Carboy Life

[user 35751]

I own about 20 plastic carboys ranging from 3,5, and 6 gallons, and about 10 in glass of 3,5,and 6 gallons. I’ve accumulated them over the last 12 years
How have y’all fared with plastic carboys, and their lifespan. I would assume glass would last the longest as long as you’re careful handling them.

 

[Jim Welch]

I own about 20 plastic carboys ranging from 3,5, and 6 gallons, and about 10 in glass of 3,5,and 6 gallons. I’ve accumulated them over the last 12 years
How have y’all fared with plastic carboys, and their lifespan. I would assume glass would last the longest as long as you’re careful handling them.

When you say plastic im going to assume you mean PET and will tell you my experience with Better Bottles which are PET.
As long as you clean the interior without scratching and (I’d imagine) keep it out of direct sunlight they will be good to use for a very long time. Also one can’t use water over 125 degrees F to avoid warping while cleaning but you probably know this if you’re using PET.
IIRC, I got my first better bottle for beer brewing in the late 90s-early 2000s and am still using it. The outside has some scratches but the inside as near as I can tell is scratch free. I have 8 ported BBS and use them exclusively now for secondary fermentation.
I see no reason, other than going to much larger wine batches, why I couldn’t use them for another 10 years or more. They may outlive me who knows.

 

[user 35751]

That sounds great. Yes I mean PET. About half of my plastic carboys are Better Bottles, the others a slick straight sided bottle. They tend to wiggle some. I like the rigidity of the BB and will be upgrading the others slowly.
Do you see a reduction in clarity over time?

 

[Jim Welch]

I've not noticed any clarity issues but some do have some external scratches. None are opaque or becoming opaque.
If you are thinking of upgrading the non-Better Bottles to BBs, I've found that BBs and their accessories seem to have nearly disappeared from the retail market. I read somewhere, perhaps on homebrewtalk, that the machine they had to make the BBs broke and it is too expensive to fix but I've not confirmed that. Usually check craigslist and other online marketplaces every couple months looking for used ones and occasionally find some.
Almost all of mine are the 6 gallon ported models and I have the racking adapters and valves for them. For making 6 gallon batches I find these ideal for secondary fermentation. I transfer into them around 1.010 SG, seal them up and leave it there for about a month then transfer to glass carboys for bulk aging. If I had to guess I'd say at least 99% of the lees are kept out of the carboys. That which escapes the primary very nearly completely drops out in the BB.