Coopers Ox-Bar bottles, anyone got experience with these?

[Rich82]

I was trying to make a decision about bottling & kegging etc etc, and have been trying to sum up the best bottles to use. I hear glass is best because or permeability and can hold beer for a long time without spoil, but they’re hard to get hold of cheap. (A pub near me said they wouldn’t give me any of their empties due to health and safety). So I started looking at PET, they seem safer, cheaper and generally easier apart from people saying the beer goes off in them quicker. Then I saw these Coopers Ox-Bar bottles, supposedly better than glass. Apparently they have an oxygen blocking layer between 2 layers of PET. They seem the ideal solution but is the hype a reality?

 

[plumpton]

I had these bottles supplied with my Coopers kit 45 of them in total.

What I would say is that they seal well with the tops supplied and all beer I have put in them tasted good.

I do think however that Grolsch bottles are better and are really quick to fill due to the swingtop.

I cant really comment on the life of the beer as mine never seems to last past 10 weeks.

hope this gives some insight.

:

 

[guyb]

I've got some Coopers PET bottles, I had a beer in them conditioning for about 5months - came out perfectly fine.

I also use glass - I prefer glass personally, as I can use my steam steriliser to sterilise them, I am pretty sure the Coopers bottles would deform under steam.

I also had a word with the local pub, they were more than happy for me to take beer bottles off them - mind you I did work there some 20years ago, and some of the same hands are still there.

Pop into another local, or if you are on Facebook or similar, ask your friends if they will save you empties - you'd be surprised how many friends you have who will save you their empties in return for a few samples :grin:

Failing that, you could buy glass ones from a manufacturer, I did when I had no other option - I paid about £28 for 60bottles direct from the manufacturer, each one came with a crown cap as well, and there was £7 in that price which was delivery.
I used these: http://www.jbconline.co.uk/

http://www.jbconline.co.uk/glass-bottles/beer-bottles

These specifically http://www.jbconline.co.uk/glass-bottle ... -with-caps, however they had a less than half price sale on them at the time, which is why I bought them.

They have these on offer: http://www.jbconline.co.uk/sale-30-off/ ... -with-caps
330ml I think is like a Budweiser bottle, but you get 100 for £26

There are of course other glass suppliers, and you might have a local one that you could collect from, hence saving you postage.

 

[StubbsPKS]

Definitely pop into another local. I had been collecting bottles from one local for a couple of weeks when one day I was told they couldn't let me leave with bottle bc of health and safety so it just seems to be what manager is on duty when you ask

 

[shocker]

I might get it in the neck for this but.......

.....I went to the local supermarkets that have bottle recycling banks ,weekends or monday were the best as they tended to be overflowing by then with many bottles in handy boxes ready to take away .If not ,you take your life in your (gloved!) hands and reach in for a lucky dip .

They are there to be recycled, right ? Well ,whats better than recycling them without all the wasted energy of moving and sorting and crushing them ? You got it !

If you are really lucky ,you may be hanging around when people pull up with their empties and you can have a chat and offer to re cycle for them .I got LOADS of good bottles that way ,good ones too .Lots of litre ones as well.

This comes with an important caveat - you must be very careful of broken glass , you may be considered to be stealing in some circumstances unless you have the bottle owners and site operators consent , and most importantly ...

...YOU MUST CHECK EACH BOTTLE THOROUGHLY BEFORE USE.

....or chat up a friendly publican/bar manager and get a couple of crates of swingtop glosch bottles ....and maybe some CO2 at a later date.

All the above worked for ME but you have to decide what you feel is appropriate behaviour in that situation. :hmm: :whistle:

 

[Rich82]

Thanks for the advice. I'm getting everyone I know to save me their bottles and check their locals. Plus I’ve just bought a bottle capper it would seem a waste not to give it more use.

 

[shocker]

I didnt really answer the OP ,sorry ! Not very helpful I have NO experience of Coopers PET bottles at all.....

....I ,however, HAVE used lots of PET bottles of different sorts for brewing ,all second hand 2 litre brown or green, from ginger beer or cider . I read somewhere that those had a layer that blocked the UV light getting IN and prevented the contents getting OUT by osmosis (thats a long word, I hope it means what I think it does......) which seemed to fit the bill .

What I found was that they were fine ,even over time .Some cider I left for a couple of winters was absolutely OK . A positive with the 2 litre ones was that as part of the pressure-containing design they had those little dimples in the base . These proved to be ideal reservoirs for any sediments .I have seen that the 500ml PET soft drink bottles have them too....do the Coopers have them ? It would be nice if they did . But I still reckon the ol' bottle bank routine is best ! You can get yourself a nice selection of sizes for different occassions when you may ,say ,just want a beer in front of the TV ,or you have a mate round so a litre is called for ,or a table full of dinner guests where a 2 lt is ideal . You can even get some champagne bottles for a little "special" cider .

I managed to come by a large amount of matching glass bottles by asking people when-ish they came to drop off .Got to be worth a go ,mate......go 'wan ! You know you want to !! :twisted:

 

[Rich82]

[quote="shocker". A positive with the 2 litre ones was that as part of the pressure-containing design they had those little dimples in the base . These proved to be ideal reservoirs for any sediments .I have seen that the 500ml PET soft drink bottles have them too....do the Coopers have them ? It would be nice if they did [/quote]

Shocker sorry for the delay I’ve been away on work. It looks like the coppers bottles do have some sort of dimple/reservoir at the bottom. So perhaps they were thinking ahead with it and realised that would be a good idea. I have my coopers conditioning in a variety of 500ml bottles, 1 litre lemonade and 2 litre coke and ginger beer bottles at the moment. So just need to keep acquiring more of the same.

 

[BrightBrew]

Apologies for dragging this thread back up from the dead, but I recently used the Ox-Bar bottles for a kit beer I did and they seem to work perfectly fine. However, my only worry would be how long they are likely to last and how many time I will be able to reuse them. They are pretty strong bottles and not flimsy like a normal coke bottle (i.e. you won't crumple it easily).

I personally would prefer to only use glass bottles, but I needed bottles urgently and buying a couple of boxes from Tesco was a much faster and cheaper option than trying to drink my way through 40 bottles of Carlsberg (although slightly less fun :twisted: ).

Overall I was very impressed with the Ox-Bar bottles and will continue to use them as a back up whilst I continue to grow my glass bottle collection.

 

[BeerEagle]

I use these a lot for those beers I'm going to drink quickly. Someone on the forum recommended no longer than 6 months.