The ranks have swelled!

[fizzypish]

Hi all,
Relatively new to the art of brew. Done about 4 kit brews with another planned soon. Still in the experimental stage (gonna have ~60L of beer ready for paddys day). I'm currently constructing a mashing tun as I firmly believe all grain is the way to go. A mate of mine has been coaching me in the art and although its more work, the rewards are infinitely better. In true noob form I'm gonna start off with a few questions.
1. I got a few medically sterilized 1 & 5 liter glass containers with screw on caps (they're perfectly sealed). I loath to bottle in 330ml bottles due to the amount of prep (washing, sterilizing,re washing the sterilizer.....) so I bottled in the 1 and 5 L containers. Will bottling in larger containers affect carbonation? I know I'll have to drink the 5L in one go when opened (house party candidate) so I bought a siphon with a tap to avoid pouring and getting dead/hibernating yeast in the drinking beer (wouldn't bother me too much but some people are picky cnuts!).
2. The area's I'm storing bottles wouldn't be very snug. I took a temp of one bottle after a week and it was at 10 deg cel. I know yeast is inactive at low temp (dead below 2) so will lower storing conditions affect beer quality or will it just take longer to finish properly in the bottle?
3. Back to point 1 again, Can I bottle beer in one of those massive huzzar vodka bottles (5L I think). The only way I can think of sealing it is with a rubber bung but I'm not sure this would do. Also it may be ejected quite violently from the container if the pressure grows too much. My Ideal bottling setup is 1 5L, 12 pint bottles and the rest of the 23L batch in 330 mls which works out at just over a crate. 

[DEMPSEY]

Hello and welcome Fizzypish,to answer your question on the size on your container's,the answer is,size does not matter .

When you bottle your young beer,what is important is the amount of priming sugar used in ratio to the amount of beer in the container. Most people bottling put all the beer for bottling into a bottling bucket with the total amount of priming sugar dissolved into it,that way they have an even amount of sugar spread through the young beer. One question I would raise with you is the use of containers that are not able to take the build up of pressure,your vodka bottle may be one of them.

[CB_Phil]

Welcome to the forum

[fizzypish]

The huzzar bottles are pretty tough. Its one of the massive one people use to keep change in.... or drink vodka from... The glass seems fairly tough but I just can't think of a good way to seal it. There'll be some mess if any of those 5L containers blow. Girl friend will murder me. I'v taken to batch priming for the last 2 brews. Mate of mine sent me on a link to a batch priming calc although I didn't actually use it. I've 2 batch's on at the moment, both 23 L, one I primed with 400g of sugar (lol, ridiculously too much. Taste's like fanta) and the second I put 200g (about 2 times what I should have) in. I'm going to use the calc from now on. http://kotmf.com/tools/prime.php

O and thanks for the hello's!

[Alex Lawes]

Howya fizzpish, welcome. Sure I'm new as well!

A few things on the bottling situation.

- Using household sugar means that stuff is about 100% fermentable. You really need to ba careful if you're trying to save money by doing it that way and you're almost always going to end up with overcarbonated beer after a a month or so.

- You may have a great beer there but the small amount of alcohol that fermenting household sugar contributes is in my opinion, very unappealing. I'd recommend using light spraymalt instead as a primer. The bubbles a finer as well. Really nice mouthfeel to the stuff.

- When you prime about 5L in the same vessel you should go for less primer. Way less. When you prime in minikegs you usually only usually use about 1/3 of the recommended amount as you would for individual bottles.

- If that's clear glass, keep it out of direct sunlight. UV destroys malt flavour.

Here's a good calculator too.
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

Good luck!

[newToBrew]

t may be ejected quite violently from the container if the pressure grows too much

I'm guessing that  you think that the original Cap of the Huzzar Bottle would leak the C02 generated ?

could you put a rubber o-ring inside the cap ??

If you are using a bung  and are concerned that it would pop - could you get something like a Champagne cage do-da ?  or push in the bung and screw on the vodka  cap

I have no actual experience of any of this myself - just some inane thoughts

also if you think there is a possibility of bottle bombing the vodka bottle  - just do a test with one - put it in a box or something - I guess if you were willing to test it - use the 400g batch primed brew !! if it holds up for that your safe for the  future 

[fizzypish]

Cheers for the input. I only use brewers sugar for bottling. The little research I've done seems to elude to the fact that normal house hold sugar == shit tasting beer. Funny thing, the 200g batch primed brew in the 5l container and 1 week bottled, contained more gas that the 400g batch primed brew in the same bottle type with 2 weeks bottled. The only difference (besides any f**k ups I made during the brew) is the location the bottles are stored. Thats why I initially thought storage temp was a vital factor. The Huzzar bottle has thicker glass that the current 5L bottles I'm using so it may be worth a gamble. Only problem is if it goes wrong, I'll have wasted 5 L of my beautiful (fizzy muck to anyone other than me) brew.

[newToBrew]

ah - I wouldn't sweat 5 liters man ! - I once dumped 5 gallons !! kinda heartbreakin at the time - but I got over it

you could be right @ storage - I'm no expert but the lower temp probably would take longer - I'm sure there are others here who can give you the actual temps - I generally just leave it in a room in the house for a few weeks so the temps range from heating is off temp to heating is on temp

also I batch prime with table sugar - and my beers don't seem to suffer for it - I think there are other/bigger  ways in which you can positively and negatively effect your beer


at the beginning I used brewing sugar - carb drops and various other sugars  on different brews  until one of the guys told me I was just using expensive sugar !!

- I guess its horses for courses and I'm not the best for subtleties, once its carbed enough - that's good enough for me I would think though that there are some of the guys here that would differ

again - if your in to it try carbing one 5 litre Btl with table sugar another with brewing sugar and so on .....

*edit - if all else fails - get a soda stream !! that's what I did on my first ever brew - I messed up the batch priming - incidentally thats kinda how the SE Brew Club got together !!!

[LordEoin]

size does not matter

That's not what SHE said 

I'd recommend using light spraymalt instead as a primer.

I've never tried this but I'm interested. Do you have a conversion rate for this? or just 1:1?
I've never noticed any negative effects in using dextose to prime, but then again I've never tried anything else apart from carb drops.
Generally I don't notice any difference up to about 300g dex total (+priming dex) per23L brew.

The huzzar bottles are pretty tough. Its one of the massive one people use to keep change in.

I'd be very very careful with this. Wasting 5 liters is not the worst that can happen. The bottle exploding is.
5 liters of beer foam and spray will really wreck a Sunday and flying shards of glass are never a bonus.
Vodka bottles are not designed to hold pressure. They have flat bottoms and thin walls.
For reference, look at a wine bottle and a champagne bottle. The wine bottle will normally have a flat bottom and thin walls because of the lack of pressure while a champagne bottle will have a dimpled bottom and thick walls for strength against the pressure.
Even if you look at a botle of bud, they have a convex base to strengthen against the pressure.

Oh, and welcome 

[DEMPSEY]

I'd recommend using light spraymalt instead as a primer.

I've never tried this but I'm interested. Do you have a conversion rate for this? or just 1:1?
I've never noticed any negative effects in using dextose to prime, but then again I've never tried anything else apart from carb drops.
Generally I don't notice any difference up to about 300g dex total (+priming dex) per23L brew.

If you refer to the link above that is a carbonation calculator  and open it,enter an example 23L @ 2C temp,you will see the types of sugars offered to do your carbonation. As you click each one of the sugar box's,it will offer you a different amount of grams,depending on what sugar you choose.

[Spud395]

Household sugar at the level we use for carbonation will not flavour a brew in any way. I normally use 50g for 23L and it does not have any effect on flavour (as any one who thinks about it could imagine) 

Welcome

[LordEoin]

Thanks Dempsey, that calculator was wrecking my head