Better bottles vs water cooler jugs

[GoBigBlueF150]

Is there any real difference between better bottles and water cooler jugs? $7 at Wal-Mart

 

[olusteebus]

I don't know but I think better bottles are better. Thus the name.

Seriously, I think better bottles are thicker and can probably handle acid better. If you do vacuum degassing, a water bottle would implode.

 

[menerdari]

I don't know but I think better bottles are better. Thus the name.

Seriously, I think better bottles are thicker and can probably handle acid better. If you do vacuum degassing, a water bottle would implode.

I believe the better bottles, or whatever brand brewing bottle (I was told by my LHBS that Better Bottles are no longer available, but a similar replacement is)
is safe with alcohol and acids that are common in home brewing/wine making.
I am under the understanding that even better bottles will collapse with vacuum degassing, I degass in glass.

 

[ceeaton]

Yea, I sometimes place some plastic wrap around the top of a better bottle when I'm racking to another carboy (keeps fruit flies out) and have had the side collapse temporarily on me, so I highly doubt you could pull much of a vacuum on it without it getting misshapen.

 

[cpfan]

The handle in the water bottle can make cleaning it a bit difficult if some sediment gets in there. No handle in a Better Bottle.

There are thousands of formulations of PET (#1) plastic. I believe that the BB plastic is designed for alcohol, whereas the water bottle is not. Also I believe that some water bottles have been #7 (Other) plastic (not sure if these are still being made). Would definitely avoid the #7 bottles for winemaking.

Finally, water jugs are not designed to accept a bung. The inside of the neck is not necessarily smooth or correctly shaped, so a proper bung seal may not occur. Whereas the Better Bottle neck is designed to accept a bung. The water jugs pictured look like they have screw caps (although very hard to be certain in the picture). If they are screw caps should be able to drill an air lock hole.

Personally I would not use water jugs.

Steve

 

[JimmyT]

Vacuum and a better bottle don't mix. I've never tried the allinone on mine because it couldn't even handle my brake bleeder. Not sure what the reading was but I'm pretty sure it was less than 5"hg.

 

[FTC Wines]

I've sucked in a Better Bottle trying to vacuum rack into a Better Bottle. Now only use my Better Bottles to ferment in & rack out of. NEVER USE them to rack into! They will collapse! Beware! Roy

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

also consider the Big Mouth Bubblers, so much easier to clean, WVMJ

 

[Jc5066]

A #1 is a #1. The only difference may be the thickness of the container. I have used a Walmart water bottle in the past. Usually just use it as a bottle bucket. I prefer using glass for secondary and bulk aging.

 

[Wiz]

This subject comes up about every year. For my two cents, I have been making wine where we live in Costa Rica for the past several years. I have no source of glass carboys or Better Bottles and use 5 gallon plastic water jugs and 1 gallon plastic jugs with no problems. I make both fruit wines and wine from grape concentrate.