Home Brew Beer Bottles for Ginger Beer and Beer Making

rhino86 on 01/05/2025 - 17:18
Last edited 02/05/2025 - 13:53

Hello everybody,

Ginger beer and beer.

PET bottles are subject to become deformed and bust. Due to the stress from carbon dioxide been created for the second time after bottling.
Never exceed the tapered fill line (bottle neck) to keep the bottles for eight years.
The plastic kit bottles I have used have expanded varying in structural strength and size, two burst this year due to the gas pressure inside.
And of course plastic is prone to scratches making it more difficult to keep them clean and sanitized. IT IS TIME TO REPLACE THEM.

Ebay and Amazon are over priced for quantities of 4-8 or 12 reusable glass bottles and dark amber / brown glass home brew bottles.
Kmart is a no go zone, same for Target.
Home brew, local and interstate have some for $2.8 each with silicone flip top seals.
But is best to get quotes and pricing options before buying anything.
Ideally 750ml is good, but if you find 1L I would consider those as well.

If anyone has found a good place to purchase, please chime in.
Thank you/

Find Me A Bargain Home Brew

Comments

  • heineken016 on 01/05/2025 - 17:29
    +2

    Not the answer you're looking for, but jump to mini kegs. Very cheap to get a setup these days if you get the PET ones from kegland. Use a sodastream bottle for gas refilled from a big co2 bottle if you're short of space. And a mini nuka tap. It's so much nicer than bottling.

    Something like this:
    https://kegland.com.au/products/8l-pco38-pet-keg-with-ball-l…

    • Mike-A on 01/05/2025 - 19:50
      +1

      Agreed, did this myself, but with the stainless kegs, much easier the manage, clean and store than prepping, cleaning etc multiple bottles to get a batch out. Rate the kegland kit too.

      When I do use bottles i have been cleaning bundaberg ginger-beer bottles with some PBW and use a capper, better than swing tops with the washers that fail randomly.

      • rhino86 on 02/05/2025 - 13:49

        Thank you heineken016 and Mike-A
        8L is good.

        Stainless steel or glass are the only materials from now on.

        Twing top seals / washers that crack, bits fall off can be replaced with food grade silicone and creating a new seal, but of extra work. But I never make things easy, otherwise you never learn anything.

        • Mike-A on 02/05/2025 - 16:52

          One thing about the 10L kegs, they fit really well in those smaller eky's and on their side in the fridge so can be a great way to store them for travel use. 20+L kegs are great but harder to find a place to cool them unless you have a spare drinks fridge. The 20L's will fit really well in the larger eskys no issue, easy enough with the parts from kegland to drill a tap/valve setup for that as well, makes it great for traveling.
          Just something else to consider.

  • SBOB on 01/05/2025 - 18:32

    Requires dark amber glass.
    Due to the stress from carbon dioxide been created for the second time after bottling

    That's not why the colour of the glass is dark.

    Second hand grosch bottles were my preference back in the day.

  • JIMB0 on 01/05/2025 - 18:56
    +2

    You must be putting in too much sugar and bursting the bottles?

    • trongy on 02/05/2025 - 07:39

      I know from experience that having glass bottles burst is so much messier and more dangerous than plastic bottles. I'd advise OP to fix the bursting issue before moving on to glass bottles. I only ever did a couple of batches of alcoholic ginger beer and I'm not sure why they have such a tendency to burst. Someone told me it's because a different variety yeast is used compared to regular beer brewing yeast.

      • JIMB0 on 02/05/2025 - 08:01

        The plastic bottles fail by deforming, the glass just explodes. OP really needs to sort out their brewing process before moving onto glass. Either they're putting to much sugar in the bottles or they're stopping the fermenter too early before all the sugar is converted.

        • rhino86 on 02/05/2025 - 13:55

          Ok sort out my 3x 200L brews.

  • Stewardo on 01/05/2025 - 19:07

    Used 750ml glass long neck bottles, crown seals are better. Twist tops work fine. Best way is 19ltr kegs, but you might not be ready for that yet.

    • rhino86 on 02/05/2025 - 13:54

      50L keg then.

  • mskeggs on 01/05/2025 - 21:50
    +1

    Soft drink bottles are fine if you keep them out of the light.
    There is always someone selling bottles and gear on gumtree and facebook.
    50c per long neck would be a normal price.

    • Daniel Plainview on 02/05/2025 - 11:19
      +1

      As a long time home brewer, REALLY you should not use certain long necks - many of them will be made with 'Do not refill' written on the glass itself. Many do use them, but they're made with thinner glass and have higher risk of breakage if you get the pressures wrong. I strictly stick with the much thicker walled Coopers bottles, these are used for secondary bottle fermentation/conditioning from the factory.

      OP might be adding sugar individually to each bottle - if this is the case going to bulk priming will be far more accurate. Alcoholic ginger beer is notoriously hard to bottle - especially if you want a sweet beverage as the residual yeast will not stop fermenting & consume it too - hence he use of artificial sweeteners or things like potassium sorbate - or with many commerical ones they just add alcohol to essentially a ginger syrup & carbonate it.

      Plastic bottle are very susceptible to scratches and having been cleaned with hot water - & regardless won't last forever. I've been brewing for a decade or so, never had a single bottle burst or go off.

      • rhino86 on 02/05/2025 - 14:29

        Hmm yeah finding the correct style of bottle and thickness rating for ginger beer is the challenge. Perhaps it better to move into mini kegs for transporting and 20/50l kegs at the house if I can't find the correct bottles.

        True about bulk priming for the secondary ferment stage, ensure you do a accurate sugar measurement across the wash. Instead of a bit more or less per bottle, hence the root cause for bottles to explode.
        Nope to adding more sugar for a sweeter wash. Only add sugar or sweetner to taste when it comes to time to drink.

  • Protractor on 02/05/2025 - 11:43

    Go to recycling depot and ask if they'll sell you the amount you need in Coopers 750ml ,eg Extra Stout etc. Or try a local busy pub.Or buy a carton of long neck beer, knock em off with friends and use the, (obviously you'll need caps and a capping rig)

  • Zephyrus on 02/05/2025 - 12:52

    Grolsch is a good bottle. Swing top with a good seal, but they are green instead of brown.

    $60 for 12 450ml bottles but they do come full of beer.

  • Rilo 117 on 02/05/2025 - 13:17

    I'd try to reach out to local places, I know when I worked at a golf club we would sometimes keep bottles for customers. So maybe Bars, clubs (footy and night clubs) and other places like that. the 500-600ml cider ones were the best IMO.

    Potentially try gumtree, facebook marketplace and local paper for bottles. When i sold all my homebrew stuff as a bundle, more people wanted the bottles so maybe put out a Want to Buy thing. offer 20-50c per bottle and maybe someone might prefer then the local recycle center for 10c per instead.

    Funny enough I work at a bottling plant, primarily in wine, and your right in thinking of getting the right bottles, as they all have different pressure ratings. We sometimes have small wineries get glass through us but the minimum amount is 1 pallet, which may have 1000 bottles and can vary between 50c-$1.20 per bottle.

  • altomic on 02/05/2025 - 13:38

    Facebook marketplace sometimes has brewers moving their old bottles along.

    Also look on gumtree.

    Search "beer" "homebrew" "bottle" "longneck" "capper"

  • rhino86 on 02/05/2025 - 14:38

    Thank you to the guys who chiming in to check local places.

    Not after second hand or new plastic bottles.

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