using pop bottles

[bill]

i have 2 wines near ending #1 and #2 and i have a few people wanting to taste my efforts ( fools )

anyway my latest batches are going to give me around 12 bottles of wine ,now this wouldn't last 2 minutes if i was to give everyone a full bottle and i want a few for myself and to let a couple age a bit..

would the small pop bottles be ok ( the kids bottles). and would they be ok to store in the veg section of the fridge as i have a spare section..

this will kill 2 birds with 1 stone as i can use them to give a good glass size sample to friends and also when friends come can let them have a taste without having to open a full bottle..

billy

[fatbloke]

i have 2 wines near ending #1 and #2 and i have a few people wanting to taste my efforts ( fools )

anyway my latest batches are going to give me around 12 bottles of wine ,now this wouldn't last 2 minutes if i was to give everyone a full bottle and i want a few for myself and to let a couple age a bit..

would the small pop bottles be ok ( the kids bottles). and would they be ok to store in the veg section of the fridge as i have a spare section..

this will kill 2 birds with 1 stone as i can use them to give a good glass size sample to friends and also when friends come can let them have a taste without having to open a full bottle..

billy

There's the ongoing debate of the "plastic Vs glass" thing. It usually revolves round the actual fermenting though i.e. glass DJ Vs Better Bottle.

The general concensus being that it seems to be fine to ferment in plastic, but for longer term storage, the product should be transferred to glass.

This, as I understand it, is to do with the action of alcohol on plastic. Alcohol being an excellent solvent, so that there is a possibility that over time, even in small concentrations, it might leach plasticisers or similar from the actual plastic, thereby tainting the content somehow. Whether that's scientifically correct, I don't know, but I give you the spirits industry as a prime example. Personally I can't think of anyone who uses plastic - it's all wood for ageing and stainless or glass for storage.

Even in the wine world it only seems to be wines that are intended for pretty much immediate consumption that are packed in plastic e.g. "bag in a box" wines - you know, the "commodity" type ones. All the "serious" ones still seem to be in glass (some plastics are slightly air permeable and would spoil the wine over time).

So whether you could get away with storing some in the small 2plassy" pop bottles is entirely up to you.

Me ? as soon as it comes out of "bulk storage", then I'd be bottling most of it in glass. Possibly a small amount of "it" in little plastic bottles, but they'd still end up being the ones that get drunk first as I'd be worrying that the plastic is affecting the taste - and still having to open a full bottle even if someone just wanted a "taste".

Perhaps you should just bottle some of whatever in 375ml bottles instead. Sure they don't work out much cheaper than 750ml bottles, but it's not about the content volume or the amount of glass used in the making, but the energy needed to make "a" container/bottle.

If you have both sizes, then you just put some in both. You'll find that there are other sizes of bottles available, but unless you can buy them (and the caps/stoppers) by the pallet load, then they're usually just too expensive to bother with (like 4, 5 or 6 times more expensive, compared to buying them by the pallet).

Dunno if any of that helps bill ?

regards

jtfb