Best option for non-kegged beer

[Brian66]

Question about longevity. I recently got a stainless steel carbonation cap and have yet to use it. I make small batches (2 1/2 gallons) and only have one 2 1/2 gallon keg. If I put homebrew in 2 liter bottles and plan to carbonate using a carbonation cap - how long will the beer stay relatively fresh? If not drinking right away, it is better to put in the 2 liter bottle and wait to carbonate when ready to drink? I ask because I want to bring two kinds of brew to a party - one in the keg and the other - ?

Would I be better off kegging the beer and then putting in growlers? Bottles?

What option seems best for keeping freshness?

 

[Dgallo]

Question about longevity. I recently got a stainless steel carbonation cap and have yet to use it. I make small batches (2 1/2 gallons) and only have one 2 1/2 gallon keg. If I put homebrew in 2 liter bottles and plan to carbonate using a carbonation cap - how long will the beer stay relatively fresh? If not drinking right away, it is better to put in the 2 liter bottle and wait to carbonate when ready to drink? I ask because I want to bring two kinds of brew to a party - one in the keg and the other - ?

Would I be better off kegging the beer and then putting in growlers? Bottles?

What option seems best for keeping freshness?

Are they glass bottles. If not, def better to bottle in amber glass bottles

 

[Brian66]

Yes glass bottles. Some of my options are to put in 2 liter bottles with carb caps and carbonate now or when getting ready to drink. Put in growlers, one glass growler, one insulated stainless steel growler, or bottle - 16oz swingtops or 12oz capped.

 

[Dgallo]

Yes glass bottles. Some of my options are to put in 2 liter bottles with carb caps and carbonate now or when getting ready to drink. Put in growlers, one glass growler, one insulated stainless steel growler, or bottle - 16oz swingtops or 12oz capped.

Just put the in any swing top or crown cap amber bottles and prime each bottle and call it a day

 

[Brian66]

was trying to avoid bottle conditioning because I was getting an off-flavor on every brew. I don't get that with the keg. Seemed like oxidation. Before bottling/conditioning the beer would smell and taste great. During conditioning it would lose most of the fruit/flowery hop aroma/taste and be more bitter than it should be. Most of the beers had this flavor I couldn't pin point. I bought a bottle filler, clean and sanitized the bottling bucket and tried filling a few bottles from the fermenter using coopers tabs. Didn't make a difference.

 

[Dgallo]

It’s typically not the bottle conditioning itself causing oxidation. It’s the bottling process that’s the issue. Kegging cold beer and closer transferibg allows far les o2 pick up than bottling I general.

whats your bottling process?

 

[bkboiler]

I just got a stainless steel carb cap too. Was planning to use it for a ginger beer and root beer. But I suppose any beer if you're going to just store it in the fridge probably won't suffer too badly if you only plan to store it for maybe a week or less.

 

[Brian66]

I agree, it's the bottling process. I would boil corn sugar in water, let it cool a little. I have a mr beer plastic fermenter with a spigot - I'd pour the corn sugar/water mixture into the mr beer fermenter then using the spigot on my stainless steel fermenter I'd connect a hose and fill the mr beer fermenter. At first I'd bottle with the spigot on the mr beer fermenter. It worked OK for awhile, then I started having issues. So I bought a bottle filler and attached it with a hose to the mr beer fermenter - still had the issue. On one batch I did three things - put a carbonation drop in a bottle and filled from the fermenter, I then added the corn sugar/water to the mr beer fermenter and added the beer (same was as above). I then filled a bottle from the mr beer spigot. The rest I used the bottle filler as outlined above. All three tasted the same.

I'd love to fix this if you have suggestions on what I'm doing wrong.

Edit to add: I clean and sanitze all equipment used.

 

[earthboundagain]

I agree, it's the bottling process. I would boil corn sugar in water, let it cool a little. I have a mr beer plastic fermenter with a spigot - I'd pour the corn sugar/water mixture into the mr beer fermenter then using the spigot on my stainless steel fermenter I'd connect a hose and fill the mr beer fermenter. At first I'd bottle with the spigot on the mr beer fermenter. It worked OK for awhile, then I started having issues. So I bought a bottle filler and attached it with a hose to the mr beer fermenter - still had the issue. On one batch I did three things - put a carbonation drop in a bottle and filled from the fermenter, I then added the corn sugar/water to the mr beer fermenter and added the beer (same was as above). I then filled a bottle from the mr beer spigot. The rest I used the bottle filler as outlined above. All three tasted the same.

I'd love to fix this if you have suggestions on what I'm doing wrong.

Edit to add: I clean and sanitze all equipment used.

What size hose did you use?