would this work for a carboy

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RodfatherX

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So I was at Home Depot today and I say they had big 5 gallon bottles of spring water there like this
for $6 each.....would this make a good car boy?? I know that they are 5 gallons when filled to the top though but I figure heck for $6 I can use them for hard cider or wine.
 
This question comes up a lot...

From the Wiki:
http://homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Carboy
Another type is the inexpensive plastic carboys used for office water coolers. These carboys are usually easy to find at regular retail stores and are significantly less expensive than glass carboys or better bottles. However, these carboys can be made of any number of different types of plastic, and a homebrewer should identify the type and make sure it is suitable before attempting to use one as a fermenter. Looking at the recycling code on the bottom of the carboy, #1 plastic is PET (like the better bottle) and should be suitable for fermenter use. Other codes are less suitable, particularly #7 which represents "Other", and could thus be just about anything. Using a carboy made of unsuitable plastic may mean excessive oxygen permeability, and the plastic may be porous enough to allow it to stain and harbor odors and possibly infections. These carboys are also typically only available in a 5-gallon size or smaller, making them unsuitable for use as primary fermenters for 5-gallon batches as they have insufficient headspace for krausen.
Click to expand...
 
EDIT: You can ignore the rest of this post as I was misinformed. Silly media
 
There's several good threads already on here about it, most of them have details about which numbers are acceptable or not. Just use a search and you'll find all the info you'll need...I've posted a lot of data in several of them...

Despite all that you'll also find a lot of brewers who go ahead and use, for example, <7>'s anyway and their beers still turn out fine...It will ultimately be your call.
 
Eves said:
I believe #1 is not acceptable either. Supposedly its good for one use. After that you risk the plastic leaking bad stuff
Click to expand...
You can argue that point with the makers of the Better Bottle, which is also made of PET. Thousands of people use those (myself included) and I don't recall there being any kind of uproar about their safety. If you want to believe everything you read about plastics, you'd probably wind up having to give up every single plastic food-related item in your home.
 
Seems Better Bottles really do use PET (#1) plastic and they pose quite an argument as to its safety. Originally I thought they used some sort of variation of PET and thats what made them safe.
 
Hmm, I'll have to get one of these for my Apelfein (apologize if spelling is wrong). As for the suggestions about needing a larger container, just cut your recipe by 10-20% (ie 4-4.5 gallons) and you'll be fine.

But these appear to be a GREAT way to have cheap secondary containers for long-term aging. I have a 6.5 glass carboy primary and a 5.0 glass carboy for secondary. With 1 or 2 of these I could have several batches aging in secondary, or do a longterm cider/mead/etc. and not have to worry about being out a container.
 

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