Homebrewing myths that need to die

Yakima 728
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As a die hard Cubs fan, I can honestly state that while Cubs fandom should give you a karmic edge in brewing success (Lord knows, we suffer enough otherwise, so we deserve some thing to go our way), I have never heard the Cubs/Red Sox thing.

I don't think this qualifies as a myth that needs killing.
 
Homebrewing myths:

1. Kegging is superior to bottling and/or kegging makes better beer

2. bottling beer is overly time consuming (you are doing it wrong)

3. If your yeast pitching rate isn't perfect you can forget about making good beer! You need to get a digital microscope and start yeast counting!

4. Don't use dish soap to clean your brewing equipment or you'll get off flavors! (Never once has dishsoap given me an off flavor in almost 2 years of brewing...it's called RINSING WELL. If dishsoap contributed off flavors your food would all taste off now wouldn't it?).
 
Jayhem said:
Homebrewing myths:

1. Kegging is superior to bottling and/or kegging makes better beer

2. bottling beer is overly time consuming (you are doing it wrong)
Click to expand...

Amen to both of these. The most annoying thing about bottling is cleaning and removing labels. Cleaning is way easier with a jet bottle rinser. Even horrible moldy ones come clean easily - I cleaned 4 cases of nasty bottles in an afternoon when I got my washer.

Removing labels is optional, but I find soaking them in a bucket of hot water for an hour makes them come off easily.

Other than that the only annoying thing to me about bottling is waiting thru two dishwasher cycles before starting. First one to do all the dishes that were left in the sink, and then one to sanitize the bottles. I either will convince SWMBO to do dishes while I'm at work, or I'll buy a Vinator... Not sure which is cheaper. ;)

Once the bottles are clean, just have to boil priming sugar, dump into bottling bucket, rack to bucket, then fill, cap, and write label in sharpie on cap. I can be done in 45 minutes. Kegging sounds like a hassle and a half.

Best thing about bottling is taking it with you, and having lots of variety! I'm on
Vacation in vermont this week, and brought 2 cases comprising 10 different kinds! Do that with a keg!
 
QuercusMax said:
Other than that the only annoying thing to me about bottling is waiting thru two dishwasher cycles before starting. First one to do all the dishes that were left in the sink, and then one to sanitize the bottles. I either will convince SWMBO to do dishes while I'm at work, or I'll buy a Vinator... Not sure which is cheaper. ;)
Click to expand...

Vinator by far. Fifteen bucks well worth it. Combined with my bottle tree, the Vinator cuts a solid hour of labor off of bottling for me (I used to do the dishwasher thing, too). This does not count the time waiting for the bottles to cycle in the dishwasher.
 
QuercusMax said:
Amen to both of these. The most annoying thing about bottling is cleaning and removing labels. Cleaning is way easier with a jet bottle rinser. Even horrible moldy ones come clean easily - I cleaned 4 cases of nasty bottles in an afternoon when I got my washer.

Removing labels is optional, but I find soaking them in a bucket of hot water for an hour makes them come off easily.

Other than that the only annoying thing to me about bottling is waiting thru two dishwasher cycles before starting. First one to do all the dishes that were left in the sink, and then one to sanitize the bottles. I either will convince SWMBO to do dishes while I'm at work, or I'll buy a Vinator... Not sure which is cheaper. ;)

Once the bottles are clean, just have to boil priming sugar, dump into bottling bucket, rack to bucket, then fill, cap, and write label in sharpie on cap. I can be done in 45 minutes. Kegging sounds like a hassle and a half.

Best thing about bottling is taking it with you, and having lots of variety! I'm on
Vacation in vermont this week, and brought 2 cases comprising 10 different kinds! Do that with a keg!
Click to expand...

My bottling method is so easy I have to share it with you because the dishwasher method is simply too much work.

1. always double/triple rinse your bottles after pouring a beer, let them drip dry on a rack or bottle tree, case them up for next time!

2. The day before you plan to bottle, soak all your bottles in a solution of warm water and Oxiclean! This is key to making bottle cleaning a snap!

3. On bottling day simply rinse your bottles, drain them on a tree or dish rack

4. Turn on your oven to 200F, put the rack as low as it goes. Stand the bottles vertical (my oven holds about 54 bottles!). Heat bottles for 20 minutes to sanitize

5. Turn off oven, leave door open, remove bottles as soon as they are cool enough to touch, being careful not to touch the rims.

6. I do 11 gallon batches so I use 2 bottling buckets at once! I fill 2 bottles at once, my wife or brewing helper caps! We can bottle 11 gallons in about 25 minutes once we start filling.

Bottling allows us to take our beer with us places easily, to give beer samples to friends/family and to age some beer longer than others.
 
Sounds like the myth that you need to sterilize bottles with heat has reared its ugly head.
1. Clean the bottle mechanically and with PBW.
2. Soak for a few minutes in Starsan.
3. Drain. Preferably on a bottle tree.
4. Fill bottle with beer. It doesn't need to be completely dry
 
Effingbeer said:
Sounds like the myth that you need to sterilize bottles with heat has reared its ugly head.
1. Clean the bottle mechanically and with PBW.
2. Soak for a few minutes in Starsan.
3. Drain. Preferably on a bottle tree.
4. Fill bottle with beer. It doesn't need to be completely dry
Click to expand...

Simply a preferred method.

Sanitizing with heat results in a 100% dry bottle that is much easier to handle than a slippery sanitizer soaked bottle.

I've bottled probably 1,800 bottles in my short brewing career and never once have a dropped a bottle while bottling. Quite a feat considering I'm always handling bottles with one hand and usually enjoying 1 or 3 homebrews while bottling.
 
Vinator's a waste of money. Put sanitizer in a bucket. Grab two bottles in each hand. Submerge all four bottles and allow to fill. Lift them out and let them dump. Easily the same speed. Also sanitizes the outside of the bottle, minimizing contact transfer of bacteria from the outside of the bottle to the lid or rim via your hands. If you want to sanitize ahead of time, cap while wet.

Bottle tree is a waste of money too, unless you're really hard up for space, in which case kegging has an edge anyway.

Here's four home-made bottle drying racks that were made up for a few dollars in about two hour's time. They store in a tote which doubles as both a soak bin for label removing and a drip tray for runoff. And they have the benefit of holding the bottle by the neck, not by inserting anything into the bottle or touching the inside of the rim.





Each one can dry a full case at a time.
 
I've done the "dunk a bottle" thing. I stand by my assertion - bottle tree + vinator saves me a solid hour of bottling labor.

My process:

1. Remove clean bottles from case. Sanitize via vinator. Hang on bottling tree.

2. Sit down in kitchen floor next to bottle tree. Bottle entire batch without ever having to get up - just rotate tree as needed.

3. Cap all bottles in one go.
 
I stand by the vinator and bottling tree as well. I can sanitize all my bottles and have them hanging ready to fill before 3/4 of the beer has siphoned into the bucket. And since my tree will hold all 60 plus bottles I use for a batch I can fill them all with out having to move and get more.

I did the dump and fill a dish rack for a very long time and I am glad I spent the little bit of money and got the sprayer and tree.
 
See that is the cool thing about brewing. Find what works best for you and run with it. Nothing wrong with dunking them at all.
 
QuercusMax said:
Best thing about bottling is taking it with you, and having lots of variety! I'm on
Vacation in vermont this week, and brought 2 cases comprising 10 different kinds! Do that with a keg!
Click to expand...
I do it all the time; shove a racking cane into my picnic tap, fill a couple 2l. soda bottles before the keg kicks. Have drank them 2 months later, still fully carbed.
 
djt17 said:
I do it all the time; shove a racking cane into my picnic tap, fill a couple 2l. soda bottles before the keg kicks. Have drank them 2 months later, still fully carbed.
Click to expand...

Same, except I use 1L PET bottles and a Perlick growler filler that I paid $11 for.

"To go" bottling a routine every time I have guests over. Since I pre-sanitized and then cap, we just pry (glass bottles) or twist off (PET bottles), fill from the Perlick, and re-cap.

I advise anybody that got a PET bottle to put it in their trunk.
 
Jayhem said:
Homebrewing myths:

1. Kegging is superior to bottling and/or kegging makes better beer

2. bottling beer is overly time consuming (you are doing it wrong)

3. If your yeast pitching rate isn't perfect you can forget about making good beer! You need to get a digital microscope and start yeast counting!

4. Don't use dish soap to clean your brewing equipment or you'll get off flavors! (Never once has dishsoap given me an off flavor in almost 2 years of brewing...it's called RINSING WELL. If dishsoap contributed off flavors your food would all taste off now wouldn't it?).
Click to expand...

sounds like somebody has kegging envy :mug:
 
Myth: Commercial screw-tops are unsuitable bottles for homebrew. The bottles are literally exactly the same: the same glass, the same factory, the same shipping, the same everything. The most important part, the sealing surface between bottle and crown, is identical.
 
Rundownhouse said:
Myth: Commercial screw-tops are unsuitable bottles for homebrew. The bottles are literally exactly the same: the same glass, the same factory, the same shipping, the same everything. The most important part, the sealing surface between bottle and crown, is identical.
Click to expand...

So I could use my capper on a twisty?
 
Sure? I've read that some cappers sold to homebrewers don't play well with screw-tops, for whatever reason, but the problem there isn't with the bottle, it's with whatever piece of **** the homebrewer bought to crown the bottles. The caps are the same, the sealing surface is the same, the quality of the glass is the same, the bottle mold is the same, etc etc.
 
But ultimately, for the most part, using a twisty isnt as good a non twisty as it requires special equipment you probably dont have... is that right?
 
Rundownhouse said:
Myth: Commercial screw-tops are unsuitable bottles for homebrew. The bottles are literally exactly the same: the same glass, the same factory, the same shipping, the same everything. The most important part, the sealing surface between bottle and crown, is identical.
Click to expand...

Different neck finish and bead, different mold, sealing surface not identical. Whether it suits you is a matter of personal standards.
 
Rundownhouse said:
Myth: Commercial screw-tops are unsuitable bottles for homebrew. The bottles are literally exactly the same: the same glass, the same factory, the same shipping, the same everything. The most important part, the sealing surface between bottle and crown, is identical.
[...]
the problem there isn't with the bottle, it's with whatever piece of **** the homebrewer bought to crown the bottles. The caps are the same, the sealing surface is the same, the quality of the glass is the same, the bottle mold is the same, etc etc.
Click to expand...

Uhm, if you're trying to say that pry-off capped bottles and twist-off capped bottles are identical, that's clearly not true. Just look at them. Pry-off bottles are smooth all around the top, whereas twist-off bottles clearly have threads molded into the glass.

If that's not what you were saying then I apologize, but you seem pretty adamant that the bottles are identical in every way, which is just not true.
 
I have read some people have good luck using twist off bottles and I think that is great. I know my bottler will not cap them though. I had a twist off find its way into my bottles and the night I bottled with it I wasted 3 caps trying to get it on before I noticed it was a screw top.
 
I've bottled a few beers using twist offs that managed to sneak into my bottle collection (need to not drink as much when brewing/bottling :).

Shockingly, they seemed to work just fine. I didn't notice anything odd when bottling and they were carbed just fine. With that said, I see no reason to use twist off bottles when I have hundreds of perfectly good pry off ones. If you have that many twist offs, maybe you need to evaluate what you are drinking ;)
 
georgebe4 said:
Different neck finish and bead, different mold, sealing surface not identical. Whether it suits you is a matter of personal standards.
Click to expand...

kombat said:
Uhm, if you're trying to say that pry-off capped bottles and twist-off capped bottles are identical, that's clearly not true. Just look at them. Pry-off bottles are smooth all around the top, whereas twist-off bottles clearly have threads molded into the glass.

If that's not what you were saying then I apologize, but you seem pretty adamant that the bottles are identical in every way, which is just not true.
Click to expand...

Where the bottle cap meets the bottle - the sealing surface - they're the same. Obviously one has threads and the other doesn't, but that doesn't matter for the seal. Homebrew caps, almost all of them, have a liner specifically designed to seal against either twists or pry-offs. The seal is the only part that really matters, after all. I use a red baron wing capper and it works just fine. Homebrewers that claim their capper won't work I chalk up to them having something funky or not knowing what they're doing; I think the red wing capper is pretty ubiquitous, so if it works, everyone should be able to get it to work.

I've used twists from factories in Waco, LA, and Ontario, and they're all just fine.

Does everyone think when a brewery changes from using twists to pry-offs, or the other way around, they have to retrofit their equipment? Or if they have one brand in a twist and one in a pry, they have to have two separate packaging lines? Or that there's some pro magic that makes them able to crown a bottle properly where homebrewers can't?
 
I'd venture that breweries DON'T switch back and forth between twist offs and pry offs. Most pro bottling lines for craft beer are pry off only.
 
Rundownhouse said:
Where the bottle cap meets the bottle - the sealing surface - they're the same. Obviously one has threads and the other doesn't, but that doesn't matter for the seal. Homebrew caps, almost all of them, have a liner specifically designed to seal against either twists or pry-offs. The seal is the only part that really matters, after all. I use a red baron wing capper and it works just fine. Homebrewers that claim their capper won't work I chalk up to them having something funky or not knowing what they're doing; I think the red wing capper is pretty ubiquitous, so if it works, everyone should be able to get it to work.

I've used twists from factories in Waco, LA, and Ontario, and they're all just fine.

Does everyone think when a brewery changes from using twists to pry-offs, or the other way around, they have to retrofit their equipment? Or if they have one brand in a twist and one in a pry, they have to have two separate packaging lines? Or that there's some pro magic that makes them able to crown a bottle properly where homebrewers can't?
Click to expand...

homebrewdad said:
I'd venture that breweries DON'T switch back and forth between twist offs and pry offs. Most pro bottling lines for craft beer are pry off only.
Click to expand...

Have you watch Brewmasters? Dogfish scrapped half a batch of Punkin for that very reason - the supplier sent twist offs and not pry offs and they did not notice early enough. In the end the caps held but the did not want to risk any issues with the bottles once out of their control so all the beer in twist offs was given out as employee monthly cases.
Pretty good documentated case where a comercial brewery would not trust swapping between twist/pry offs on the same machine.
 
In fairness, the sealing surface is similar, but not identical. You will find twist off bottles thinner and flatter at the top of the neck finish, whereas pry off bottles are wider and rounded to allow for the cap to be properly crimped around it. This worked for a friend of mine, until he tried to ship me a bottle. DFH on Brewmasters is another great example; they made the right call with consideration for shipping/storage conditions.

If the myth were revised to "twist off bottles can never be used with pry off caps, regardless of shipping/storage conditions," I could hop on board. But literally, identically the same? No...
 
georgebe4 said:
In fairness, the sealing surface is similar, but not identical. You will find twist off bottles thinner and flatter at the top of the neck finish, whereas pry off bottles are wider and rounded to allow for the cap to be properly crimped around it. This worked for a friend of mine, until he tried to ship me a bottle. DFH on Brewmasters is another great example; they made the right call with consideration for shipping/storage conditions.

If the myth were revised to "twist off bottles can never be used with pry off caps, regardless of shipping/storage conditions," I could hop on board. But literally, identically the same? No...
Click to expand...

In brewing, as in life, there are few absolutes.
 
TahoeRy said:
I use secondary on just about every beer. I get lots of people on here who preach that it's useless. I feel it's worthwhile.
Click to expand...

This is interesting. I gave up secondaries (except on really big beers that require bulk aging, or sometimes for dry-hopping if I need the fermenter space) three years ago, and I notice no -NO- difference in my beers.
 
homebrewdad said:
I'd venture that breweries DON'T switch back and forth between twist offs and pry offs. Most pro bottling lines for craft beer are pry off only.
Click to expand...

AB breweries that are pumping out Goose Island Honker's alongside Bud? Sam Adams breweries that are bottling Boston Lager one day and Twisted Tea the next? How about when Sierra Nevada switched from twist to pry? Do you think they bought a new packaging line too?

All I can do is relate what my personal experience has been and the conversations I've had with numerous vendors and manufacturers.
 
Nah,the'd just buy diffwerent dies to press the caps on. I worked with/fixed automation equipment for 31 years. they def wouldn't replace the whole machine.
 

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