Bottles?

[WillG3]

Almost ready for bottling my kit made cider and have been collecting pepsi 2 litre bottles as i assumed since these cope with the pressure of carbonated pepsi they would do for cider. However, my science lecturer has warned me against it, saying they will not cope.

Help. Can i use them? If not is there a cheap alternative as buying in a load of glass bottles to bottle 50 liters of cider will seriously remove any chance of this being a money saving excercise.

 

[PD]

2 litres of beer is far too much for me to enjoy in one go. Try collecting some pint beer bottles from your local pubs.

My neighbour works in a factory making them he's just brought me 40 bottles each of the following.

I love the 500ml " stumpies "

 

[kRooGa]

I suppose it depends if you want fizzy or still cider. If you prime each bottle with the proper amount of sugar they should be fine. A clue to plastic pop bottles getting really pressurized is when they start to lean or fall over. The bottom of the bottle will distort first, hence the falling over :)

 

[alanywiseman.]

They will be fine. Don't worry :

 

[Cononthebarber]

In my experience 2 litre bottles hold plenty amount of pressure for any brew you put in them (provided you dont overprime them to the ridiculous! :lol: )

I get free bottles from a local pub who are more than happy to give me their empties...there's no reason you should need to buy bottles...ask and you shall receive! :thumb:

 

[Gayle]

I collect everyone's fizzy drink bottles to use, 500ml coke (etc) bottles work great, and if I need extra I go to a supermarket and buy the 6-packs of sparkling water, usually around £1.20 or so, pour out the water (or into a jug with cordial to go with dinner) and sanitise them. Or the "3 for £1" one litre sparkling drinks bottles are good. If you have to bottle 50 litres though it would still be quite a cost! The bottles should hold the pressure just fine, although the threads on the screw caps can wear out after a few uses and get a bit leaky - most of these pop bottles have lasted much longer than the plastic Coopers bottles I bought, which leaked from the start. If they can't hold the pressure the worst they'll do is leak or spray, which is much better than a glass bottle bomb!

I plan to ask a pub soon if I can take a few boxes of empties with me, they usually have to pay to have their rubbish dumped so shouldn't charge you for doing it for them.

I've heard you shouldn't bottle a high-gravity sparkling wine (like elderflower champange or sparkling mead) in anything but proper heavy glass wine bottles with corks and wires, else they can pop the cork/cap/glass, maybe that's what your lecturer is thinking about? But cider or ale should be fine.

Good luck bottling 50 litres :thumb: I've just done 20lts and I'm not getting up off the sofa again tonight!

 

[oldbloke]

Check Youtube for vids of those 2l cola bottles being pumped up to crazy pressure to use as rockets. There's a popular toy based on it, even. They'll take way more pressure than your cider will ever produce.

 

[oogaboogachief]

They won't blow until over 200 psi. So no worry about that end. Mike

 

[Baz Chaz]

They won't blow until over 200 psi. So no worry about that end. Mike

Yeah ...... but you try taking the top off one of the fekkers when they get some real pressure going :? :lol:

 

[mick84thomas]

I had a batch of mine that where slightly over primed :whistle: bang quite loudly every time I opened one was good fun :grin: especially when the music stopped at a party I was at

 

[WillG3]

I had a batch of mine that where slightly over primed :whistle: bang quite loudly every time I opened one was good fun :grin: especially when the music stopped at a party I was at

Legend! :rofl:

 

[Devonhomebrew]

once when i first started made an elderflower champagne and ofcourse the interent is full of good and bad advice well this one was very bad advice as it said add sugar and yeast then 1 day later bottle the og was 1.100 lol those bottles had no chance must have made atleast more than 200 psi lost 10 gallons of it aswell oh well ive since learnt

 

[Gayle]

once when i first started made an elderflower champagne and ofcourse the interent is full of good and bad advice well this one was very bad advice as it said add sugar and yeast then 1 day later bottle the og was 1.100 lol those bottles had no chance must have made atleast more than 200 psi lost 10 gallons of it aswell oh well ive since learnt

While searching for an elderflower champagne recipe I saw a similar one - I think it only had a little sugar and expected it to ferment without added yeast though, just the wild yeasts on the flowers which may not have had quite such explosive an effect after just a day fermenting, the bottling. Thank christ you didn't use glass bottles or that would have been so dangerous!