Ported Better Bottles

I am trying to assemble my gear in preparation for my first brew and have looked at the "ported" Better Bottles, available from a variety of online vendors.

I have a couple of questions with respect to these:

1) It seems that if I were to purchase two of these (one for primary and one for secondary), racking to secondary and subsequently to a bottling bucket becomes a lot easier and simply a matter of attaching a piece of sanitized tubing to the spigot. Is that correct? Are there other advantages/disadvantages that I am not seeing?

2) Is there any reason why this kind of setup isn't appropriate for a beginning brewer? I'd like top invest in good equipment up front, as opposed to having to buy the right equipment later.

Thanks in advance for any help on this!

-Matt

One problem you might encounter is the spigot clogging up from all the yeast and trub material. So I would say get the spigot only on the secondary, where there shouldn't be too much yeast and you can bottle/keg directly out of it.

Get the spigot on both, you can adjust it to siphon above the trub. So, to answer your questions;

1) Yes, no more "racking"

2) No, this makes it even easier for a beginner.

From a happy Better Bottle user.

One disadvantage is sanitization. Anything that provides nooks and crannies makes it more difficult to sanitize. Be sure to either cover the valve up with sterile foil so when you go to transfer it is still sanitary or spritz it real well inside and out with star san or iodophor before you transfer.

A second is they do allow some oxygen transfer which is noticeable if you leave a beer to condition for a long time (6 months). For most beers this is not an issue.

Got Trub? said:

One disadvantage is sanitization. Anything that provides nooks and crannies makes it more difficult to sanitize. Be sure to either cover the valve up with sterile foil so when you go to transfer it is still sanitary or spritz it real well inside and out with star san or iodophor before you transfer.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...given that the idea of sanitization is kinda freaking me out a bit (again, never brewed before...sanitization seems a bit difficult to me at this point and beer seems easy to wreck), it seems like a simple better bottle and an automatic siphon might be the better way to go.

I'm just looking for the setup that (i) is the newbiest-friendly while (ii) continuing to be a setup that I can use for a while. I am more concerned about getting the "right" setup/gear than scrimping on cost.

Thoughts?

In my opinion, unless cost is REALLY not an object at all, you're probably better off getting plain better bottles, and investing the extra money in other brewing equipment instead. Based on northern brewer prices, the ported bottles themselves are $27, but then you have to spend $31 for the racking adapter and valve. Using an autosiphon is easy enough, and you don't have to worry about keeping the valve area sanitized during fermentation.

I certainly think they'd be rather neat to have, but $31 extra per carboy is really hard to justify against a $9 autosiphon, especially if you keep two or three (or more) carboys around.

I bought the ported BB about a year or so ago. I love the BB but don't love the ported thing. I thought it would be great, but the "high flow" valve isn't and it takes forever to rack through it. I now just rack the regular way, with a siphon. Maybe if I had co2 to push it through it would be better, but I think it was a waste of $30. I never, ever, use the ported part any more.

I too don't feel like trying to sanitize the insides of the spigot when its time to rack. MUCH easier to sanitize a cane/auto-siphon and some tubing.

It sounds like the non-ported variety is the better choice given all the considerations outlined above.

An additional question...

Are people using the 6 gallon bottles for primaries and 5 gallons for secondary, 5's across the board, 6's across the board? I only ask because I notice that Northern Brewer seems to stock the 6 gallon bottles while AHS does not. I was wondering that was just a difference in inventory, or reflective of a difference in philosophy...

As always, thanks for helping out a newbie.

Good brewing,
Matt

Some people are concerned about oxygen getting into the clearing bottle, so they use a 5 gallon one. But, since there is CO2 in the fermented beer and some of it comes out of solution during the racking process, there should be a blanket of CO2 on the beer.

+1 for non-ported. It is just too east to use a auto-siphon and hold it just where I want it. That way I can tilt it a few hours before to get just the most out of my beer without the yeast cake.

6 for primary, 5 for secondary. Pretty standard.

And don't buy a carboy brush to clean. It will scratch them. Use oxyclean and soak overnight after the brew. O...also...get the 5 gallon carboy caps instead of bungs and airlocks (5 gallon caps fit on both size bb's). Cheap and no worrying about dropping the stopper into wort.

6 for primary, 5 for secondary. Check out brewbyu.com in New Hampshire. $20 and $17 each respectively and shipping should be cheap to Boston. I'm just a happy customer cuz no one comes near those prices.

I HATE carboy caps now that I've used them for a year. First, they don't seal on better bottles well at all. Second, the upright tubes get lazy and slump over from the weight of the airlock after a while. I'd stick with stoppers. I also found that the water bottle caps fit them really tightly too so you can score a bunch from the office and drill them out.

I'm a relative newb and have used the ported 5 and 6 gallon BB's from day one.

The spritz of sanitizer into the racking outlet and follow up with a q-tip and more sanitizer is all that is necessary to clean it out.

I use the BB closures with sanitized tubing and fittings. A dishpan with a gallon of Iodophor solution will be enough to sanitize everything. The no oxygen contact transfer is very easy to do. Before I bought a CO2 tank, I just used the small cartridges with a bike tire filler and an in-line HEPA filter. I purge the receiving bottle with the CO2 prior to starting the transfer. I gave up on the orange carboy caps. They just don't fit well at all.

As JnJ mentioned, the adjustable racking arm makes it very easy to drain just the beer and leave the yeast/trub behind. Another great feature of this is that you can the do a yeast wash and use the adjustable racking arm to pull just the yeast layer out. (A little external pressure through a HEPA filter helps here.)

Yes the transfer seems a bit slow, but the extra 10 minutes, I can live with.

I also bought the bottles from brewbyu. I think Midwest ended up having the best prices on closures and accessories.

I don't know that the long term oxygen permeability has ever been demonstrated to be a problem. A lot of people are using BB's for wine making and letting them sit for a year or more.

They cost a little bit more, but I see them as the single best expenditure in brewing gear that I have made.

6gallon primary 5gallon secondary. If you get the ported version make sure you fill them with water before racking to make sure the spigot does not leak. I lost about 1/2 a gallon on my first brew that way. If I were to do it again I would spend the extra $ on something else like a good brewpot for full boils, or a lagerater thermostat. Make sure you have a blowoff tube ready because six gallons is a little small for some fermentations. My first partial mash is blowing out the top right now. I use the PET o-ring closures and a ½ tube fits right in. Midwest is where I got my kit from and still seem to be about the best deal out there. DO NOT use a brush in them. OXY_CLEAN and a good rinse is all you need

And beer is pretty hard to screw up if you have done your homework. RDWHAHB