Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Pros & Cons of Bottle, Pet & Keg carbonating.

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
This is a sticky topic.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Pros & Cons of Bottle, Pet & Keg carbonating.

    There are many ways to store carbonated drinks wether it be beer/lager, sparkling wines and mead or cider.
    A simple few rules first, never be tempted to over sugar prime and they must be pressure resistant containers, if not you are simply making a glass hand grenade or a liquid bomb.


    The above are three possible containers, a 275 ml lager bottle, 1 pint dark beer bottle and a 23 ltr pressure barrel.


    Here we have a sparkling wine bottle with wired cap and a 2ltr Pet ex fizzy drinks bottle.

    All the above are suitable for carbonating your drinks in, the following is my experience of each good or bad.

    275 ml Lager bottles.

    These are my favoured choice for bottled lager, they hold just enough liquid to be able to dispense into a 1 pint glass including head foam in one clean pour, also the light green bottles enable you to see the sediment floating toward the glass enabling you to cease pouring.
    The down side to these is you need to collect more bottles, sanitise more and use more crown caps, it can also make the bottling process a much longer task.

    1pt/500 ml Beer bottles.

    These make life a little easier as you only need 40 bottles to sanitise fill and cap. You will also need these if your going to enter your beers into competitions at some time, as all beer and lager categories insist on this style bottle with gold coloured crown caps for any show in the UK.
    The down side to these is that they are slightly too big including head foam to pour into a pint glass, thus the sediment becoming disturbed upon re pouring. Now if you have a bigger than 1 pint glass it's probably better, but because the bottles are so dark it's difficult to see when the sediment is nearing the glass.

    5gal/23ltr Keg/Pressure Barrel.

    There are many advantages to using a pressure barrel, of which most are obvious easier to sanitise, fill and just generally saves time full stop. They can be primed with sugar or be charged with a screw on bottle of co2.
    There is also no sediment to worry about as it's below the dispenser tap and you can pour as much or as little as you like.
    My own experience with these hasn't been good, I've found them very prone to leaking under pressure. They are also due to size difficult to chill if you have no cellar or cold room.

    Sparkling Wine Bottles (with wired stoppers).

    Perfect for sparkling wines and replacement wires and stoppers are readily available form most home brew shops.
    I have made a few sparkling wines without any problems, the best tip I can offer here is not to use the wire cages more than twice as the wire becomes fatigued and breaks.
    If you riddle and disgorge you can also result in a sediment free wine that you can pour anytime. Follow the link below on sparkling wines regarding riddling etc.




    PET Bottles.

    A question asked by many many people "are Pet bottles OK for my turbo cider", yes, they are suitable for any bottle carbonating. The main problem with PET bottles is they usually come in 1 or 2 ltr sizes which causes a big problem when trying to dispense as it swirls up the sediment and your second glass will be cloudy, you can however pour into a large jug which is ideal if you drinking it all or sharing with others or it will simply go flat.
    The real upside to Pet bottles is that they're cheap and easy to obtain and there are now smaller ones about to make pouring easier.
    If your keeping beer in these bottles it is advisable to keep them in the dark to prevent colour distortion.
    Last edited by Duffbeer; 28-12-2007, 06:32 PM.
    Discount Home Brew Supplies
    Chairman of 5 Towns Wine & Beer Makers Circle!
    Convenor of Judges YFAWB Show Committee
    National Wine Judge
    N.G.W.B.J Member
Working...
X