5 gallon water bottles

I was at target yesterday and came across 5 gallon water bottles, would these work for fermenting? I would think they would be food grade.

I wouldn't use them. 5 gallons is too small for a primary, and for use as a secondary, they are made of polycarbonate plastic, which has a high oxygen permeability. Fine for water, but not for extended aging of beer. If they were made of PET or even HDPE they would be fine for use as a secondary.

any bottle will work just look on the bottm for the recycle code. you want a #1 inside the triangle and the word PETE under it. thats the same plastic as BBottles

Search is your friend; this gets covered about once a month it seems.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=33563
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=27398
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=25090

Thanks bradsul for the links...

Sorry about the reposting of the question... forgot about the search option.

I would think the handle would be a bear to clean if anything gets left in there.

I'm old school. I've heard a lot of horror stories, but I still use glass. Have for over 10 years and never had a problem. Well, except that time I let a 5 gallon carboy go for a few days and had a bitc* of a time getting it cleaned out.

My secret to using carboys, I put all of them in milk crates. Even made a little harness out of 1" webbing to provide handles. Haven't dropped one yet.

We'll see... I was short a carboy after my last 10 gallon batch, and I didn't want to drop $35 at my LHBS for carboy #7. I picked up a plastic culligan bottle from Walmart and put one batch in glass, one in plastic. I probably won't convert even if this trial is successful, as I have 20 gallons of wine to bottle this month and shouldn't run out of carboys again for a while. I will post my results in another week or so.