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Author Topic: Plastic bottles?  (Read 1711 times)

Offline darkmorford

  • Cellarman
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  • Posts: 69
  • Redmond, WA
Plastic bottles?
« on: May 02, 2011, 08:11:45 pm »
This past week, my local grocery store had 1-liter plastic bottles of root beer on sale. After drinking a couple, I noticed that the bottles were a nice dark brown plastic and would probably be pretty good at keeping light away from my brews. It'll probably be a couple of weeks before I'm ready to start my next batch, but I'm thinking about trying to pick up a few more of these.

Has anyone tried bottling into plastic soda bottles before? Any concerns with pressure or a reaction with the PETE?

Offline wingnut

  • Brewer
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  • Posts: 357
  • Plainwell MI
Re: Plastic bottles?
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2011, 08:20:09 pm »
I put my "fishing" beer into plastic bottles all the time.  (broken glass on a boat is bad news) It works great.  I bought 16oz brown plastic bottles from northern brewer and I think Midwest as well.  There is some debate on the long term storage as the plastic may be oxygen permeable, but I can say that the beers I had in plastic for a couple months were fine.  (Naturally carbed, stored cold after that)

Nice thing with naturally carbed beers is that you can squeeze the bottle and get the oxygen out of the head space before putting the cap on... essentially purging the bottle.

I would not use the root beer one's however, as I suspect the plastic will gain a root beer flavor that may carry over to your beer.  (I had that problem with some root beer I bottled for a party in the bottles...had to toss them after getting a really weird flavored cream ale...with the distinct flavor of root beer!)

Good luck!
-- Wingnut - Cheers!

Offline piszkiewiczp

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  • Posts: 33
Re: Plastic bottles?
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2011, 08:41:32 pm »
I have a couple of reused root beer bottles that I use to monitor the progress of bottle carbonation.
It's no real work getting rid of the residual root beer aroma - you just let them sit open and dry for about a year.