Cheap, disposable bottle/keg alternatives?

[MickDundee]

I’ve managed to rope myself into making beer for a day out my mate’s brother organises every year (in exchange for a free trip for myself).

I’m just going to do a couple of SMaSHes and don’t really want to use up my previous bottle/mini keg supplies (especially since I doubt anyone will be washing anything out when they finish and I can’t think of anything worse than washing out 80 bottles with a hangover).

Does anyone know of any cheap, disposal alternatives I can use? Preferably something I can fit most of a batch in.

 

[-Bezza-]

PET bottles. Cheapest if you buy fizzy water from the supermarket and just throw it on the plants rather than buy empties.

 

[Leon103]

Just usr glass and collect more from your local pub before you bottle next

 

[aamcle]

2 or 3 litre pop bottles are easy to get cheap/free BUT how are you going to carbonate the beer?

If you do it in the bottles the sediment, there shouldn't be much, will almost certainly be stirred up and the beer become cloudy.

You could carbonate in your pressure barrel let the beer clear and them using a tube run the beer into PET bottles. You would loose some fizz but it you drank the beer next day you would probably be OK.

If you have the option force carbonating the beer then using a CPBF or BeerGun is the very best way to go.


aamcle

 

[Bigcol49]

how are you going to carbonate the beer?

Hi!
If the OP has a CO2 Corny set-up, he won't need a beer gun - filling a PET bottle from a Corny keg is easy with a carbonation cap.

 

[aamcle]

err.. I never thought of filling from my corny via a carbonation cap Nice one!


aamcle

 

[MickDundee]

I don’t have Cornies, if I did I would just take Cornies with a party tap. I’m also not keen on emptying then filling 20x2L bottles.

People would have to settle for Real ale levels of carbonation but would a cheap polypin/baginabox be any good? I haven’t even googled them yet though so it might be completely ridiculous.

 

[Ben034]

8x5l water bottles emptied? Autosyphon with a tap on the end to serve? Or a bottling stick pushed through the lid of a bottle top. A plastic tube with tap to serve if no autosyphon? Think Wilko sell tubing with a small plastic tap.

 

[-Bezza-]

I don’t have Cornies, if I did I would just take Cornies with a party tap

There's a good excuse, right there! :smile6:

 

[Spoon]

I’m also not keen on emptying then filling 20x2L bottles.

I don't think you'll find a cheaper way of doing it. £4 for the full bottles, you could use the water to brew the beer if your local tap water is too hard/soft/unusual!

Could you beg/borrow/buy a couple of pressure barrels? If transporting it you would be best transferring it into a 3rd barrel the day before (then wash and sanitize barrel 1, and transfer the contents of 2 into it) to remove the sediment.

Or get some easyKeg or PartyKeg 5l mini-kegs? Empty ones are about £6, or re-cycle full ones (see if any family or friends have been drinking them?), with a bit of TLC they can be re-used. Added bonus they (IMO) look the most appealing to people who are skeptical of homebrew (as opposed to plastic barrels of flat beer or a mixed crate of bottles covered in label residue).

kornykegs are the gold standard though, if you've got time to wait and be patient then you can pick them, and the regulators etc up cheaply on ebay.

 

[Clandestine]

2 or 3 litre pop bottles are easy to get cheap/free BUT how are you going to carbonate the beer?

If you do it in the bottles the sediment, there shouldn't be much, will almost certainly be stirred up and the beer become cloudy.



aamcle

this is something im having issues with atm. if i do a stout/ipa ect i use glass but for day to day bog standard drinking i use 2L PET and cant complain. however after 1L is drank the rest becomes very cloudy. do you have any tricks to get the sediment to stick as a hard trub / reduce sediment.

i usually cold crash but dont rack to a bottling bucket

 

[Fil]

some supermarkets bottle their tap water in pop style pet bottles, once a few years ago i was given a 3 hour window to bottle a brew and pack for a week away and i had no clean bottles/kegs available i bought 12x 2l bottles of tesco tap water @ 11p a bottle, and while the bottles collapsed easily when being emptied revealing a thinner than the usual pop bottle skin they held the condition in the beer a-ok .. but they did need 3 hands to decant, 2 x to hold and pull/support the bottle to minimise its collapsing on itself, and a third to tilt the receiving jug..

Not a perfect solution but in a pinch it can save a brew..

 

[Spoon]

Re: cloudy 2l bottles

Best just drunk all in one with friends to avoid it going cloudy/flat. Decant the beer into a serving jug in one go to leave the sediment then serve from that. I tend to force carb my beer in the keezer now that I have one and then fill bottles as I would growlers for trips away.

 

[Stephenj]

Have you hought about the garden sprayer that Dutto tried out? Getting one tomorrow to test the pressure and hope to use in a week when the NEIPA has fermented out.

Out of interest,can you cap the 2l PET bottles or just reuse the screw cap? The father in law drinks ginger ale in a Brown PET bottle and thought of using them

 

[Fil]

Yes reuse the screwcaps. just use chemical sanitation, and dont try to use heat, off the boil water will destroy the form of a thermally set pet bottle.. if short most brewshops sell replacement screwcaps. And these must be one of the most standard packaging items as the screwcaps are interchangable between brands.. so a tesco water screwcap will seal a bulmers cider bottle.