Is Working for NY Life Possible with a Few Misdemeanors?

[LGilmore]

"Not to be disrespectful, but Mason Jars worked just fine, and I made many a fine batch.
I was just telling my story"

No offense taken... the thing is mason jars work on the theory of vaccum sealing. When you process a mason jar with hot water bath, a vaccum is created which pulls the lid down and it's sealed from the vaccum occuring inside the jar.

Beer while conditioning, creates expansion through the production of CO2 which pushes out on the cap. The resistence of the cap eventually forces the CO2 back into the beer and "poof" carbonated beer. If you left a bottle open, would it carb? When you ferment, you use a bubbler or blow off tube to let co2 escape and prevent a primary bomb. Imagine 5 gallons on your ceiling.

While it didn't hurt you at the time and in honesty, beer can't really hurt you, it just can taste bad if inflected, you ran a higher risk of crappy tasting beer with the mason jar method. It's science. maybe you dodged a bullet, but I would never suggest mason jars becase the science doesn't work that way. Maybe the odds just worked that way for you. What style of beer were you making?

Not trying to disrepect you. I've been brewing for a couple years, never had a boilover, never had a primary explode, never had a bottle bomb. I'm just repeating info on bottling with a mason jar from another forum. I found reading up before helps.

Just like here. I can't tell you how much money the guys here have saved me by relating their mistakes or conflicts. There's a couple guys here I at least owe a beer or two.

And they aren't guys I agree with all the time, pretty much the opposite.

 

[jerry176]

I just put the beer in the mason jar.
It worked great, did a few get ruined from the screw-on cap being bowed, so air got in a ruined one or two out of 12 48oz beer, just the cost of doing business..

I like hoppy beer, anchor steam.

 

[VolAgent]

I'm with LGilmore. Sounds like you got lucky. A mason jar isn't designed to contain pressure, it is designed to stand up to a boil and then hold a vacuum.

I'm still playing around to figure out exactly what I like to brew. I guess this is the fun point, most of it is still new to me.

 

[LGilmore]

Just enjoying a green scotch 70 ale with dinner. Bottled it 5 days ago. Not carbed up yet. A few bubbles, I knew this. It is good to have a test bottle or two during the process so you can see how it progresses. I also was curious as when I bottled it, I didn't think I was going to like it. In five days even without carbing yet, it tasted much better, and smelled like scotch a little bit. But the big thing was it tasted quite a bit better than bottling night.

I still am in the sampling phase as well. So far a couple I might not make again, but copper ale, Irish red and mocha java stout are going to be in the rotation for sure.

Just brewed on st. paddy's day an american pale ale with 4 oz of hops. Going to add Oak chips to that as they cut that pucker bitter the hoppier ales have.

 

[jerry176]

I'm with LGilmore. Sounds like you got lucky. A mason jar isn't designed to contain pressure, it is designed to stand up to a boil and then hold a vacuum.

I'm still playing around to figure out exactly what I like to brew. I guess this is the fun point, most of it is still new to me.

Next time you make a batch a beer, find yourself one mason jar, and see what results you get.

I made a lot of beer...it was skill, not luck....

 

[LGilmore]

"I made a lot of beer...it was skill, not luck.... "

Ok...

As I said all that happens is an off flavor, you can't kill yourself by using mason jars.

But let's put in a selling context. Do you feel confident enough using this method to give product to a client?

You've already mentioned creating some skunky brews, probably due to the seal. I do give my brews to my business clients. I know simply by working clean, I have nothing to worry about. That's kind of where this ties into this thread.

Mason jars - Home Brew Forums


This is one post from ten pages on mason jars. Haven't found any agreement in those pages with this concept.

Again, you can't kill yourself by doing it that way, but why make all that effort to brew, to shortcut the last step?

You weren't doing a mr. beer kit were you?