Plastic carboys.

[Wayne Havens]

I noticed at work they are about to throw out about 4 or 5 of the plastic water bottles for the water cooler. They are 5 gallons just like my glass carboys. Any thoughts on using these as fermenters? Can they be properly sanatized for this?

 

[vtfan99]

This goes back to the glass vs plastice debate. To sum up, plastic is safer (no breakage) but it can scratch easily, giving nasties a place to hide and making sanitation tougher. Also, it is not as impermeable to oxygen, so if you're in secondary for an extended period (think months) they're probably not a good idea.

 

[Sasquatch]

My worry would be the aperture size... does it take a standard bung/airlock assembly?

 

[vtfan99]

The company I work for has some of the bottles as well. At one point I thought about snagging a couple. The opening looks to be the same size as a glass carboy, so you shouldn't have any problems there.

 

[wshymas]

I have used one of the 5Gal. water jugs that i took from work, The hole on the top is bigger then the glass carboy and I almost ran out of room in the water jug.