2L / Half gallon demijohns

[Guzzie]

I am making country wines at the moment and always seem to end up with more than 5L. Rather throw the excess away I am looking for some 2L/3L/half gallon demijohns to take the excess. I have looked at some old posts which indicate there are half gallon demijohns which take a standard bung. Does anyone know if they are still available or have they just disappeared over time. I have also seen Tesco sell cider in 2l demijohns but these have a smaller neck and take a screw cap. Has anyone used these? How did you modify them to take an airlock?
Thanks G

 

[gar]

I use 2L cider jugs. A standard plastic wine bottle "cork" fits. i drilled a hole in it to take an airlock

 

[Cwrw666]

Or a couple of layers of clingfilm over the opening held on with a rubber band so gas can escape under pressure.

 

[trummy]

I use one now and again. I pushed a piece of cling film into the neck, filled that with a polymer sealant then wrapped a piece of cling film around the bottom of a fermentation lock, pushed that through the sealant and then I let it dry. Peeled off the cling film and good to go. Did it ages ago, does not look pretty but it has caused no problems

 

[Begbie]

+1 on the cider jug. Get them in your supermarket - Old Rosie Scrumpy Cider. I'm not a big cider fan, so I dumped the contents and used the 'demijohn' for a small batch mead that I was experimenting with.

 

[Begbie]

+1 on the cider jug. Get them in your supermarket - Old Rosie Scrumpy Cider. I'm not a big cider fan, so I dumped the contents and used the 'demijohn' for a small batch mead that I was experimenting with.

 

[VW911]

Half size demi-johns are as rare as hens teeth these days. I still have a couple, that must be 50+ years old.
Brown ones are also getting really hard to find now...

 

[moto748]

Half size demi-johns are as rare as hens teeth these days. I still have a couple, that must be 50+ years old.
Brown ones are also getting really hard to find now...

Good job too! Clear ones are so much better, but it used to be that brown ones were all you could get.

I don't see why anyone would be bothered about half-size demi-johns, though; if the normal gallon ones are widely available, which they are, what's wrong with using those? Surely the whole point of a demi-john is that because it's under a fermentation lock, it doesn't matter if you only half-fill it? Unless space is at such a premium.

 

[An Ankoù]

I've got half a dozen small demijohns and I really can't remember where I got them from. You can get all sizes of bored bungs from geterbrewed. When I make wine, I put the excess in one litre or litre-and-a-half pets used for mineral water. This means you can squeeze out the air in the head-space and let it fill up with carbon dioxide from the fermentation. A small freezer or lunch bag secured with a rubber band will serve perfectly as an airlock; in fact I put a bag over my airlocks as I have a nasty habit of letting the airlocks run dry.

 

[WinBase]

I always make more than one or two demijohns worth and use the excess to top-up after fermenting. what i have done is drill a hole in the cap of a robinsons orange juice bottle and fit a silicone grommet (i drill about a 8mm hole and open it up gradually with a coundersinking tool to about 11mm so its a snug fit for the bubbler) and either use a 1ltr or 2ltr bottle depending on how much extra i made. I ferment it as normal alongside the DJ's, and use it when racking off. If i had 2ltr 'overspill' i may even put the remainder into a 1 ltr bottle and condition that as well, using it to top off later when i rack again. Robinsons bottles are nice and thick so last, and also i have a few 'innocent' orange juice bottles that i have grommetted as well (they are 1.3ltr i think). This all works well for me, but i always check the wine in the smaller bottles tastes ok before using just in case. on occasion i have had enough to bottle the extra even aften using it for topups, and it's tasted just fine. GL

 

[Guzzie]

Thanks everyone for the advice. When I order from Tesco this week I will add a 2L Rosie cider and a couple of Innocent juices and try different mods. This should give me enough variation to cover the different amounts of wine over 5L that I have to condition.G

 

[Gwen]

Just racked my Rhubarb wine off into secondary tonight with the odd 2 litres into my Old Rosie bottle

 

[Scrattajack]

There're these growler things too. It's got 64 fl.oz on it, about 2.x L I reckon?

 

[Guzzie]

Just racked my Rhubarb wine off into secondary tonight with the odd 2 litres into my Old Rosie bottle

@Gwen - is the bottle bung on the 2L demijohn available to buy over the counter or did you customise a standard bung. Thanks G

 

[Gwen]

@Gwen - is the bottle bung on the 2L demijohn available to buy over the counter or did you customise a standard bung. Thanks G

Hi Guzzie, I bought a pack of them from eBay
RUBBER STOPPER WITH HOLE, RUBBER BUNG WITH HOLE -SIZE 19 (19MM > 22MM) - 10 PACK £12.95 (sorry on phone, not sure how to put link in)
Only thing is I find I can only use a standard bubbler (thiner ended one) as thicker ones won't fit in the hole on the bung.

 

[Guzzie]

Hi Guzzie, I bought a pack of them from eBay
RUBBER STOPPER WITH HOLE, RUBBER BUNG WITH HOLE -SIZE 19 (19MM > 22MM) - 10 PACK £12.95 (sorry on phone, not sure how to put link in)
Only thing is I find I can only use a standard bubbler (thiner ended one) as thicker ones won't fit in the hole on the bung.

Just bought a pack of 10. Many thanks for the info. G.