Better-Bottle vs. Glass

I have found many staters kits with this Better-Bottle Carboy but really can't find any benefits on using this carboy over a glass carboy. I see that there is quite a price difference between the two and just can't find a reason. I see that the Better-Bottle comes with a spigot (most of the time) and maight be easier to carry/clean... but is that it?

I have done enough research to know that a glass carboy is better than a classic plastic tub for it can hold germs, bacteria and what not but would this be the same argument for a better-bottle?

Two major points:
Better bottle is lighter and won't break into a million tendon severing shards.
The rest is moot.

I love Better Bottles- they are just like glass carboys but lighter and unbreakable! I wouldn't spend the extra money on the spigots (I've had trouble with mine- VERY slow transfers) but I would recommend buying them instead of glass if you're concerned about weight and breakage. A full 6 gallon carboy is heavy. A full glass carboy is even heavier! I had a friend slice her wrist by dropping a 6.5 gallon carboy on her sink, and she needed many stitches to stop the bleeding.

Glass is nice- it lasts forever if you don't break it. But for safety, I like the Better Bottles.

northernlad said:

Two major points:
Better bottle is lighter and won't break into a million tendon severing shards.
The rest is moot.

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Just out of curiosity. Aside from dropping a glass carboy, what would/could cause a glass carboy to break and shatter?

JJPicardo said:

Just out of curiosity. Aside from dropping a glass carboy, what would/could cause a glass carboy to break and shatter?

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Every large swing in temperature, every bump or knock, picking it up by the handle when full, and age.
From the moment it has cooled at the factory, glass is looking for the right moment to give up on you.

JJPicardo said:

Just out of curiosity. Aside from dropping a glass carboy, what would/could cause a glass carboy to break and shatter?

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Hot temperatures- pouring boiling water into it, or even hot water from the tap for cleaning. Bumping it gently- then without warning 6 months later it might explode.

Ok,
So far I see the safety importance of a better-bottle, But now the argument of Glass vs. plastic, would the better-bottle fester/hold bacteria or germs more so than glass?

YooperBrew said:

Hot temperatures- pouring boiling water into it, or even hot water from the tap for cleaning. Bumping it gently- then without warning 6 months later it might explode.

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So is it simply inevitable then that a 6.5 gallon glass carboy will eventually break?

ChiN8 said:

Ok,
So far I see the safety importance of a better-bottle, But now the argument of Glass vs. plastic, would the better-bottle fester/hold bacteria or germs more so than glass?

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If you dumped some sand and shook it around to gouge the surface then maybe yes. Otherwise proper sanitation will render this a moot point too.

I like my better bottle because I don't have to be gentle with it. I can bang it down on the counter or bump into things and not have to worry.

I got my stock of glass carboys a long time before Better Bottles were invented.
I will concede that Better Bottles are lighter and much less likely to break, but for me, the biggest problem with them is they don't come in the 6.5g size which is what I use almost all the time.

-a.

JJPicardo said:

So is it simply inevitable then that a 6.5 gallon glass carboy will eventually break?

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Oh, no! I have many carboys that have never broken. It's not inevitable at all! Just keep them safe by not putting hot water into it (even for cleaning- tepid is fine), don't bump them or drop them, and be careful when moving them.

glass carboys are awesome plain and simple. someday i'll prolly do the better bottle thing, but being new, i had to have a glass carboy anytime i move it it stays in its milk crate.

I just ordered a 6 gallon better bottle. What could I expect in differences with using a carboy vs 6.5 gallon bucket

I like glass carboys for the same reason I like oak barrels. It just feels classic to me. They continue to upgrade the look of glass carboys and 50 years from now you could find yourself brewing in an antique. I've seen old glass carboys in antique shops and thought "Man, how cool would it have been to brew in that?" I don't get that from plastic. The same reason I prefer a solid wood table over cork-board tables.

I know how awesome people will say plastic ones are, and I don't disagree. I just thought I'd show you the positive of glass. Just make sure if you go glass, invest in a carboy handle and I always set it on a towel. It keeps it from scratching up things like a granite counter-top and "hammering" the glass when you set it down.

Teromous said:

I like glass carboys for the same reason I like oak barrels. It just feels classic to me. They continue to upgrade the look of glass carboys and 50 years from now you could find yourself brewing in an antique. I've seen old glass carboys in antique shops and thought "Man, how cool would it have been to brew in that?" I don't get that from plastic. The same reason I prefer a solid wood table over cork-board tables.

I know how awesome people will say plastic ones are, and I don't disagree. I just thought I'd show you the positive of glass. Just make sure if you go glass, invest in a carboy handle and I always set it on a towel. It keeps it from scratching up things like a granite counter-top and "hammering" the glass when you set it down.

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I HATE glass carboys (I have broken one, and it was a true disaster). They are NOT cheaper than a Better Bottle, which come in 6 gallon sizes.

Read some of these horror stories and decide for yourself.

http://brewing.lustreking.com/articles/brokencarboys.html
http://forums.morebeer.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=25146&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I have mostly glass, but one 6 gal better bottle with spigot. I love it, with the following exceptions:

• My standard 3/8 tubing doesn't fit in/on the spigot for siphoning. I had to cut a short length of 3/8 copper flex pipe, wrap teflon tape around the tip, and shove that into the end of the spigot to put the 3/8 tubing on. It works now, but whatever bozo that designed it should be spanked with moon rocks.
• You can't put liquids over 140F them. If your chiller fails you, you don't have the option of cooling the beer in the carboy (YMMV).
• When you pick up the better bottle by the neck, with beer in it and an airlock on it, it elongates the bottle, drawing in air from outside -meaning your fermlock water and some ambient air will get on to your beer. I solved this by putting a solid stopper on it before I pick it up now.

Other than that, I totally love it. It's easy to pack away since it's light, flexible, and not breakable. I don't notice any off flavors, be it from plastic or from nasties.

I say go with better bottle.

TB

When I was deciding what to get I browsed these forums and cringed at all the tendon slicing, body mangling horror stories.

I promptly ordered my better bottle.

I like the better bottle so far but I really can't compare since I was too chicken to try glass.

I have both and like the better bottle the most , it is just easier to use. I just did the orange hefeweizen and with the larger neck opening I could easily put the bag of oranges into it for fermentation and get it out when finished. My glass one I would not have tried that.

I prefer glass. When I pick up a better bottle it flexes, sucking in stuff from the airlock, and making the beer move more, mixing up the trub and mixing krausen back into the beer.

Glass has no chance of scratching and I can tell that it is in fact clean without a doubt. Better bottles aren't perfectly clear, there's a plastic sheen.

Ya glass could break, but 1) don't drop the thing, 2) don't pick it up by the neck alone, 3) don't put super hot stuff in it.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/i-just-dropped-my-carboy-outside-172122/

And I dragged it across the porch towards me! All good, oh yeah! (Quagmire's voice) But I did buy one of those blue carboy handle things to make it easier, you just can't have the airlock on it when you use it....im drunk

I chose to buy better bottles for a few reasons. They were considerably cheaper than glass at the shop I went to, they're less likely to break, and they're a lot lighter. The only thing I don't like is the flexing, Moving the bottle around causes air to go in and out the top and that can mess with the airlock.

i have a glass carboy and a better bottle...i got the glass one after the BB...i find that the glass is much easier to clean...and with the BB i noticed that the smell from the iodophore doesn't completely come out...and i know i'm not using too much...with the glass, after it's cleaned i smell nothing...

just be careful with the glass...temps and transport...don't try to pick it up with wet hands...someone mentioned using a milk crate for moving it, which is very smart!

I find cleaning the BB easer than glass because I can pick it up and shake the hell out of it without fear of it exploding if I drop it. I feel like I've got to handle my glass carboy with kid gloves.

The glass-vs-better bottle debate has been done to death. Nobody's mind is going to get changed and all that happens is hard feelings get created between the staunch defenders of one vs. the other.

Time to sticky a pro-vs-con of better bottles thread and kill the weekly threads on THE HORRIBLE DANGERS OF GLASS CARBOYS!!!!!!!

They've just gotten too tiresome.

osagedr said:

The glass-vs-better bottle debate has been done to death. Nobody's mind is going to get changed and all that happens is hard feelings get created between the staunch defenders of one vs. the other.

Time to sticky a pro-vs-con of better bottles thread and kill the weekly threads on THE HORRIBLE DANGERS OF GLASS CARBOYS!!!!!!!

They've just gotten too tiresome.

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Being a new brewer, I've been persuaded to ditch the 6.5 gallon glass carboy that came with my K6 kit, and move to better bottles. I just ordered four 6 gallon better bottles from Midwest supplies. Add 4 rubber stoppers and 4 airlocks and shipping and I'm getting all of this for under $120.00. Not a bad deal. Thanks for all of the insight.

I recently switched from glass to BB. I had been thinking about it for a while. My son came over to help me one day, and he picked up a carboy full of wort. I had it in strapping. As he picked it up, I saw that the strap had slipped. Before I could get any words out of my mouth, the carboy fell and smashed. No injuries, but an hour-long cleanup. When I called BB to order, the guy said I got lucky, "Think 6 gallons of Merlot on parquet flooring on the 8th story of an apartment."

I bought spigotless BBs and dumped my remaining glass carboy.

I'm very satisfied. I love the BB website and their whole product line.

I can see how not having a 6.5 gallon BB is a problem for those who brew 6 gallons and only use a one-step fermentation, because without headspace in the carboy you get a lot of blowoff. I purchased the 2.5 gallon BB so that I can split a batch as needed.

As for contamination via suck-back through the airlock, just buy the BB drytrap airlock.

I'm very happy with the lightness of the BB. It makes lifting and cleaning much easier. I guess it would be great if they were as scratch-resistant as glass. But I carefully use a brush with a cotton-fiber head to scrub off residue.

Here we go again.

I'm squarely in the BB camp. That's all I'm going to say.

lcasanova said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/i-just-dropped-my-carboy-outside-172122/

And I dragged it across the porch towards me! All good, oh yeah! (Quagmire's voice) But I did buy one of those blue carboy handle things to make it easier, you just can't have the airlock on it when you use it....im drunk

Click to expand...

Just don't depend on that blue handle. Because the plastic flexes with the weight of 5-6 gallons of wort, it can slip right out. I was carrying a full BB down my basement stairs when it slipped through the handle and somersaulted down the stairs, spewing wort the whole way.

I only lost about a gallon, but what was left was well aerated after all that activity!!

Yeah, thanks for that warning about the blue handle. I read it in another thread, and immediately switched to the red handles. The BB website does mention the problem, but it's in pretty fine print.

ChiN8 said:

I have found many staters kits with this Better-Bottle Carboy but really can't find any benefits on using this carboy over a glass carboy.

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Some notes on carboys:

Better Bottles are a bear to clean. I know, you just fill them with oxyclean and everything comes off like magic, but maybe they forgot to include the magic in my box of oxyclean. I made a sponge on a metal arm to get the krausen ring off and that works OK, but it's still not as easy as a regular glass fermentor/brush.

Better Bottles will suck water in back through the airlock if you pick them up when they are full. The bottle flexes, the volume changes, and blurp.

Better Bottles have issues with hot wort. Not a big deal for me when I do all grain (since it's down around 70F by the time I dump it in the fermentor) but I always worry when I pour somewhat-hot extract wort into cold water in the Better Bottles. No problems yet tho.

Glass bottles can break and are harder to hold when wet. So far I've dropped one 6.5gal when full (full of sanitizer not beer or wort fortunately) and it was pretty ugly.

I like the racking adapter just because it's one less thing to worry about; seems easier to sanitize a little length of tube instead of a siphon. But there's the external part of the racking adapter that can pick up germs between pitching and bottling time.

billvon said:

Some notes on carboys:

Better Bottles are a bear to clean. I know, you just fill them with oxyclean and everything comes off like magic, but maybe they forgot to include the magic in my box of oxyclean. I made a sponge on a metal arm to get the krausen ring off and that works OK, but it's still not as easy as a regular glass fermentor/brush.

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Rinse and shake with warm (not hot) water. At this point the only problem is dried krausen in the top/neck. Put about 1/4 cup of PBW (better than oxyclean IMO) in about a gallon of warm water. Invert the BB in a bowl of water in the sink. Wait an hour. Rinse. You now have a clean BB. No brush or sponge needed.

billvon said:

Better Bottles will suck water in back through the airlock if you pick them up when they are full. The bottle flexes, the volume changes, and blurp.

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Pick up with one hand on the bottom and one on the neck. It won't suck any airlock fluid that way. You have to be careful when you pick up a full BB or when you pick up a full glass carboy. It's just the consequences of messing this up that differ.

billvon said:

Better Bottles have issues with hot wort. Not a big deal for me when I do all grain (since it's down around 70F by the time I dump it in the fermentor) but I always worry when I pour somewhat-hot extract wort into cold water in the Better Bottles. No problems yet tho.

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Why would you put 140+ degree wort in a carboy? You might put hot water in to clean it, but you just need to stick to warm, but not hot, water.

Once again I like them both, A BB for fast fermenting brews and glass carboy for slow longer lagers. They both have there place.

YooperBrew said:

I love Better Bottles- they are just like glass carboys but lighter and unbreakable! I wouldn't spend the extra money on the spigots (I've had trouble with mine- VERY slow transfers) but I would recommend buying them instead of glass if you're concerned about weight and breakage. A full 6 gallon carboy is heavy. A full glass carboy is even heavier! I had a friend slice her wrist by dropping a 6.5 gallon carboy on her sink, and she needed many stitches to stop the bleeding.

Glass is nice- it lasts forever if you don't break it. But for safety, I like the Better Bottles.

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Good to know about the slow transfers with the spigot/valve thing. I went ahead and sprung for one of the dri-tap airlocks on my BB, but haven't gone the ported BB route. I don't think I will now!

From my view: There are two major drawbacks to each of them

BB: It's clear and it is only 6 gallons
Glass: It's clear and it can kill you if it breaks


I went from 3 Glass bottles to 3 Better Bottles to using 4 8 Gallon Vittles Vaults (US Plastics have them).

8 Gallon airtight HDPE #2 plastic that is certified FDA safe (granted government certification means alot less to me these days...but I'm trying to avoid politic talk...)


I find them quite easy to lift, can be easily stacked when not in use...and are making my plans of a Ferm Cabinet easier since they are more "normal" shaped. I just drilled out a hole in the top for a grommet and an airlock and they were brew ready.


Oh and did I mention they AREN'T clear?

JJPicardo said:

Being a new brewer, I've been persuaded to ditch the 6.5 gallon glass carboy that came with my K6 kit, and move to better bottles. I just ordered four 6 gallon better bottles from Midwest supplies. Add 4 rubber stoppers and 4 airlocks and shipping and I'm getting all of this for under $120.00. Not a bad deal. Thanks for all of the insight.

Click to expand...

wanna ship that glass carboy over to Texas?


I love glass carboys, old glass bottles, old 1/2 gallon and Gallon Glass jugs. SWMBO and I are always looking through the antique shops here in Huntsville and I'm always loooking for new stuff. Whether it's a crock wine bottle, or an old glass carboy, or even an old Crock Whiskey jug (which they wanted like $100 for! ridiculous! but this bad boy was easily five gallons), I'm all about the old school hancrafteds and glass. (although I do have two plastic water bottles from wal-mart that I am using to ferment some mead right now. as soon as I rack it, it's going to glass though.)

Someone stated that if you lift the Better Bottle by the bottom and the neck you can avoid the gurgle, airlock sucking thing. I 100% disagree with this. I bought a 6 gal BB after I broke my only glass carboy (no injuries) because I was intrigued by it's benefits. The only complaint I have is that no matter how you lift up the bottle, you could hold it in 4 places, you'll get a gurgle through the airlock. I've tried many different ways and they all cause the gurgle. I finally just resorted to shoving a solid stopper in the top when I move it. Really, I try not to move it as much as I can because I don't want to have to sanitize a stopper everytime I'm going to move it. The hot water thing is a concern but I used Oxyclean to clean mine and it cleaned up just fine (granted it was only used as a secondary fermenter).

I'm still on the fence about the Better Bottles. If they didn't burb I think they'd be a no-brainer. I want to get another fermenter but can't get past the burping problem but I don't want to sever my arms either. Maybe the answer is to always use the carboy straps or milk cartons (I never used those).

My $.02

JayInJersey said:

From my view: There are two major drawbacks to each of them

BB: It's clear and it is only 6 gallons
Glass: It's clear and it can kill you if it breaks


I went from 3 Glass bottles to 3 Better Bottles to using 4 8 Gallon Vittles Vaults (US Plastics have them).

8 Gallon airtight HDPE #2 plastic that is certified FDA safe (granted government certification means alot less to me these days...but I'm trying to avoid politic talk...)


I find them quite easy to lift, can be easily stacked when not in use...and are making my plans of a Ferm Cabinet easier since they are more "normal" shaped. I just drilled out a hole in the top for a grommet and an airlock and they were brew ready.


Oh and did I mention they AREN'T clear?

Click to expand...

These bottles,
Are you/Did you encounter any problems as many of the BB users are with the air being sucked through the stopper when lifted due to the stretching effect?

ChiN8 said:

These bottles,
Are you/Did you encounter any problems as many of the BB users are with the air being sucked through the stopper when lifted due to the stretching effect?

Click to expand...

This problem is so easily avoided that I don't even consider it a problem. Just pull the airlock when you move it. You really shouldn't have to move a carboy except when you put it in a fermentation chamber, and when you remove it to bottle. Both times it isn't a big deal to pull the airlock.

jldc said:

Put about 1/4 cup of PBW (better than oxyclean IMO) in about a gallon of warm water. Invert the BB in a bowl of water in the sink. Wait an hour. Rinse. You now have a clean BB. No brush or sponge needed.

Click to expand...

I've tried that with Oxyclean (the invert the bottle thing) but I'll give it a shot with PBW - thanks for the tip.

Pick up with one hand on the bottom and one on the neck. It won't suck any airlock fluid that way.

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When I pick it up by the neck it sucks air (often airlock water as well) in. When I pick it up like a glass carboy (hugging it) it blows air out, then sucks it back in when I set it down again. When I put my hand under it as I lift it sorta does both. I haven't tried that carboy-carrier-strap thing yet; I may try that next to see what that does.

I think the flexibility of the plastic will always allow some volume change, especially when handling it when full. But I also don't think it's a big deal since a little air (or even sanitizer) in the beer isn't the end of the world. I do make sure I use iodophor + water in the Better Bottle airlocks though.

Why would you put 140+ degree wort in a carboy? You might put hot water in to clean it, but you just need to stick to warm, but not hot, water.

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For me, because 2gal of 140F wort plus 3gal of cold water will give me about 75F, which seems to work well for a pitching temp when making extract beers. It's not a big deal to cool it longer to get the temp down, it's just something I have to watch for with plastic fermentors. The last extract batch I did with a BB I cooled down to 100F first (gave me about a 68deg final temp.)

passedpawn said:

This problem is so easily avoided that I don't even consider it a problem. Just pull the airlock when you move it. You really shouldn't have to move a carboy except when you put it in a fermentation chamber, and when you remove it to bottle. Both times it isn't a big deal to pull the airlock.

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Yeah. After I fill it, I put the sanitized stopper in, move it into the basement, and put in the sanitized airlock. When it's done and ready to be emptied, I pull the airlock, move it to where I'm going to siphon from, and siphon. I've never seen a need to move it around in the interim--if I did need to, I'd pull the airlock, move it, give the airlock a quick spraydown with the Starsan bottle, and put it back in.