Plastic Bottles

[Hopperty]

Is there any issues in using plastic bottles ?

I quite fancy using 1 litre lemonade bottles; would only have to fill 20 bottles which is only half the work, also could pre clean them and store them full of a weak sterilising fluid, then on bottling day they would just need rinsed out.
Always seems daft using 500ml bottles as I'm never just going to have one!

Would they be strong enough ? they seem pretty tough, this is a 2 litre one I tested out the night - must be a bit of pressure in that?

 

[terrym]

I use PET bottles. One litre supermarket soda or tonic water bottles (e.g. £2 for 6 from Tesco) are fine. When they get a bit tatty I chuck em out and replace them. But store any clear PET bottles out of light, in particular sunlight or UV light. You will also need a one litre jug into which you pour your beer prior to serving. I use one from Wilko like this https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-functional-glass-jug-1l/p/0316128.
And two advantages of using PET bottles are first you can easily tell how carbing is progressing, and second and importantly you can squeeze most of the air out after they have been filled and with it oxygen, but they soon recover their original shape when carbing is done,

 

[Rodcx500z]

Sounds like a plan

 

[RichardM]

I use PET bottles. One litre supermarket soda or tonic water bottles (e.g. £2 for 6 from Tesco) are fine. When they get a bit tatty I chuck em out and replace them. But store any clear PET bottles out of light, in particular sunlight or UV light. You will also need a one litre jug into which you pour your beer prior to serving. I use one from Wilko like this https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-functional-glass-jug-1l/p/0316128.
And two advantages of using PET bottles are first you can easily tell how carbing is progressing, and second and importantly you can squeeze most of the air out after they have been filled and with it oxygen, but they soon recover their original shape when carbing is done,

Why do you need the jug for serving?

 

[terrym]

Why do you need the jug for serving?

You will get a layer of yeast at the bottom of the bottles after carbing/conditioning. If you decant the beer from the bottle into the jug you will leave the yeasty dregs in the bottle. And then you have clear beer to serve from the jug. Unless of course you drink from a one litre glass in which case you can miss out the jug

 

[Hopperty]

I'm on the dark stout, so if there is dregs I guess they just go down the neck with the rest of the beer. It's not harmful is it?

 

[terrym]

I'm on the dark stout, so if there is dregs I guess they just go down the neck with the rest of the beer. It's not harmful is it?

Its not harmful, but enough of it might make you flatulant , and there are some who say that too much yeast in your diet makes you prone to yeast infections like thrush.
Most folks seem to avoid pouring the yeasty dregs into their beer and drinking it, except perhaps for a wheat beer where it can be part of the style, but in the end of course its entirely up to you what you do.

 

[An Ankoù]

Why do you need the jug for serving?

I do the same as terrym. The wife drinks Perrier and the bottles are very sturdy and last for many refills. I hate the thought of throwing this plastic into the sea. With any bottled conditioned beer, you should empty the bottle with a single pour, leaving the yeast sediment behind in the bottle. Hence the jug. Bottled bitters and pale ales tend to be a bit over-conditioned anyway and this way you can get rid of the excess gas.
See post #2: squeezing the air out like this means you have zero head-space and so less opportunity for oxidation.

 

[MmmBeer]

Agree with what terrym said. I find that if I misjudge the pour and get yeast/sediment in the glass, it imparts a salty, almost sherbet taste to the beer. I try to stand and look down through the bottle as I pour, preferably onto a light surface, that way you can see the first of the dregs moving and know when to stop pouring.

 

[Llamaman]

I’ve used fizzy water bottles before and they work fine. As a precaution, I only use bottles that have previously held carbonated liquid (not still water).
In theory, the PET bottles designed for homebrew should be better (they are made of laminated plastic with an Ox-Bar layer), but these are pricier and come in limited sizes (Coopers are 500ml or 740ml).

I’m phasing out my glass bottles as I prefer PET. I might keep some 330ml glass bottles for long-aged beers (RIS basically) but everything else will be going into PET.

 

[Nicks90]

Funnily enough I am phasing out my pet bottles in favour of clear glass!
I prefer the look and feel of beer in a bottle and being clear, I can see how it's cleared and also keep an eye on the trub coming towards the neck.
(Beer is stored in a cellar so no UV Deg)
But I always do 5 or 6 pet on every brew for carb testing purposes.

 

[An Ankoù]

For me, glass is more elegant and PET is more convenient and gives you more control of the contents. At heart, I wish PETs had never been invented, when I think of the millions of them there must be in the seas, in landfill and in (so called) recycling. I keep my good lady's Perrier bottles and I've got far too many. I find it difficult to jettison something I know will outlive me by about a thousand years. We've really got to do something about disposable plastic. Look at this:
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...erials-that-no-one-wants-20190808-p52f2o.html
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...-of-recycler-skm-s-waste-20190809-p52fox.html
(I keep an eye on The Age because I spent my formative years at school in Geelong.)

 

[Rodj]

I keep my good lady's Perrier bottles

Are you sure that you don't keep them just to admire them, because they are the most beautiful thing in the world? (I'm sure someone said that, not long ago...)
Pray that your good lady is not reading this.

 

[foxy]

I was at a brew day with some chemical engineers, I asked them why water from artesian wells which is thousands of years old is put into PET bottles and suddenly has a use by date. One answered not quite immediately that it is the PET that has the use by date.
From a sister site, an answer from Coopers.

Response from Coopers:

"G’day Grahame,
Both PET and single-use glass bottles are porous, so beer stored in these bottles for an extended period of time (two years or more), will eventually oxidise and go flat. This is not a good result when you’ve put all that effort into brewing a big beer and waited patiently for two or three before opening one. Because heavier bottles such as our 750ml commercial ale bottles are much thicker, they will slow this process down considerably, allowing you to age Imperial Stouts and barley wines for years in cellar conditions.
Cheers, Frank."

Pretty sure glass isn't porous so it maybe the caps.

 

[An Ankoù]

Are you sure that you don't keep them just to admire them, because they are the most beautiful thing in the world? (I'm sure someone said that, not long ago...)
Pray that your good lady is not reading this.

... a thing of beauty and elegance, I think it was. A Perrier bottle, not a wrinkly old 25p for a litre-and-a-half type bottle from Lidl. And the plastic's much thicker on a Perrier.
It might be better for the planet if she did read this and stop buying bottled water!

 

[Alex.mc]

Pretty sure glass isn't porous so it maybe the caps.

Apparently it's the quality of the Seal in the metal cap that is the weak point. I think it was the Sierra Nevada brewery book I read where they had some issues with oxygen uptake in beer that had been shipped and stored and left a while before being sold. they worked out it was the cap seal failing over time, and did a lot of work to find a company that could improve the seal, which they did. the cost to the company was quite big in the short term to change, but paid off easily over time. Whilst they were brewing beer, bottling and selling it told be drunk quickly in the early days it wasn't an issue. Later when they were shipping around the world and beer could potentially be brewed, put in dock storage, shipped by container, sat in customs, distributed and stored for a while before being sold it suddenly became an issue.
I doubt the caps we purchase are of the highest quality, but none of my beer makes it past a couple of months at best usually.

 

[terrym]

@foxy
I'm sure there is some truth in your post above.
However on a practical homebrewing level
- most homebrewers don't keep beer for 2 or 3 years; but if they do I'm sure they would use glass
and
- as I said in this thread a few weeks back https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/constant-ruined-brews-oxidised.82752/ "I often wonder why people believe you can get gas diffusion going against a positive pressure or put simply why you can get atmospheric oxygen leaking into a pressurised beer bottle whether its PET or not. Its similar to water being unable to flow uphill. If the pressures are balanced that's different."
- and again "on a practical macro level the amount of oxygen that diffuses from outside into a pressurised beer bottle through a PET bottle wall or a rubber seal over the time that most homebrewers utilise, will be so small as to be insignificant, certainly in relation to the amount of oxygen that finds its way into the packaged beer through air entrainment, surface exposure, and importantly those few mls that are left in the headspace of a bottle after filling, which is something commercial brewers address, but is outside the capability of most homebrewers."
So reading through the many and varied threads on this subject since I joined here a few years back, the choice of whether you use PET (Coopers or recycled fizzy water bottles or whatever) or glass (used beer bottles whether swing tops or caps) comes down to any one or more of the following
- aesthetics and presentation
- whether you believe or feel you should believe the stuff about oxidation
- your views on minimising plastic
- practicality
- and possibly cost
As I have said before, I use mostly recycled PET bottles. They are fine. I don't detect any oxidation signs. And when they get a bit bashed up I chuck em out. Nor do I expect them to last forever for use as homebrew bottles.

 

[foxy]

Apparently it's the quality of the Seal in the metal cap that is the weak point. I think it was the Sierra Nevada brewery book I read where they had some issues with oxygen uptake in beer that had been shipped and stored and left a while before being sold. they worked out it was the cap seal failing over time, and did a lot of work to find a company that could improve the seal, which they did. the cost to the company was quite big in the short term to change, but paid off easily over time. Whilst they were brewing beer, bottling and selling it told be drunk quickly in the early days it wasn't an issue. Later when they were shipping around the world and beer could potentially be brewed, put in dock storage, shipped by container, sat in customs, distributed and stored for a while before being sold it suddenly became an issue.
I doubt the caps we purchase are of the highest quality, but none of my beer makes it past a couple of months at best usually.

Your right I saw the interview with Ken Grossman his 'Holy Grail' is to find the ultimate seal for the bottle caps.

 

[foxy]

@foxy
I'm sure there is some truth in your post above.
However on a practical homebrewing level
- most homebrewers don't keep beer for 2 or 3 years; but if they do I'm sure they would use glass
and
- as I said in this thread a few weeks back https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/constant-ruined-brews-oxidised.82752/ "I often wonder why people believe you can get gas diffusion going against a positive pressure or put simply why you can get atmospheric oxygen leaking into a pressurised beer bottle whether its PET or not. Its similar to water being unable to flow uphill. If the pressures are balanced that's different."
- and again "on a practical macro level the amount of oxygen that diffuses from outside into a pressurised beer bottle through a PET bottle wall or a rubber seal over the time that most homebrewers utilise, will be so small as to be insignificant, certainly in relation to the amount of oxygen that finds its way into the packaged beer through air entrainment, surface exposure, and importantly those few mls that are left in the headspace of a bottle after filling, which is something commercial brewers address, but is outside the capability of most homebrewers."
So reading through the many and varied threads on this subject since I joined here a few years back, the choice of whether you use PET (Coopers or recycled fizzy water bottles or whatever) or glass (used beer bottles whether swing tops or caps) comes down to any one or more of the following
- aesthetics and presentation
- whether you believe or feel you should believe the stuff about oxidation
- your views on minimising plastic


- practicality
- and possibly cost
As I have said before, I use mostly recycled PET bottles. They are fine. I don't detect any oxidation signs. And when they get a bit bashed up I chuck em out. Nor do I expect them to last forever for use as homebrew bottles.

Don't shoot the messenger, I am just conveying what Coopers view is, if I use bottles I use glass and I do have Barley Wine over 3 years old kept in glass, no oxidation to report.