conditioning commercial growlers with extra ingredients

[Dubbel H]

I'd really like to try conditioning commercial beers with extra ingredients (oak, hops, cocoa nibs, bacon, whatever). I know growlers lose carbonation & oxidize quickly once some liquid is removed, but would this process be much slower if you just uncap it, drop something in, & recap it within seconds?

[anday6]

It wouldn't really matter how quickly you drop things in, the CO2 in the headspace will be replaced with air. It might help if you can replace the CO2 in the headspace, but I think that would only get you a few days at most.

If you want to dose beer to see what it would be like, I would suggest going with vodka tinctures and a dropper. That way you get to add it in the glass to whatever level is correct. This will allow you to play around with more treatments and not oxidize the beer.

[Ozwald]

Never tried but if you purge the growler before you have it filled (& your bartender's not a douche), then when you add your 'adjuncts' hit the headspace with another blast of CO2, I would imagine you'd get quite a bit of time. There's still exposure, but kept to a minimum. Like Doc.

[spiderwrangler]

I still like the idea of tinctures better... if you are paying 8-12 bucks for beer and end up making it flat and oxidized (or undrinkable from whatever weird shit you put in it), that seems like a shame.

[anday6]

If you are set on the raw material addition you might be able to go with a 2 liter bottle and carbonator cap to get the co2 back in.

[CRBrewHound]

I think you could do it. I would do it this way.

buy your growler of commercial beer, and add your adjuncts allow to sit for as long as you want. I would follow advice already and purge headspace with CO2.

Then they make a carbonation cap that you can buy that attaches to PET bottles (Cap is just a screw on Corny gas post). you could then transfer from growler to a 2 Liter PET bottle and carb to desired level.

[brewinhard]

Just be wary, that some of those growler caps do not provide the best seals and oxygen will ingress under the cap faster than you think. I like the tincture idea, as you can then drink it up right away!

[Dubbel H]

Thanks everybody. The tincture idea sounds best, especially as I don't have a kegging system yet.