Has anyone used a Plastic Sprayer Bottle as a PB?

[Dutto]

This has cropped up on another Thread and I am really interested!

The critical question "Is this bottle made from Food Grade plastic?" has been asked of Wilko with regard to their 5 litre Water Spray Bottle and I'm expecting an answer "within 5 working days".

For me, 5 litres is a great size and if they are made from suitable material I would use them in preference to the MK's that I currently use.

When I'm using the bottom tap on an MK I let air into the top via the "red bung" when the natural carbonisation pressure is exhausted. As the MK is emptied within a few days, there's never a fear of ruining the brew with oxygen. :wave:

Also, the Sprayer Bottle is fitted with a Pressure Relief Valve. This is an improvement on the MKs and I suspect that the Set Pressure of the Sprayer's PRV will be higher than the pressure rating of an MK. (I understand that Sprayer PRVs are set at 36psi.)

Wilco have an 8 litre Sprayer at £10 and the 5 litre one costs £7.50.

The cap on both bottles has a built-in "air pump" to pressurise the bottle when in "spray" service. I've not worked out how I will modify the cap if the plastic is suitable.

Here's hoping that one or both of them are suitable for use as Pressure Barrels containing beer!

BTW, from a Safety point of view, even if all the hurdles are jumped, the Sprayer itself will need to be clearly marked as "Beer Only" and kept completely separate from any garden sprayer that is used to dispense weedkiller.

I know SWMBO looks good in black, but the thought of her accidentally using a converted Sprayer for weedkiller and then sticking it back in the garage just sends me cold!

Remember Murphy's First Law is "If it can happen it will happen!" :thumb:

 

[Drunkula]

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/building-and-using-garden-sprayer-party-kegs.21201/

For new readers the MK above means mini keg. The 5 litres metal ones that you sometimes get in supermarkets.

I also thought of another experiment I'd do with a pressure sprayer, or maybe a pop bottle. Even thought I've got a big pub gas bottle I'd try and force carb a keg with yeast and sugar fermenting in the pressure washer. I did the maths on the amount of sugar needed and it unsurprisingly comes out the same as you get from a carbonation calculator. In case you're not getting the picture there'd be a pipe coming from the sprayer bottle to the gas in of a keg - as the co2 from fermentation is released it pressurises both containers. You'd get sediment in the sprayer but not in the keg.

The only thing that makes me go 'Hmmmm...' is whether the beer could absorb the co2 through the headspace as fast as the fermentation makes it - if not then things might turn ugly - but then again the pressure bottle has a safety valve.

I wouldn't be doing it to save money on co2, but just to see if it can be done. Sugar is about a third of the price of co2.

Screwfix have a 16 litre sprayer for £11.99 which I'd get if the smaller one works. Can't see me doing it for a long time as I'll probably wait to see if Wilko flog them off for £2.50 again end of season.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!

The critical question "Is this bottle made from Food Grade plastic?"

Does it have the plastic code stamped on the body somewhere? I've just checked - my 3 litre spray bottle (not Wilko) isn't code marked.
I have discovered that it is a versatile tool; I use it to clean and sanitise any vinyl tubing that I need to use; I've cobbled a JG fitting onto it for cleaning and sanitising new beer lines; by adding a carbonation cap I can clean and sanitise the beer lines and serving tap on my corny set-up quickly and efficiently; all of this without using any precious CO2.
One recent use - I'm trying to modify a no-chill cube for fermenting under pressure. The pressure spray is excellent for pressurising the cube when testing for leaks.

whether the beer could absorb the co2 through the headspace as fast as the fermentation makes it

You could try connecting your spray bottle to a black disconnect and adding gas through the liquid dip tube - this may speed up the CO2 absorbtion. You will be OK if, as @Dutto suggested, these spray bottles are rated at 36psi.
One idea - instead of sugar and yeast in the spray bottle, why not ferment a beer in there (as long as the plastic is food grade)?

 

[-Bezza-]

Just to sort out my thoughts on some of this. Would be interested in other people's thoughts on what would be needed.

At it's most simple, you would just use these things as beer engines. Fill with carbonated beer, add some pressure from the hand pump and dispense.

Getting more complicated, I think it might be possible to build up a "system" of pressure spray kegs that allow for flexibility in use. For example:

- A number of 10l vessels that act as the long-term storage
- Smaller vessels for transporting to other places
- Possibility to interconnect with a corny keg system, if required

On the larger vessels, I would think you would want a CO2 setup, so would want to replace the hand pump pressuriser with an appropriate cap, either CO2 tank (what's the correct name for this?) or S30. Question is therefore what vessels might fit this cap.

Also wonder to what extent you would be able to force carbonate beer in one of these. References to actual pressure ratings is limited - this one on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000TAWBBC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20) - image below - suggests it's rated to 2 Bar, so 29 PSI, on a 5l tank. I think that would be sufficient for most beer usage?? I did find one that suggested 36 PSI but a lot are silent. Presumably there wouldn't be much out there that is significantly lower, e.g. if we assume everything can hold at least 10PSI, what would that mean? Could of course be tested using CO2 and a regulator.

For larger vessels, once you've added all the CO2 stuff, second hand corny kegs might be better anyway, so back to just the smaller dispensing vessels.

For smaller vessels, I would assume you would go for short-term storage of beer so, as mentioned above, oxidisation risk should be low. If it's possible to transfer beer under pressure and use the hand pump to top up pressure, you have yourself a good beer engine (as per the Aussie Homebrewer link). I can't see any huge merit in replacing with a C02 cap - possibly a canister pin valve but since you can't control the volume of C02 going in, it doesn't seem to have a huge benefit. Or can you get a device that allows you to only partly empty one of the little cannisters / clip on with a regulator?

Most vessels appear to have a 3-orifice design: large cap to fill with liquid, small outlet onto the spray arm (i.e. beer line) and a pressure relief valve. It looks perfectly possible to replace the tube with something else, if required, or even replace the liquid out valve with a quick-lock fitting. I don't see any need to replace the pressure relief valve.

As for the food grade plastic point, I think it might be hard to get a company to definitively state that their garden sprayers are safe for food use. They're likely to err on the side of caution.

From the info I've found online, there appear to be three basic requirements to be food safe. My comments alongside are untested, so I'm not asserting that the requirements are met:

1) High resistance to chemicals - I would think garden sprayers would meet this by default, since they could be used to spray chemicals
2) Don't contain harmful dyes - I would avoid anything other than white ones (question: would this offer sufficient protection from light?)
3) Don't contain harmful plastics - This is the one that is hard to determine. Does anyone know enough about the composition of plastics to be able to formulate a "safer" question for a supplier to answer. i.e. rather than ask "is this food safe" it might be better to ask "is the plastic XYZ"

As a final note, the filling capacity of these tanks appears to be lower than the total quoted volume. So a 5l tank might only be good for 4l of beer.

 

[terrym]

@Dutto
With all due respect to yourself I am sure you have been in all sorts of environments throughout your life where you have been exposed to seriously hazardous chemicals and you are still around, and as you (like me) are in the later years of your life a few ppb of something leaching into your beer ain't going to make much difference, and I think is also unlikely to affect anyone half your age or less.
When we started brewing years ago there was no such thing as food grade stuff. As I have said on here before I used an orange plastic dustbin as an FV for many years and have survived.
In other words just give one of these bottles a good soak for a few days and then go for it!

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
A lot of them seem to be polypropylene - mine certainly looks and feels like pp, so I think you would be safe to assume that the Wilko models are also pp.

 

[simon12]

I agree with Terry on this but if you want the scare story see https://myplasticfreelife.com/2011/...-plastics-leach-hormone-disrupting-chemicals/ basically very few plastics are really safe.

 

[-Bezza-]

I agree with Terry on this but if you want the scare story see https://myplasticfreelife.com/2011/...-plastics-leach-hormone-disrupting-chemicals/ basically very few plastics are really safe.

Scary reading indeed but I would think they have something of an axe to grind about reducing the use of plastics, given the title of the site and the old blog name. They seem to conclude that no plastic is safe.

If they're going to be all hippy dippy about this stuff, I wonder if they hold the same sort of aversion to soya? I bet they're Tofu fanatics really!

https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/5-ways-soy-upsets-hormone-balance/

 

[Dutto]

I agree with Terry on this but if you want the scare story see https://myplasticfreelife.com/2011/...-plastics-leach-hormone-disrupting-chemicals/ basically very few plastics are really safe.

... and then they advertise this as an alternative ...

https://www.lifewithoutplastic.com/...with-polypropylene-loop-cap-0-95-l-32-oz.html

... complete with a Polypropylene cap!

Actually, if these people are advertising PP as a "safe" plastic then ...

Hi!
A lot of them seem to be polypropylene - mine certainly looks and feels like pp, so I think you would be safe to assume that the Wilko models are also pp.

We seem to be getting there! :thumb:

 

[terrym]

I agree with Terry on this but if you want the scare story see https://myplasticfreelife.com/2011/...-plastics-leach-hormone-disrupting-chemicals/ basically very few plastics are really safe.

I am sure that some of what this article says is true up to a point if a little exaggerated. However there is another side to the situation. People regularly take on board large quantities of chemicals that are potentially harmful to the human body, without giving them too much thought. Our forum is devoted to one of these ethyl alcohol which is certainly known to cause liver damage, links to cancer e.g oesophageal, and possible links to reproductive problems as well as neurotoxicity. Then there excess fat intake which may clog your arteries. What about all the additives that go into processed foods, E numbers, MSG and many others. And what may be a big killer for many, good old fashioned sugar, with links to diabetes. Finally tobacco smoke, the effects of which we all know about. There are many other examples
So my take on all of this is to not get too concerned by all the scare stories you read, and as far as the things I've listed, I'm sad to say moderation is the key, except of course smoking (sorry @Gunge!)

 

[Drunkula]

why not ferment a beer in there

Because I'd use it to force carb a 20l keg, 30l keg, and 50 kegs as an experiment. I'll try it with a 2 litres pet bottle first and a steel keg because I don't want to risk my petainer bursting as it's useful.

I've already got carbonation caps made from bottle tops and schrader valves so will probably remove the valve stem, attach a pipe and jubilee clip it, then attach that to the keg coupler with John Guest fittings and send it down the spear/dip tube so I can hear it bubble.

Yes yes, I'll make it all safe - let's just presume everything is safe. I don't need any warning speeches or want to watch anyone shrieking and running round saying "But what about the chilllldrennnn!" I'd rather die in an explosion than of boredom.

 

[Dutto]

First reply from Wilko "Advise you not to use it." so responded with "Could you please tell me which plastic it is made from?"

Now awaiting response from Wilko "Technical Department".

Here's hoping for good news! :thumb:

 

[Bart Fleming]

I've been using 20 litre Jerry cans fitted with brass air compressor connections for ales and 8 litre sprayers for lagers, since they can handle greater pressure. 3 of these will satisfy a 5 gallon brew. The beauty of this is that each vessel can have a different bag of hops for dry hopping. Here's a schematic to show my setup. It's cheap and easy and the sprayers are HDPE, so should be food safe. Included is a DYI pressure release valve/gauge.

 

[Bart Fleming]

And here's a mini keg I take to parties

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Where are you sourcing your Jerry cans with fitted taps?

 

[Dutto]

Great set up. :thumb:

Still waiting for Willo Techs to respond ...

... but I see a Summer Project looming!:thumb:

 

[Bart Fleming]

Hi!
Where are you sourcing your Jerry cans with fitted taps?

Hi bigCole, again :-).
Our hardware stores have them here in NZ. They're very common. I can't believe you can't get them in the UK.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
I thought you might be an Antipodean . No, those jerry cans are not available in the UK. There are plenty of the UN approved water carriers, but none with taps.
There are some smaller capacity water carriers with fitted taps, but I can't get any information about internal pressure limits. Most of the water carriers over here have a tap fitted in the cap - they tend to pop out under pressure.
I am trying to fit Corny posts and dip tubes to a Jerry but have a problem with leaks when pressure testing.
Even cheap pressure barrels cost £30 (57NZ$) so it's worthwhile to investigate cheaper options.

 

[Bart Fleming]

I just finished a 1 week brew under pressure that came out very tasty.
My Jerry was pressurized to 1 bar (14psi). After 4 days fermentation I cold crashed it for a day, injected a gelatine fining using a 4 litre sprayer pressurized at a greater pressure- cold crashing another 2 days, and closed transferred to a second Jerry can .
Boom! It was perfect.

 

[Dutto]

I've been using 20 litre Jerry cans fitted with brass air compressor connections for ales and 8 litre sprayers for lagers, since they can handle greater pressure. 3 of these will satisfy a 5 gallon brew. The beauty of this is that each vessel can have a different bag of hops for dry hopping. Here's a schematic to show my setup. It's cheap and easy and the sprayers are HDPE, so should be food safe. Included is a DYI pressure release valve/gauge.

When using the 8 litre Spray Bottles do you modify or remove the air pumps? If so, how?