PET Vs. Glass

[Iain McLean]

A thought just popped into my head.

I've recently bottled my first batch and am waiting for it to be ready for testing in a couple of weeks. I put it into brown and green glass bottles. I got a bench capper donated to the cause so that's a bonus...

But the guy at G&G and my Bro-In-Law both mentioned the PET bottles. i know they're cheaper unless someone donates a stack of empty glass bottles but are there any other benefits? What drawbacks do PET bottles have? I once worked with an structural engineer who was also a vintner and he made a comment that some plastic bottles are porous by the nature of their compound...

Figured I'd ask the question as my learning curve is pretty steep right now and a little more info won't hurt.

Cheers guys.

Iain.

[gregb]

PET has the following advantages:
- easily and cheaply obtained.
- a quick squeeze will give a good indication of carbonation.
- overcarbed bottles will only make a mess, not put you in hozzie.
- light to carry
- don't have to worry about getting your bottles back if you give away samplers, travelers etc.

Disadvantages:
- Require diligence to screw lid tight when bottling to ensure gas doesn't leak
- not as good at protecting beer from light
- may lose pressure over time (6+ months)
- lacks aesthetic appeal of a traditional tallie.

For the daily quaffer PET is fine. If you are brewing a strong ale to mature over the course of a couple of years, I would go for brown glass.

[hyjak]

I have been bottling in glass but the last 2 brews i have put in PET for the simple reason that i'm brewing more than i'm drinking and am getting sick of doing stubbies!!!
Would like to do them all in long necks but none of my mates drink them, the recyclers charge through the nose for them WHEN/IF they have them and the ones you buy are only 640ml which means i get one and a half glasses from a bottle!!!! Very annoying!!!
Besides i always do a couple glass long necks for 'ageing'.

Jez

[warra48]

I hear ya, and feel your pain about stubbies. I also like longnecks.

I'm a bit of a scrounger around my golf club at Wauchope. I play twice a week, and check all the bins on my way around. It's surprising, but I'm scoring an average of 1 to 2 longnecks each week that way. I also scored hundreds of stubbies from there.

When I get them home, I soak them overnight. The labels are nice and soft by then, and come off quite easily. Any residue is easily removed with one of those green scrubbies. I drain them and give them a shot of brewing detergent, and leave them to soak for another 20 to 30 minutes. Then they get a workout with various bottle brushes, rinse them 2 to 3 times with hot water, and they're clean as and ready for a shot of sanitiser prior to use.

A bit of lateral thinking works well. How about the bins at a local picnic ground etc etc? Where do people drink beer?

[Boonie]

I have kegs now but still do a few in the longies.

I like the "traditional" look and feel of the longies.

If you are after longnecks cheap, keep an eye on ebay and the local rags as sometimes they come up.

My mate gave up brewing and gave away 400+.......sign out front of his house, free HB bottles and they lasted 1 day.

I have done brews in 1.25 Litre Coke Bottles for the "weekend" beers like a cheap quaffer that will not last long and the bottles for the better brews.

Cheers

Boonie

[Iain McLean]

Seeing as I'm in a pipe band... I'm thinking about putting a new trashcan in the bar for all the Carlton Draught bottles. Even though they're screw tops they seem a better option than PET to me.

Drinking beer from plastic bottles seems morally wrong. A good glass bottle has mass and in a hand that through 'whatever means' might be a tad unsteady, that mass adds extra safety ballast to the drink and avoids spillage. I think that's why Erdinger pint glasses are the shape they are - large mass at the bottom to act like a pendulum and stop the beer tipping out when you have a wobble on.

[Bizier]

Another thing is to put a SOS out in various channels.

My dad has a few friends that only drink coopers BES, so he stockpiles tallies of those for me. There is also your local freecyle group, where you could put out a wanted, or wait til some bottles turn up.

I reckon go PET if you have to until you get some glass, but I firmly believe that it is ridiculous to pay $$$ for bloody empty bottles that you will have to scrub the crap out of.

I pass mine down the chain to other brewers once I have too many crates, or I want to keep consistency between crates. I never let a good heavy 50ml+ bottle go into the recycling.

[Throsby]

I use the Coopers PETs and have never had a single complaint with how the do the job. I keep them in a cupboard so there's no chance of them being light-struck anyway.


That said, I don't drink from these bottles - I have some glass beer mugs in the freezer so pour the beer into these. Beer doesn't taste the same out of plastic - not sure of the science behind that but I know it to be true.


I've also kept some beers for 12+months in the Coopers PET and have not noticed a loss of carbonation. Maybe I've been lucky.

[Planner]

I am fan of the Coopers PET bottles in their correct place. Most of my beer goes into CUB longnecks (Dad drinks Invalid Stout) or CUB and Coopers stubbies (available free anywhere), but some beer is always bottled in PET. I do a lot of camping in the high country and its by far the safest way to transport beer. A serious 3 hour 4wd trip can rattle tops off glass, both homebrew and commercial. Even cans have been known to be punctured or rubbed through by the ice in the esky. It just means I have to carry a "glass" to drink from at camp. The local nightclub "donated" one of their plastic pots, and this works perfectly.
I haven't tested the long term storage of PET but at 3 months I cant taste any differnce between glass and plastic.

Planner

[chris_styles]

The only time I've had an explosion was when I put a crate of beer in boot to go on holidays, picked it up 10 minutes later at my mates place to put in luggage and BOOM.
Luckily it was alot less messy than I expected. There was glass in the carpet for weeks but not in my face so I'm not complaining.

I know some people seem to have stored for a long time with success in plastic, but I found some 2 year old ales which had been hiding in a cupboard and they were flat as a tack.

[6250]

i have found no difference in the taste of the brew in using PET and glass bottles, although if left for more then 9 months it starts to loose pressure. for me it only feels weird drinking a beer out of a squeezable bottle. easy solution to that is to put it in a glass!

[Finnagann]

Plastic does worry me... the whole bit about bpa's that didn't pop up for years after they had been used for food/drinks makes you wonder what else is lurking. Porous is never a good thing in a beer receptacle.

I do still use the odd 2 L when I run out of glass. My main beef is that the uneven bottom (the four round bumps) do not allow yeast to make a solid cake. If I gently pick up a 2 month old 2 L I can see little yeast storms stirring immediately, by the time I get it to the kitchen and pour a glass it looks like a wheat

Glass for me is all about big and swing top. Mostly I use 450 ml grolsch, and I have a dozen or so 1L swing tops. These are ideal sizes for me... 2 half pints in a 450 ml if you're sipping slowly, and less trips to the fridge with a 1 L if you have some friends over.

[rotten]

750ml glass longie for me, ice cold glass jug, ice cold glass recepticle. How beer was meant to be really. Save the PET for the occasional cider I do for the ladies, even that eventually gets poured into a ice cold glass. Enough said.
Cheers

[Bum]

Not really. In fact, I'm not even sure what it means. If there were faults with PET why would pouring the beer within into a cold glass remedy those faults (beyond the reasons you shouldn't be drinking from a bottle anyway)?

I always bottle in a mixture of Coopers PET, brown longies and brown stubbies. I'm noticing a far greater difference between bottling in stubbies versus longnecks than I am between glass longnecks and PET. Only PET bottle I've noticed any loss of carbonation in was over 10 months old. PET is fine for homebrew purposes unless you're doing a barleywine or a RIS or similar.

[drsmurto]

750ml glass longie for me, ice cold glass jug, ice cold glass recepticle. How beer was meant to be really. Save the PET for the occasional cider I do for the ladies, even that eventually gets poured into a ice cold glass. Enough said.
Cheers

Ice cold? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You cant taste anything in cold beer, allow it to warm up and the malt and hops start to sing.

My keg fridge is set to 8C at the moment, i normally knock that down a degree or 2 come summer as the beer will warm up to my ideal drinking temp of 10C fast enough.

Not really. In fact, I'm not even sure what it means. If there were faults with PET why would pouring the beer within into a cold glass remedy those faults (beyond the reasons you shouldn't be drinking from a bottle anyway)?

I always bottle in a mixture of Coopers PET, brown longies and brown stubbies. I'm noticing a far greater difference between bottling in stubbies versus longnecks than I am between glass longnecks and PET. Only PET bottle I've noticed any loss of carbonation in was over 10 months old. PET is fine for homebrew purposes unless you're doing a barleywine or a RIS or similar.

Bottled my excess RIS about 4 weeks ago, 4 x glass and 2 x PET (to test if it was carbing up). Planning on drinking the PETs young and leaving the 4 x glass for comps. The rest of the RIS is in a keg with a stave of american oak

Agree that PET is generally thought to be poor for long term storage (12 months or more). I have ~1/2-1 dozen of them i use to give beer to people. Easy to bottle straight from the tap and screw the lid on.

[rotten]

Ice cold? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You cant taste anything in cold beer, allow it to warm up and the malt and hops start to sing.

Maybe I should clarify, Jug and Glass kept in freezer especially in summer, beer kept around 5-6c. I like a good head and the cold jug and glass seem to help that a lot.

[drsmurto]

I keep the glasses in the fridge with the kegs so they are the same temp.

For some strange reason i don't like pouring beer into a jug and then pouring it into a glass. Not 100% sure why, could be the double handling or the fact i like to pour straight into the glass.

All the mates love pouring their own beers, it's a novelty for them and at parties i don't have to pour my own beers as there will be at least one mate behind the bar pouring for people!

Plastic glassess are a bitch to pour beer into, always froth up too much but if its a big party i don't have enough glasses.

[chadjaja]

I just find beer in plastic bottles wrong...

[hirns]

I keep the glasses in the fridge with the kegs so they are the same temp.

For some strange reason i don't like pouring beer into a jug and then pouring it into a glass. Not 100% sure why, could be the double handling or the fact i like to pour straight into the glass.

All the mates love pouring their own beers, it's a novelty for them and at parties i don't have to pour my own beers as there will be at least one mate behind the bar pouring for people!

Plastic glasses are a bitch to pour beer into, always froth up too much but if its a big party i don't have enough glasses.

Interesting!

I aways go the jug first as if I pour a tallie into two glasses, the bottom half of the tallie always has better carb and head(or visa versa; been so long). I thought that it must have something to do with being close to the yeast or the bubbles rising to the top half first(depending upon which way I remember it, sure it was the bottom half had more gas).

Hirns

[Bum]

Just more CO2 being released as it warms up?

Huge guess on my part.