Can I use a 5 gallon plastic water cooler jug as a carboy?!
Can I use a 5 gallon plastic water cooler jug as a carboy?
I have some empty 5 gallon water jugs from my water cooler at work. Can I use them as carboys to brew beer/wine?
Plastic ID is 7 and it says they should only be used for water.
Answers:
One of the biggest problems I have had with plastic carboys is that after they are used and cleaned a few times they seem to get contaminated. Even after a good sanitizing with chlorine or Iodine I will get a weird soil tasting fungus in my wort. Glass is the way to go, copper, stainless, or even an Oak barrel. I guess the water cooler jugs are clean enough considering they were only used once and for water. But plastic is just no good. Go old school.
I have a couple of buddies that make their own beer and they both use a combination of those plastic water jugs and glass carboys to make their beer and I can't tell the difference, so I would have to say yes, even though I have always used glass myself
Yes! You need to not fill them up to capacity, but that's what most wine or beer "recipes" say anyway. See this site:
http://www.homecraft.on.ca/instructions....
Those plastic jigs are not made from food grade plastic. Also, you can't get a tight seal on them. I wouldn't use them.