Different Carboys

[southlake333]

I picked up these 2 carboys from a guy on craiglist for $5 each but I'm not exactly sure how to use them. Do you think they are the equivalent of a Better Bottle and can be used as a secondary for clearing? Do you think they could be used for aging (a few months, not years)?

 

[cpfan]

YES I do. I used these carboys for several years when I ran a Ferment on Premises. Here are the problems that I can think of.....

1) They will scratch if you stir aggressively, especially with a drill, or use a brush for cleaning
2) Must be very careful if using a vacuum for degassing
3) They stain with red wines eventually. (I used the chlorinated pink powder cleaner to remove some/most of the stain. Make sure you rinse VERY WELL afterwards.)
4) Require an odd size bung (#8 or #8.5 I think), but you have the bungs already.

Positives...I never broke one in 6 years of winemaking, and believe me I dropped a lot of empty ones. I would regularly try to carry too many empty ones, and sooner or later some would hit the comcrete floor. They are pretty close to a true 23 litres (ie 6 US gallons).

Steve

 

[southlake333]

Ok great, thanks for the info! Then they do sound like Better Bottles and that just made my day as now I have more space for my next 2 batches!

I can clean by just soaking with easyclean and I just bought an All In One Wine Pump that I'll use for degassing while transferring into glass carboys. They use size 8 bungs but they came with them and I already picked up 2 more just in case.

 

[Rocky]

JJ, what is the "recycle" code on the bottom of the carboy (i.e. the little recycle triangle will have a number inside it and perhaps some letters below it)?

 

[southlake333]

I looked for that before I posted the pic and these don't have recycle codes on them. They say they were made in Canada so maybe they don't have the same requirements as the US?