5 gallon "Culligan" bottles

Can you use 5 gallon culligan bottles in place of a glass carboy for a secondary? I guess it would be similar to a BB right?

Any advice or pointers? I have 4 of these floating around and I thought it may save me some cabbage from not having to buy more glass carboys right away.

I am anxious to make apfelwein and I was going to use one of my Culligan bottles if I get the thumbs up from the forum......

Thanks!!!!

The forum will tell you, don't risk it - not worth the chance to ruin 5 gallons of beer (or apfelwein) because you didn't want to spend a few buck on a carboy or better bottle.

I'm sure someone will say they have done it, and their beer came out fine. The trick is to check the type of plastic used, as O2 permiability is the important factor here.

Look for the recycling triangle with a number inside (should be stamped/embossed somehwere - probably on the bottom). If it's a #1, you're ok. Anything else and you're taking a chance. #7 is potentially the worst.

Yuri_Rage said:

Look for the recycling triangle with a number inside (should be stamped/embossed somehwere - probably on the bottom). If it's a #1, you're ok. Anything else and you're taking a chance. #7 is potentially the worst.

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Ditto that. You can also use #2 plastic, but try not to leave anything in it for more than, say, a month. Oxygen permeation will start to be a problem after that, and your plastic will start absorbing odors and flavors.

Guess it is a no-go..... All of them are stamped with #7. Thanks for the info.

I wasn't try to be cheap, I have the cash to buy carboys. I was trying to be "thrifty" and invent a little DIY carboy.

DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I've been making wine in those very same jugs for about eight years, and never, I repeat, never have had a problem.


USE THEM and RDWHAHB!:rockin:

I am not doubting you Jim, BUT can someone else give me some advice. I am hearing go for it----- and I am hearing not to go for it......

I think it comes down to, how long is the product going to be in the plastic, how long is the product going to be around once you package it (bottle it/keg it) and how long is it going to be around after that (how quickly will you drink it) and how sensitive are you to off-flavors?

The longer it is in the plastic, the more o2 can be absorbed - the greater the oxidation the longer it sits on the shelf.

If you are going to keep it in the plastic container for 2 weeks, then bottle and drink within a month, it will probably be fine.

Here's a link to another thread: <https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=25287>

It seems :

Water bottles ARE "food grade".

So far as O2 transmission, anything is better than the ubiquitous plastic bucket. But nobody complains about bad batch from the buckets.

NOBODY has ever brewed a bad batch that was blamed on a water bottle.

Even Better Bottles don't use tranmissibility as a sales tool.

Only downside of the water bottles is cleanability. with all those ribs formed in.

I have four 3 gallon PET carboys. I've been using them for a year. No issue whatsoever. Hell all my bottles are PET!

I got them all at Lowes for $4.99 each. The local grocery store has them for $4.49

Like it was stated earlier somewhere check the marking on the bottom before you buy.

http://www.earthodyssey.com/symbols.html

If you are skeptical go to the store and find yourself a sixer BMC bottles in plastic. It'll have this triangle "1" marking.

I'm sure that you could ferment in an old shoe if you sealed it up and sanitized it well enough, and you can get them for free at the GoodWill box!

The number <7> does not mean POISON DO NOT USE. It means "There is no demand to recycle this container". Except as a fermenter.

Sounds like a go then. I will give it a shot and hope for the best!!!! Hopefully I will not be telling you all a sob story in about a month!!!!

I plan to leave the brew in the culligan bottle 10-14 days. Just as a nornal secondary.

Wish me luck.

I have 2- 5G water bottles with the #1 in the triangle that I use occasionally. No problems at all, but my beer doesn't sit in them for longer than 2 weeks. If you use the top that comes with it, a 5/8 vinyl hose fits nicely in the hole in it for a blowoff tube.
I use "Sun" cleaner which is an O2 based cleaner like Oxyclean. Fill with hot water, add a scoop of Sun and let sit for a couple of hours. No scrubbing at all and all the gunk comes right out.

I should hotkey this: "#7 water bottles are Polycarbonate, same as a nalgene bottle."

pa-in-utah said:

Sounds like a go then. I will give it a shot and hope for the best!!!! Hopefully I will not be telling you all a sob story in about a month!!!!

I plan to leave the brew in the culligan bottle 10-14 days. Just as a nornal secondary.

Wish me luck.

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You don't need luck, it'll be fine.

Even if something goes bad - which is very unlikely - you can't be sure it was the bottle.0

Nevertheless, give it a shot, but I bet people will still want the 'official' brewing equipment.

Oh well.

Dennys Fine Consumptibles said:

I should hotkey this: "#7 water bottles are Polycarbonate, same as a nalgene bottle."

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From the link provided above: http://www.earthodyssey.com/symbols.html
#7 is other resins not specified by 1-6 or a mix of a 1-6 resin. So 7 could be a lot of things.

and for fun, nalgene bottle being destroyed: http://www.yikers.com/video_dry_ice_bomb_explodes_in_kids_hand.html

z987k said:

From the link provided above: http://www.earthodyssey.com/symbols.html
#7 is other resins not specified by 1-6 or a mix of a 1-6 resin. So 7 could be a lot of things.

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Yes, but I contacted a manufacturer of said water bottles and they are POLYCARBONATE.

Agh. No one listens any more on here. This topic has been rehashed more s since January than it has in the last 2 years.

Dennys Fine Consumptibles said:

Yes, but I contacted a manufacturer of said water bottles and they are POLYCARBONATE.

Agh. No one listens any more on here. This topic has been rehashed more s since January than it has in the last 2 years.

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I'm listening...

picked up a bottle at the grocery today, it was a "7"
had to go to wally-world and looked at culligans theirs is a "3" which is Polyvinyl chloride...
just adding posts...
Norm

So what is the verdict on Polyvinyl chloride? Is it usable?

neighbor had this for dispensing water for pet. Just wondering.

New to the forum (and to brewing) and curious about this post, as I have several Belmont Springs water bottles (7 stamped on the bottom in the recycle symbol).

I just brewed up a Dogfish 60 Clone that I picked up from Beer-Wine Hobby on Woburn and it says to dry hop after one week (or when finished gravity has been reached) after transfering to a secondary. Never done a secondary before and do not have a glass 5 gallon carboy. I do have an old 6 1/2 gal carboy that I am in the process of cleaning now (was used by my stepmother's father 30+ years ago for wine making)...

As I see it, I have 3 options:

1. Add hops after 1 week (or when FG has been reached) and leave it in the plastic bucket for another week or so.
2. Transfer to 6 1/2 gal glass carboy (after a good cleaning) and dry hop for a week.
3. Use the 5 gallon #7 Belmont water bottle for the secondary.

Any and ALL advice appriciated and let me know if this post should be moved to a different forum.

Thanks!
Todd

I'd go with the glass, after you clean it really well.

Don't be afraid to call the guys up at Beer-Wine. They're great.

I was kinda leaning towards the glass, but I wasn't sure about the extra room/air causing issues with oxidation. Would just be better off leaving it in the bucket? I could spring for a 5 gallon glass carboy, but I'm not sure how often I would use it. How many of you do a secondary condition? How often?

Greetings all,

I am a chemical engineer working for a very large chemical firm in the plastics field. I do not claim to be a end all expert, but you see my work every day and do not know it. There might be a doctorate holding professional here that specializes in nothing but PC manufacturing that could argue the finer details better than
I could.

As stated in the thread the bottles are made out of polycarbonate. Oxygen transmissions are of course dependent on time, temperature, thickness, and polymer structure. The most important thing to know is that you cannot group all polycarbonates into the same group for molecular structure design. There are grades that are very permeable and others are nearly the same as PET.

If you were to rank generically the plastic materials used most commonly for fermentation they would fall in this order.

1. PET
2. HDPE
3. PC

However most bottle water bottle manufacturers use a grade of PC with reduced oxygen permeation which would move it slightly behind PET. Not significantly worse in our standards. We expose our glorious liquids to more oxygen in handling then what migrates through the plastic. at least in the short term. I would not suggest a ten year aging process in a polycarbonate bottle, but that is not what most of us is trying to do here. Old beer is generally not thought as highly as old wine.

The biggest trade off for polycarbonate is its chemical resistance to cleaning agents. Which is is fairly poor at in performance. So simply every time you clean your bottle with a harsh agent you are degrading the properties slightly. So with time the effectiveness of the polymer decreases.

So all that to state, polycarbonate water bottles make for a fine short to medium term fermentation chamber, just watch the cleaning agents used.

Thanks for the advice! Still not sure what I am going to do for this batch...but I will probably experiment with the plastic "carboys" in the future...Thanks again!

Just rehashing a dead thread but what is the difference between PET and PETE?

bsjracing said:

Just rehashing a dead thread but what is the difference between PET and PETE?

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Nothing. They're just two different ways of saying the same thing.

Polyethylene terephthalate (sometimes written poly(ethylene terephthalate)), commonly abbreviated PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P...

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Wal-Mart "PRIMO" water jugs.
13 dollars 5 gal filled sealed with water has a unique handle that is on the outside and does not have that inside tube handle part that is hard to clean. Stamped triangle #1.
I'm going to try it and use it as a secondary for my IPA that is fermenting.