P.E.T. Carboy

Well hello gang ....my first post here on homebrew....I made my first batch a month ago...(brewers best ) kit red ale...I must say , for a first timer...it turned out well....thankx to an old friend helping me.........anyway, I was looking at those new P.E.T. plastic carboys....but I am a bit skittish about my beer in plastic...I just seems......well.....wrong.....anybody have any feedback on using those carboys??....and a big hello from michigan.......Tom

Millions of gallons of beer have been brewed in them since their introduction. There's nothing wrong with them whatsoever....

Maybe you want to educate yourself instead of just having a bunch of pre-conceived notions based on ignorance.

Read through this.

And this;

Its hard to follw revvy with this simple responce but here it goes..

I have both a glass and PET carboy, i did the same batch of beer in each, didnt taste one difference

Forget about glass. It's too dangerous. Plastic or if you are rich = stainless steel.

I only use Better Bottles for all my batches. They're lightweight and easy to clean. Go for it.

My first Carboy was glass because thats what came with the kit, As I was washing it right after bottling my first batch it was wet and slipped out of my hand and sliced my fingertip down to the fatpad, giving my 3 stitches, now all my carboys are plastic

@tnsen
I have both. Yes the glass one can be more dangerous. I broke one by barely tapping two glass carboys together by accident. Little scary.
I have since made brew hauler straps for all 5 of my glass ones.
I wouldn't rely on a neck type handle. And I wouldn't walk around carrying it like a riffle either. If it decides to break, that would be bad news.
Having said that. I prefer using the glass ones. They don't flex like the plastic ones. And I like the stoppers for the glass ones better.
Welcome to the site. Lot's of great people here and information.

I use buckets, they work great; even if you drop em. Have also used PET water bottles, but you have to be careful about how they are rated (grades of PET). Hi back! from the great U.P. Cheers

Revvy said:

Millions of gallons of beer have been brewed in them since their introduction. There's nothing wrong with them whatsoever....

Maybe you want to educate yourself instead of just having a bunch of pre-conceived notions based on ignorance.

Read through this.

And this;

Click to expand...

Revvy uses the force to lock in on keywords like "plastic"

I started making wine in glass carboys but after one broke (i.e., practically exploded) I sold all of them and switched to the PET carboys that MoreBeer sells. They have nice smooth sides and are slightly thicker than Better Bottles. I age wine in them for 9-12 months with no problems whatsoever. I wouldn't blink an eye at the thought of brewing beer in them. I do carry them around in milk crates to keep them from flexing and sucking in water from the airlock.

I use milk crates too but I always use Vodka in the airlocks.

what about just using arrowhead 5 gallon bottles? any thoughts or anything on using them?

if it's had water/juice/etc in it, go for it. If it's had oil, don't.

Call/Email/Visit the local restraunts, candy shops, etc and ask them what they do with their food grade 5 gallon plastic buckets. These make perfect primary's. I have a ton of them and I typically use them and then rack into my 5 gallon "better bottles" as secondary or aging.

I spoke with Shea Comfort, a wine consultant that does a lot of yeast research for Lallemand, and he loves the plastic. In his research with Lallemand he has found no difference in the end product between glass and plastic. In fact, Better Bottles and such are hydrophobic and clean easier than glass, the water beads up and runs right off.

all plastics interact very slowly with their environment and contents. Glass does too but probably 100 or 1000 times slower. PET bottles definitely are fine for storage less than a few years meaning for any beer, but glass would be best for anything that might be in storage longer or improves with age on a multiple year timeline like wines. glass is safe for long term storage, we know wines from hundreds of years ago preserved in their glass bottles.

Another glass vs plastic thread...i vote glass.
-cheers

Well thankx for the replies...stay tuned for more stupid questions...as I am a noobie ....CHEERS.....TOM

Glass carboy and plastic bucket ftw.

tnsen said:

Well thankx for the replies...stay tuned for more stupid questions...as I am a noobie ....CHEERS.....TOM

Click to expand...

Muskegon huh? I used to get my buckets from the county jail there when I lived in GR. Check it out