I've been cleaning and reusing 12oz bottles, but currently have too many in use with other batches, and need to bottle 5-gallons of a pale-wheat this weekend. Wondering if any of you can recommend an alternative to buying a couple cases of empty bottles.
Posted Sep 17, 2013, 4:03 PM UTC
Not much different from 12oz, but this might be a good opportunity to get some 22oz bottles.
I have a handful but I usually wind up saving those the longest for any given batch. Always nice to open a 22 once it's well conditioned.
I've replaced all my bottles with 16 ounce flip tops. So much easier to deal with!
How long do they maintain carbonation? We used flip tops once and a bottle or two were flat after about 3 weeks from bottling.
Months to years, if the gaskets are in good condition to start with. If your bottles are going flat, replace the gaskets. Bonus points if you can find silicone ones instead of rubber; they last far longer.
The wire bales can loosen over time, but usually only if the bottles are mistreated. They are replaceable as well.
I bought a set of these and they work great. I also bought a set of 1 Liter flip tops.
Start drinkin...
^ if we ever had an issue with "not enough bottles for bottling" I would check out the window to see if pigs were flying.
I would recommend getting some 1L PET bottles. They are what comes in the Mr. Beer kits that most people start out with. I don't use the Mr. Beer setup anymore but I never got rid of the bottles.
Check Craig's list in your area. You can often find pretty decent deals on bottles that might save you some $$$. Every so often you even find "free" deals..
I picked up 11 cases of 12ozs bottles from a guy who was moving for free. Never know till you look.
what I do is make friends with every liquor store owner in town and then rummage through his bottle room for 22 ozers. -I can store that pale wheat for you in one of my kegs if you want. I'll age it real nice.
I tried putting a hefeweizen in a friend's keg once. Somehow the whole batch evaporated one weekend when it was really hot out. Strangest thing. :P
If you didn't feel too awkward, you could go to the local bottle return place on the weekend and ask to buy someone's returns. If someone asked me to do that I wouldn't think it was weird at all and would probably just give them my bottles for free.
2L soda bottles work fine - especially if you can pour it all out at once without sloshing. I'd steer clear of the growlers though - they're tough to get sealed all the way.
And they can explode...
The growlers can explode if they somehow can be trusted to hold pressure. I never found caps that could stay tightly sealed to do the job.
2L plastic soda bottles are rated to withstand pretty high pressure and if you really crank the cap on, they don't leak. Plus you can feel how much they're carbonating by touch.
They don't hold pressure indefinitely though. Over a couple months, the gas pressure drops even on new 2 liter bottles of soda. I'm not sure if the gas escapes from the seal at the top or through the plastic itself, so soda bottles are not good long term storage options
Soda is also carbonated to higher levels than beer.
Ive opened soda bottles that were years open before. It didnt taste right, but it was still carbonated.
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PET bottles they are 500ml (16.9 oz) so it cuts out some. Mr Beer also has 1 liter bottles that you can use. The caps are reusable as well.
I do a mix of 22oz bombers and 32 oz swing top growlers. My wife and I will keep the growlers for ourselves which we normally split with dinner and the bombers are for gifts. Prep aside it only takes about 20 minutes to bottle and cap 5 gallons.
Kegging.
I can confirm, I hated spending a whole evening washing, sanitizing, filling, priming and capping. Save for a good corny keg setup, takes under an hour to do it all.