Questions about plastic bottles...

Hey folks,

I've started my first few batches of cider in 1 gallon glass carboys and am going to rack them to a few different containers now for clearing and mellowing now that fermentation is way over with.

I saved the bottles that I received the juice in. I have thick plastic 64 ounce Welch's bottles, regular plastic 'milk jug' type jugs and a few two liter Coke bottles. I plan on racking to these, tightening them up real well and letting them set for about six months in my cellar, opening up my fermenter for additional brew.

Would these bottles work, or would one type be better than the other? The plastic on the fruit juice bottles is thick and I get a really good seal. Any ideas?

How long has the cider been in the glass jugs? I would recommend that you just siphon the cider into whatever sanitized containers you have available, clean the glass jugs, and siphon the cider back into those jugs. If you want to brew more stuff, get more carboys! The issues I see are 1) even though you believe fermentation to be complete, there may be CO2 still coming out of the cider, and you will create a lot of pressue with sealed bottles; 2) aging for long periods of time in plastic may not be a great option.

Plastic is pretty oxygen permeable, too... I've heard of people using apple juice jugs to ferment the apfelwein, but I don't know how well they'd hold up for aging.

Thanks for the tips. I was hoping otherwise (my wife said no more brewing equipment for another two months plus I'm broke right now) but was worth a check.

Any other lesser expensive storage methods that might work? 1 gallon glass carboy/jugs have went up to around 9 dollars at my local brew store.

Go buy some cheap wine and make sangria or mulled wine for the holidays. Bingo, free carboy.

+1 on the cheap wine bottles. I snagged 2 empty 3L bottles of livingston from a party this weekend. I'm planning on using one as a secondary and one as storage for extra juice to add in secondary.
If I were you I would plan on using your glass carboys for secondary, and looking into the many free sources of plastic fermenters for primaries. ask big bakeries if they have extra buckets that they got fillings in, since there all ready food grade. (DO NOT get pickle or relish buckets though.) be imaginative, a TON of things can be used as fermenters if your handy with a few tools and have some whacky ideas. (Think Container Store also.)

jameswardpeterson said:

be imaginative, a TON of things can be used as fermenters if your handy with a few tools and have some whacky ideas. (Think Container Store also.)

Click to expand...

And then you can be like Heineken and claim your beer is special because it's "horizontally fermented," as though that actually means anything!