Can you bottle in canning jars?

I’m just wondering if you think it is possible to bottle beer in canning jars, crank the lid on real tight. Reason is Canada customs seems to like my beer, so I’m thinking if I send to my friends there in Canada, I might be able to pull a fast one on em. I guess I will try one pint next bottling day, but was wondering if anyone has any thoughts…

Canning jars are designed to hold a vacuum not pressure. One bump and the co2 erupts spewing out the seal.

They are not really designed to hold pressure inside, but maybe.

Good points, I guess I will do a 1 pint test next time, and shake it up a bit to see what happens.

They don’t seal well enough with positive pressure. I’ve tried to use them as pseudo growlers in the past; fill a couple of pints, take to a party, remove lid, instant pint… Turned into a leaky foamy mess in my bag  :o

Maybe try a cola bottle with the label still on?  Honest it’s only pepsi…

Thanks Ross, is good to know that it was tried and failed.

Good idea, glass soda bottle, maybe Canada Dry

Why bother with a glass bottle… Plastic bottles are lighter and ship better.

Are you saying i can just put the twist-on cap back on a plastic bottle? Never used plastic but like the idea,

Yeah you can do exactly that.  Though you would want to clean both or your beer might taste like pop :wink:

You can even buy amber plastic bottles from most homebrew supply stores (though they look like big plastic beer bottles so they won’t work for something like this).

Thanks, i will give this a try with the plastic bottles

Actually, they would probably work pretty well if you slap a homemade root beer label on them…

Heh yeah that’s not a bad idea :wink:

What’s the problem?  I’ve shipped beer south but never back home. But I am surprised you had that much of an issue.

I think you could use a regular soda bottle and buy the threaded caps for those amber plastic beer bottles. I think they are the same threads. Check that first though.

Some do, some don’t. I may have used them in the past to bring vodka place where it is generally not allowed.

I had 2 of 4 packages mysteriously ‘disappear’ last winter. Thinking that they got confiscated by customs as you are not supposed to ship alcohol across the border, I am trying to come up with a different packaging. Root beer sounds good.

could have been due to broken bottles.  Then they realize what it was and just don’t ship it.  Plastic would help with that as well as it will take quite a beating to break a pop bottle open.

That’s odd. I would want to know why it disappeared even if it wasn’t allowed. You should have gotten some indication I would think. I’ve had beer and homemade meat goods shipped to me here in Canada without issue but maybe I got lucky. Good luck with the root beer approach.