Bottling for an event with no glass

[devianttouch]

I am beginning to prepare for two camping events this summer - one in June, and one in August. I would like to share some of my beverages (mead, fruit wines, cider, no beer) with my camping companions. The events do not allow glass on the grounds at all because bare feet and broken glass are a very bad combination.

I will be bringing a variety of drinks in small batches, so kegging is not an option.

Since these beverages will be shared with a bunch of people, I am thinking of bottling in 2-liter PET soda bottles - 1 bottle of each beverage. I'm not too worried about things not getting finished off in 1 or 2 nights at the most, so the size doesn't concern me much. I really DON'T want to use 20oz PET bottles because then people will think they get a whole bottle of 1 thing, instead of trying different things.

Is storing in 2 liter bottles for between 4 and 9 months going to be a problem? How far ahead can I bottle without worrying about oxygen getting through the bottles or other problems I may not be considering?

Can I re-use the original caps from these soda bottles, or am I supposed to get new caps? If I need new ones, where can I get those? The re-used caps have always seemed airtight to me.

Are there other options I should consider for bottling that I haven't thought of?

 

[oldstyle69]

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/1-gallon-cubitainer.htmlwith http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/tap-a-draft-dispenser.html will this work?

 

[glenn514]

From what I understand, soda is carbonated FAR beyond how we carbonate beer or sparkling cider. Therefore, bottling cider, wine or mead in 2 liter soda bottles should work out quite well.

I bottled some of Ed Wort's "Apfelwein" in 2 liter bottles, and reused the original cap with absolutely NO problems.

I definitely believe you are good to go!

glenn514

 

[JuanMoore]

Soda bottles work fine, but most of them are clear or green, so you'll want to make sure they stay in the dark. I wouldn't reuse rootbeer, Dr Pepper, Mr Pibb, etc unless you want your beer to have some of that flavor. The caps especially will hold flavors/odors, but you can buy new caps from many homebrew stores. You can also buy brown PET bottles from a lot of homebrew shops, but I'm not sure I've seen them in sizes larger than 1L.

 

[brewingmeister]

How about mini kegs?

If I were going to use 2 liters I'd keep them in secondary until just before the trip. They'll have less contact with plastic and age better in bulk.