Glass vs Plastic?

Glass is the best to use. You can use plastic for short term, but it is not best to keep wine in plastic for more than a month. Most plastics are not completely impervious to air and they do allow oxidation over time. Also, with the higher alcohol level of wine (compared to say sodas or water), more organic substances from the plastics are leached out. I would generally not recommend aging in plastic at all. Primary fermentation and quick racking should be fine. I have noticed definite taste differences in wines stored in plastic vs glass.

Fermenting in plastic is not an issue. There would no difference versus glass except that the plastic bucket is much safer to handle and easier to clean. Wine does not leach organic substances from plastic that was designated for food contact use.

Long term storage is where plastics have problems. Using one month as the cut off is a bit shy and not based on any data I have ever seen. Six months is too long for most plastics. I wouldn't let unfermenting media sit in a plastic container for more than three months but that's just a subjective estimate between experience and data.

-Danno

That depends a bit on how accident prone you are.

Glass carboys are the gold standard for home winemaking, but they're heavy and subject to breakage - even if you're careful. Although I occasionally use glass for storing wine for topping, I prefer to use stainless steel kegs or gallon jugs.

I see winemakers use plastic water carboys for short term storage of wine, but I don't do that myself unless there is no alternative in an emergency, and then for only a short time.

Tom S

Many years ago, we did an experiment where a portion of our Merlot/Cab batch was left for several months in a 66 liter HDPE tank while the rest aged in glass carboys. We were actually hoping for some slow uptake to mimic the aging process in a barrel. Alas, we did not get anything of the sort. There was no noticeable difference between the plastic and glass aged wines. Admittedly, the capacity of the tank was almost certainly a factor. We could have seen very different results in plastic carboys of a size comparable to the glass. In any case, no harm came to the wine. That wine was a 94 vintage which puts it at about 9 years old now. It is still the finest wine in my cellar and shows no signs of falling off. Stupidly, most of it was drunk far too young. We have only a few bottles left. I need to make another red like that while I'm still likely to have enough years left to enjoy it.

BTW, it was made from Brehm grapes (well, frozen ones anyway).

Brian

There's nothing intrinsically inferior about frozen grapes. In fact, I can make a good case for frozen grapes being _superior_ to fresh. Most of the so-called "boutique" wineries cold soak their red musts prior to fermentation by dumping in mass quantities of dry ice.

BTW, was your Cabernet from Rutherford? If so, that would be the Allais Vineyard. I made Cabernet from that vineyard in 1986, 1987 & 1988. The

1986 was OK, but the other two were _superb_ - particularly the 1987.

I crushed a ton of the '87 and aged the same wine side by side in a new Radoux "chateau" barrel and a new A&K fire bent American barrel. I was interested in determining the difference between the two over time. I bottled the wine after ~2 years in barrel and a gelatin fining.

I can now say with certainty that the French barreled wine is superior (on the palate) to the American, showing more finesse and complexity, but the American has a really pleasant, racy nose. A combination of the two would perhaps be optimum, and that's pretty much what many wineries opt for - although not with such a high proportion of new oak.

I opened my second to last bottle of the American oak aged '87 last night. It still has abundant fruit and unresolved tannin. It's hard to believe that it's 16 years old! It could easily stand another ten or fifteen years of bottle age. I'd _love_ to make some more!

Tom S

George, I think your question needs to be refined a bit.

Certainly you were not asking about plastic as a primary, were you? Food grade plastic primaries are perfectly safe for that purpose, but I've read many posts here and elsewhere of people using trash bins for primary. The plastics industry has universally made white the color of food grade plastic, except in kitchenware, were colors are understood to be decorative only. White 5-, 6-, and 7-gallons buckets are usually food grade. I say usually because I have seen white buckets, usually flimsy or at least less rigid than standard, marked "Not for storage of food or drink."

I think you meant as use for secondaries or long-term storage. Here one usually must choose between plastic water carboys, large soda bottles, plastic kegs, or plastic water jugs, the latter often with simple faucets at their base. The water carboys are okay for short-term use, as Greg indicated, but you should know the danger. While I cannot recall the exact name of the plastic used, it is not impervious to oxygen transfer. This transfer is not rapid, and if the wine is maintained with a healthy dosage of sulfur dioxide (30-50 ppm) it is probably quite safe. This plastic will not taint the flavor or nose of the wine, but it isn't nearly as safe as glass and that's not debatable. The ones I've seen almost everywhere require that a quarter-inch or so (that inward curvature) be removed from the lip of the mouth for convenient use. A number 9 bung works for me. I have three, but only use them when every available carboy is in use and I need to rack.

If you mean long-term, bulk storage of wine, 3-liter soda bottles are fine to use. They are many orders of magnitude more impervious to O2 invasion than the water carboys or cheaper plastic water jugs. The particular plastic used for them is PET. If you do a careful search of "PET +plastic +permeability" you will, after weeding out all the junk hits, learn more than you ever want to know about this subject. There are many, many test results out there from the plastic, food and beverage industries of PET's permeability, but you have to read these carefully. Most are for thin films, such as plastic wrap, and if you just look at their results you will be skeptical. Also, look at the dates of the tests. Tremendous improvements have been made to PET in the past 20 years, and the product itself has been around many decades. Dow Chemicals makes several lines of PET, the most impervious to O2 being one called Light 98. To demonstrate how far these materials have come, almost 80% of all beer sold in Japan is packaged in PET bottles with a shelf life of two years. So, long-term storage in PET containers is fine if the closures are still seal-able.

I cannot comment on the plastic kegs as I have never used them. They are not all that popular in the United States anyway, but I do know two people who use them and claim they are as good as stainless steel. Given their heaviness, I suspect they are fine -- "as good as stainless steel" is going a bit far.

I hope this helps you decide.

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

Thanks Jack, I was thinking of using a 5 gal. water bottle, I would never use anything but food safe containers I have used Buckets that came from a deli where I worked they were used to ship in cake iceing... They work great I now have a couple plastic water carboy type bottles I was thinking of useing.... Thanks to you and all the folks that posted

-- Best Regards George

Hi, Jack -

Apparently they also make blue food grade plastic. I have seen many plastic

55 gallon drums that originally held fruit juice concentrate, and I've bought frozen must in blue wide mouth barrels that I have subsequently used for fermenters.

Tom S

US Plastics makes food grade HDPE drums in several colors including blue. I am not necessarily plugging the company but I have ordered from them in the past and have been pleased. If you have any doubts you can talk to one of their technical persons to verify it is safe for fermentation before ordering. Many have cam rings for sealing and holes that you could put in an airlock or bung. I only use them for primary fermentatin, however.

Tom and Paul,

I knew when I wrote it that blue is sometimes used for food and beverages, but I didn't want to lead anyone astray and I was speaking of the common standard. As a matter of fact, I have two of those blue barrels (mine are 33 gallons each).

Thank you both for keeping me straight....

Jack

The cabs (sauv and franc) were Sonoma Mountain. Don't recall what Merlot I got, although it was one of his California offerings, not Washington. Can't even find the blasted log entry for that wine. I wonder if it predates the log book. Oh well...

Brian

There are several things that should be considered if plastic is to be used.

1) is it food safe. That should be a given. 2) is it alcohol and acid safe. A plastic may be perfectly safe with water but it may leach out hydrocarbon substances if an acidic, alcohol solvent (wine) is kept in in for years. 3) Is it permeable to oxygen.

Most of these issues have been addressed above. But another is whether it is "reusable". I can clean out a glass carboy very simply, seal it with syranwrap, and 3 months later it will smells clean, i.e., of nothing. If I clean out a plastic container and seal it, a week later it has a distinct odor to it. I can clean it again and wait a week and it will smell again. This suggests to me that at least some of the wine or juice that was stored in it is absorbed in the plastic and is not being cleaned out. This could become contaminated with almost anything between uses and I would not trust it.

At least that is my view on the subject. I sure wish I could use plastic as glass is just so dang heavy.

Ray