Wines and Spirits

Home Brew Hints - Bottling Options

Bottling is an essential part of the brewing process. After bottling your beer needs to sit for at least of week to finish reacting with the yeast and create carbonation. The most used bottling is done with capped glass bottles, but there are other options. Each option has its own benefits. Understanding these benefits will help you choose the type of bottling that is best for you. Plastic Bottles Plastic bottling is fairly new. One benefit of plastic is that you can take it more places, for example the beach, and you never have to worry about the bottle breaking. Although in many ways they are just as effective as glass, they are more likely to let oxygen leak through the bottle. Over time, the threads by the lid will wear away creating a path for air to reach the beer. Also, if you are planning on storing your beer for more than a couple months, oxygen will start to penetrate the plastic PET bottles. Glass Bottles This is the most common and most traditional way of bottling your homebrew. Since you can reuse glass bottles over and over, this method is a reasonable cheap way to bottle. You need to invest in a capper, but other than that the only cost is buying caps for every batch. Because you can reuse bottles, you can also use old bottles from beer that you purchased. One benefit of this is that there are a variety of different types of bottles. You can gather different shaped or colored bottles for different brews. In my opinion this is really cool for creating a variety pack for friends. Also, I feel that beer tastes a little better if bottled in glass rather than plastic. Keg If you are going to keg your beer, you are going to lose the convenience factor, but in return you will gain the quickness factor. When you keg you force-carbonate your beer rather than letting the yeast react with the excess sugar in the brew. This method can be completed in 24 hours unlike the week or two that you would be waiting for the other bottling options. Unfortunately, kegging your beer does require equipment that the traditional bottling does not use. So in order to keg your beer for the first time you will have to purchase a couple hundred dollars worth of equipment such as a keg, carbon dioxide pressurized tank, several fittings, and a tap. Also, if you want to have a cold keg at all times, a kegerator is something you might want to invest in.

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