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Plastic bottles

I've been buying 5L bottles of spring water for making wine with and, well, just binning them afterwards. Instead of wasting them, how suitable would they be for fermenting in? They hold a bit more than my demijohns, so I thought I could rack them into demijohns for the first racking to avoid top up problems.

My main concern is how airtight they'd be and how to fit the airlock. I've never seen a bung big enough for the mouth (about 5cm), but I'll check next time I'm in the local brew shop. I was thinking about using a rubber washer to help seal the lid, and maybe a rubber grommet to hold the airlock in place. Has anyone got any experience with this? I don't want to waste money on making wine in these if the containers will fail me. The bottle is made from PET and the cap from (about 1mm thick) HDPE.

This would increase my capacity for wine making without massively increasing my expenses, which is always a good thing. :D

Reply to
alien
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Hi Alien I've been using these water bottles to ferment wine in for years - nothing wrong with plastic! My local home brew shop actually sells new and identical bottles like those that contain water and charge a hell of a lot of money for them - but the water ones come free! Regarding the bung - the ones I use have a large screw cap which I keep screwed on tight and drill a hole through it to accommodate the rubber bung/airlock. A drill bit size of about 25mm should be about right (it'll be one of those flat style drill bits).

Reply to
World'sWorst

Yep, already there. I did it slightly different though. I put a rubber o ring in the caps for a better seal, they have a channel that fits over the mouth. Then I placed rubber grommets from the electrical shop in the lids to get a tight fit for the airlock. Haven't tried them yet, transferring from primary in a few hours. Racking from those to demijohns should avoid the need for topping up.

Reply to
alien

My method isn't working too well despite obvious fermenting and outgassing the air locks aren't bubbling on about 1/3 of them. I'll try your method next time.

Reply to
alien

Would these bottles be good for aging in?

Reply to
R-D-C

Probably not, I'm moving them to glass secondaries for aging in. Mine are all used up for now. I'm just using them for 2 months or so while I wait for other stuff to finish up. They're slightly larger than demijohns so it also takes the hassle of topping up away.

Reply to
alien

Good idea, I might try that.

I have about six and a half litres of orange wine on the go in a bucket at the moment. I must have gone very wrong with my meaurements as I was aiming for a (British) gallon. Hey ho. I have decided to fill a demijohn and have converted a two litre scrumpy bottle from the supermarket into a mini demijohn by cutting a small hole in the screw lid and gluing a 'cup' style airlock into it with plastic glue (I usually use a bubbler airlock in a rubber bung).

Not sure how good an idea it is to ferment >> Would these bottles be good for aging in?

Reply to
R-D-C

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