Looking for bottle crates to hold 500ml

[BassoonBrew]

I have some of the blue ones in the heavy duty design (20x500 ml Brewery Beer Bottle Plastic Stacking Crate). Perfect for Fuller's bottles, but a little tight for shorter, wider ones.

 

[DrRenart]

In same situation, looking for some storage crates for my brews, I followed kelper advice from last year, and bought 6 crates for 65 quids. Little more than the price kelper got last year but still fair. I’ll give more information next week !

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but did anyone purchase the IKEA boxes? If so, how many 500ml bottles do they fit? Do they work? They are on offer at the moment.

I've used bigger ones like that from one of the Home Bargains-type places - I've not got one to hand, but they're not quite big enough for 40 bottles, maybe 1m long?

The big plus is that they're beer-proof, so if you have any gushers the mess is contained and you're not faced with a garage that smells of beer forever (and attracts moulds etc).

Also mine came with a lid which more or less protects things inside from any dirt flying round the garage. It also meant that when a mouse came after my grain and crapped everywhere, I didn't have to worry about cleaning bottles, I just gave the lid a wipe.

Not being divided means that it can be a lot more space-effective, you can stash a lot more empty bottles.

Plenty of minor niggles though - you might be alright with smaller ones but certainly on my big boxes some dividers would really help keep the bottles under control a bit better - the bottom is not at all flat so they tend to flop around. It's one of those little jobs I haven't got round to yet.

35-odd bottles is a lot to carry - I'm OK to do it at the moment, but I can see some people might not have the strength. Certainly smaller boxes would be easier to manoeuvre around a packed garage.

They're fairly tough but not as tough as crates - I did drop a full box on its corner onto kitchen tiles and smashed the corner and several bottles.

Big Tescos certainly have them, or go to the Home Bargain kind of places, can't vouch for how good they are. Look for ones with as flat a bottom as possible, that are tall enough for your tallest bottles - I have two bottles that just stick up a little bit too far.

You may be able to find suitable crates from local freehouses that do a reasonable trade in fairly posh European bottles (ie not Becks) - but they may well be paying £4-5 deposit on ordinary ones and £8-10 deposit on pretty ones like Delirium so don't expect to get them for free.

 

[gingerneil]

I've got some b&q ones like these - not sure the exact size though.
https://www.diy.com/departments/for...0l-stackable-storage-box/3663602763352_BQ.prdThey stack well, and hold about 35 bottles. Lots are available, but I didn't bother.
Can be heavy when full!
I like the look of the solent plastics ones posted above - £9 with free delivery looks good, and holding 20 means they're a little better for handling.
One of my #lockdown2020 jobs is to sort some decent garage shelving - so smaller crates would be better for that too.

 

[gingerneil]

Just bought some of these. The local brewery up here use 10 inch bottles, these crates are just fine.
https://www.solentplastics.co.uk/20...g-brewery-beer-bottle-plastic-stacking-crate/

What was delivery on these? Have 'submitted an enquiry' and they will call about delivery and payment. Very odd for an online business these days!

 

[Avo]

What was delivery on these? Have 'submitted an enquiry' and they will call about delivery and payment. Very odd for an online business these days!

They did that to me, I'm Highlands & Islands so is always a bit steep. They did have an ebay listing for them which was reasonable. Pays to order as many as you are likely to need in one go.