foam. You wind up with a nice, shock resistant ...
1
I ship beer all the time and just use FedEx. I just wrap each bottle individually with bubble wrap (going around maybe 2-3 times) then place them in a box filled with packing Styrofoam or newspaper in a way so that none of the beers are touching each other or the box. Haven't hand any issues yet and I've shipped anywhere from a few bombers to 12 beers ...
1
I have not shipped beer anywhere yet, but I was planning on ordering some styrofoam shippers, and there are also pulp shippers which are a bit cheaper. It seems like a little extra overhead in cost, but I figure it makes more sense to pack everything safely as possible. They are made for wine but I figured i could just fill any voids with tissue paper or ...
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