Using P.E.T. Bottles for Beer

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evolute99

evolute99

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I'm thinking about using plastic PET bottles for my home brews.

does anyone here have any experience with them?

Do they work?

and can you reuse the caps?

and anything else you would like to add about PET bottles would be great.

thanks
 
I use the PET 'longneck' style bottles, 500ML and amber coloured (basically a regular beer bottle but PET). I absolutely love them, no worries about breaking during capping or from dropping. Easy to test carbonation, you can re-use the caps 3 or 4 times.

The only real problem with them is that they don't come pre-filled with beer like when you're stocking up on glass bottles. :D
 
I travel by air occasionally, to visit family. I've had mixed results with crown capped glass bottles maintaining their seal when subjected to altitude and temperature and there is always the risk of breakage. I got some of the 1 liter PET bottles for my "traveling beer". As bradsul mentions they are a breeze to use. :rockin:
 
I've bottled a few batches in the plastic bottles that water comes in like Dasani or Aquafina. They work just fine..............when carbing is complete, you can feel how hard they have become.

Sometimes, the caps will bulge and look like they'll fly off. They don't fly off, but they look suspect.

Plastic bottles are OK.:ban:
 
I've never had a cap bulge on me, but I think it's because the caps I buy are the same ones used on pop bottles, they're designed to take much higher pressure than water (or even beer) bottles.
 
I use some of the 500ml PET bottles and they work great. But I never reuse the caps, because without the plastic safety lock below the treads they could come loose if stored a long time and loose their carbonation.

But if some of you reuse your caps...maybe I will on beers I am not going to store long.
 
sirjess said:
I use some of the 500ml PET bottles and they work great. But I never reuse the caps, because without the plastic safety lock below the treads they could come loose if stored a long time and loose their carbonation. But if some of you reuse your caps...maybe I will on beers I am not going to store long.
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That lock ring actually has nothing to do with keeping the cap secured, it's just a device to tell you that nobody has opened and tampered with a drink you've purchased (just like that pop-top on glass juice bottles etc). I snap those rings off before I use the caps for the first time because they're annoying to get off the bottles for next time.
 
duneman101 said:
I have been searching for this very answer all dang day... you guys are awesome.

one question though is that in wikipedia it says that it is a good barrier even for alcohol however says requires additional treatment.. under uses about 1/8 of the way down the page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate
Click to expand...

That is probably referring to straight alcohol (like rubbing or grain) People use standard PET all the time in fermenters and bottles. The relatively low alcohol content in beer is not a problem.
 
I have been using 16oz amber PET bottles for over a year and love them. I have reused the caps at least 6 times with zero problems. They carb great and have never had any seal problems. I have no desire to go back to glass.
 
Can anyone verify if there is a structural difference betwixt the PET water bottles and say the PET soda bottles? I just had a PET water bottle, for lack of a better term, queef off it's carbonation from under the cap. I heard it from a couple feet away. The pop bottles threading looks slightly more aggressive but that's just my .02 cents.

I suppose the other option is to get the amber colored PET bottles that HITE and Cass come in like mentioned by another poster. I'll admit I will feel guilty pouring beer down the sink but come on, it's HITE. You don't expect me to pour that in my mouth do ya?
 
The PET water bottles don't always have the same thread and don't hold as well as the standard "soda" bottle that shares the 2-liter bottle cap.

If you have that standard thread, you can also get a cap that lets you hook your ball-lock gas fitting to it and carbonate from your keg system CO2.

I WOULD NOT use them for long term MEAD (or beer), but not because of the alcohol, because PET is oxygen permeable. It's slow, but it gets through.

That being said, I have used them successfully with only a couple of failures where I didn't tighten the cap enough. I have naturally carbonated the beer in there and it's nice because there are all those little pockets around the base (of the 16oz coke anyway) that trap the yeast sediment.

They are GREAT for camping or anywhere that you don't want to risk glass or keg equipment.

+1 on the 6-use lifetime for the caps, the soft seal on the underside is usually toast by then.
 
I keg, but use 2 liter PET soda bottles to carry beer around and to sample at kegging.

So far, I have not had any issues. Unlike water bottles, soda bottles are made to hold pressure. If you put the cap on tight, they lose pressure very slowly.

If you have a keg setup, get a "carbonator cap". With that, you can re-pressurize any bottle at need.

That being said, I don't think I would use them for very long term storage. It may be a pain, but when you get down to it, nothing beats glass.
 
When you say you re-use the caps what exactly do you mean? I've just made my first batch ever (Coopers Kit) and already started a second. I bought extra caps as I never thought I could reuse them ?!?

When you first use them the bottom strip breaks off and stays on the bottle so when you re-use them do you just screw it on tight and forget about the fact that there is a piece missing?

Thanks.
 
The cap seals quite well around the threads on the neck, even though that ring piece is still old on the bottle. I've re-used them several times and have not yet had any leaks/issues.
 
Just snap those lock rings off. They have absolutely nothing to do with maintaining a seal on the bottle. They're tampering indicators so you know when you buy something in those bottles that it hasn't been opened.
 
I bottled some of my last batch in PET bottles on 12/14 and they are feeling quite a bit expanded on 12/23. The caps have a *slight* visual bulge... I was going to wait 2 weeks for a sample but I wonder, if they are ready early?

Some of you have said the caps can be re-used approximately 3-7 times. Is it easy to visually inspect the cap for damage before using it again? Or do you just put the cap on and apply pressure to the bottle in attempts to check for leakage?
 
I don't see any reason not to use these. PET or PEX might be a bit oxygen permble, but since your beer is under pressure, I can't see any O2 getting it's way in. I've heard of people reusing soda bottles for beer too. Sounds like it works fine.
 
I just used them for the first time, when I had about one quart of beer that wouldn't fit in the keg. So I used corn sugar to carb up the remaining bit in a 1 litre PET bottle, and drank it once the keg was empty.

One thing I would do differently, is pour out the entire bottle into another vessel, i.e. mason jar. I had two pours into a 16oz glass, the first was clear, the second had a lot of sediment. The bottles I was using had four wells in the base, and if you pour more than once, inevitably the yeast get stirred up.

Still tasted good though.:cross:
 
Nothing wrong with PET bottles at all. I've used the longneck style brown bottles for years. I've got a belgian dubbel that's over 2 years old right now and it tastes amazing.

They're unbreakable, you can re-use the caps, they can go where glass can't and you can do the old 'squeeze test'. I love them!
 
I have been re-using plastic PET bottles from miller lite and high-life cases to bottle up my cider batches, and soon to be beer batches... my friend gets cases past best-by dates for a few bucks :) cheaper than buying them empty.

Soaking them in warm water + oxiclean solution does wonders to take the labels off. I bought new caps from northernbrewer, and took off the safety rings (part that breaks off and stays on the bottle) per many HBT member instructions.

no complaints, when I accidently knock them off the counter, I don't have to clean up broken glass either :)
 
I've got a couple cases of the 500ml PET bottles I initially bought for making root beer, but ended up using some of the bottles for beer instead. Recently, I've found some of the beers are flat apparently due to a bad seal. Not sure what happened as the orange pop I ended up making turned out good. Haven't had any issues with under-carbing in glass bottles either. First time use on all the lids so far... I thought I had tightened the cap plenty.

edit: I have some orange pop & also the beers that are both over 1 yr old in these bottles. The pop seems fine, but the last few beers (Honey Bee Ale actually) I've tried, are a bit on the flat side. I do have a 12 pack of another batch of beer where I uses these bottles so I'll have to try one of those to see if I have the same problem there.
 
GearJammer said:
One thing I would do differently, is pour out the entire bottle into another vessel, i.e. mason jar. I had two pours into a 16oz glass, the first was clear, the second had a lot of sediment. The bottles I was using had four wells in the base, and if you pour more than once, inevitably the yeast get stirred up.

Still tasted good though.:cross:
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Been using them for a while and that's the only issue I have had. As long as you pour the whole bottle in one pour you can get almost all of it, but if you stop & re-start you stir up the lees from the bottle conditioning. That's why I stick with 12oz bottles. Recycled Dr. Pepper bottles make great ones, although since they're clear you do have to keep them in a dark place.
 
I've used plastic miller lite bottles for 3-4 5 gallon batches now and have previously thought that the caps would give way before the bottles but that has not been the case! A few of the plastic bottles after re-use have had strange issues with layer separation... After pouring a beer, I have squeezed the plastic bottle to find that it makes crackling noises, and I can see bubbling in the plastic similar to a cheap automotive tint job.... Has anyone else seen this? When this happens I throw the bottle away, but... it has me wondering if these are safe for re-use? Also... I have been using oxy-clean to remove the labels initially... this could be breaking down more than just the label....

I also am using glass bottles with a capper ... but I am a big believer in recycling so I am up for trying whatever works... I'm thinking now about trying the aluminum miller lite pint bottles...
 
For the caps, are you just reusing the cap that came with the bottle, on say, as soda bottle or are you buying new caps from a brew store? I was just looking at a cap off a one liter bottle and I didn't see any kind of seal, that's why I'm asking. Plus, it'd be nice to have some plastic bottle to take to places that don't allow glass. Thanks!

Kris
 
I just re-use the caps that come with them... it works fine... I have not had one go bad yet and some have been used 3-4 times. I'm still wondering though if these bottles are breaking down over time, or I just got a couple of sub-par quality bottles...
 
I have about 10 Mr Beer bottles- PET amber- with caps. I was really hesitant in using them. Will I get a different taste or flavor when using them? I know this thread was started around 4 years ago- is anybody using these Mr Beer PET bottles for bottling?
 
mikemet said:
I have about 10 Mr Beer bottles- PET amber- with caps. I was really hesitant in using them. Will I get a different taste or flavor when using them? I know this thread was started around 4 years ago- is anybody using these Mr Beer PET bottles for bottling?
Click to expand...

There are no issues with using PET bottles. I ferment in PET bottles, and use PET bottles to carry beer around.

My sons had a rootbeer kit that uses those amber liter bottles. When they were finished, I took the bottles, washed them out, and have been using them ever since.

:mug:
 
I have 45 of the Cooper's 740ml (25.16oz) PET bottles. They also have a coating on the inside to help prevent oxygenation. Cooper's said that their PET bottles are good for up to 8 months. Any long term aging,& they recommend glass bottles. Just get the lids screwed on really tight though. You'd be surprised how tight they need to be screwed down. But they work great,& give two 12oz glasses each. And the lugs at the bottom of the bottles are great for holding the yeast dregs.
 
Great thread, guys. :tank:

I just ordered two cases of the PET beer bottles and caps for my first batch of bitters. If nothing else I won't have to worry about bottle bombs. :eek:

Rick
 
I just got a set of the mr beer 500 ml ones from a secret santa thing I did, so I will be using these in the near future on my Stout.

Thanks for the thread!
 

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