Mountain Dew Bottles?

I've seen some questions touching this topic, but didn't seem to get a definitive answer one way or the other, so here goes:

I drink a good bit of Diet Mountain Dew. The 6 packs I buy come in 24 oz. PETE plastic bottles. It seems to me that these bottles are built to withstand the same (if not greater) pressure as a beer will exert when fully carbed. If I don't store my bottles in a lighted area (who does, anyway?), what's the harm in using these bottles? I would only use them 1 time after I've had the Mountain Dew in them (I think I've seen that re-using the caps could be problematic), plus wouldn't it be a good indication about the relative carbonation of the beer, i.e., if it's tight and hard, it's carbed?

Thanks!

I use 1l and 2l green plastic bottles for sameday travel, like growlers, with a much more incognito appearance. For all else, kegs or brown glass.

Remember light hurts beer and green isn't resistant.

I use rootbeer and cream soda PET bottles sometimes. Looks tacky but tastes fine. Clean them well to avoid the soda taste.

Carbonator Cap

allow you to pressurize or forcecarbonate in those PET bottles if you have a ball lock keg system. A couple guys in my homebrew club use these to bring beer to parties. I throw a couple growlers in a cooler.

I think your first problem is drinking diet mt dew. I certainly wouldn't put the handmade fruits of my labor into a bottle like that.

So, it's a go as long as I soak them in sanitizer for a while to get rid of any soda taste?

Thanks!

And Mtn. Dew is just fine, thank you.

MBM30075 said:

So, it's a go as long as I soak them in sanitizer for a while to get rid of any soda taste?

Thanks!

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I would soak them in Oxiclean to get rid of the soda, then sanitize before filling.

Alot of people confuse Sanitizing and cleaning, they are 2 steps.

I have seen 1/2 L bottles of soda on the shelves at the grocery store (Pink is the new Black, and .5L is the new 20 oz... ). I have seen .5L PET bottles (empty) for sale at the LHBS. Brown, w/out caps.

The LHBS .5L bottles run from 80 cents to about a buck per bottle. The soda is on sale for the next month, and the .5L bottles cost 33 cents, with a cap. You have to remove your own labels. Now if I could only find a way to get rid of the Mtn Dew... ;-)

Seriously, I took some six packs in to work and offered them up for anyone to drink and return the empties... nobody wanted Mtn Dew. Dang, and those were the ones I wanted to put cider in. Oh well.

I use 20oz, 1L and 2L PET soda bottles all the time. When I keg, I draw off the first beer into a 2L bottle. This catches that first bit of yeast and lets me do a force carb for a taste.

For Cinco De Mayo, I used six Diet Mt. Dew bottles to smuggle beer around in public. Normally, I peel off the labels, but left those on for the disguise. They worked GREAT, and I'm going to use them again next week for camping.

I just set the CO2 to 5 psi and fill away. Zap them with the carbonator cap if needed.

To get the soda smell out, rinse them, then put in a little oxyclean, fill with warm water, and let them sit overnight, cap down (the most smell tends to be in the cap). Rinse well and you are ready to fill.

Diet Mountain Dew is delicious -- tastes as close to the original as any diet drink -- I love it too.

Stevorino said:

Diet Mountain Dew is delicious -- tastes as close to the original as any diet drink -- I love it too.

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"They" say that the aspartame in Diet Dew helps shut down your metabolism and you'd be better off just having the straight sugar stuff in moderation if on a diet.

Or none of the soda at all. :cross:

"Or none of the soda at all. "

That would mean that you'd have to find something else to drink! Personally, I thnk that making (and drinking) cider is "green" and good for progress! It's good for the economy, you consume goods, local (?) farmers make money, the carbon footprint is small, there's little in the form of power requirements, no harse chemicals, you are encouraged to reuse/recycle, you consume natural products, fermentation is an efficient process (large amounts of carbs are converted into a smaller amount of higher-energy carbs), etc.

So, for the good of America, drink Cider!

Oh, and, I've been bringing in the .5L sodas and trying to give them away (er, and get bottles back), and one person recommended that the sweetener in soda would be good for my lawn/trees... what do you make of that?

JoeSponge said:

Now if I could only find a way to get rid of the Mtn Dew... ;-)

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pour the bottles into an empty cornie...add some CO2 and you have Mtn Dew on tap LOL

I finally started drinking the Barleywine that was in the Diet Dew bottles, and it tastes exactly the same as the brown glass bottle versions.

The only difference is that I wasn't at all worried about the plastic bottles breaking in the cooler we lugged upstate to a cabin. Not that the other (glass) bottles worried me much, but still, a little bit more peace of mind.

Anyway, the test was a success!