PET Carboys / better bottle and knockoffs

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Just because I feel like there should be more voices to support this——— I’ve never seen any negative air pressure get to the point of forcing a air bubble INTO the wine either. Negative pressure ? Sure. Evident from the levels in the “S”. But never a bubble. Not once.
And I’d say “industry standards aren’t exactly 1 Camden per gallon. That’s just a general rule of thumb when lacking proper testing equipment. Industry standards are knowing your sulphite level and adjusting the free So2 ppm according to ph if the wine. 150 free ppm is a helluva lot tho.
I add ZERO kmeta prior to yeast- and let it sit for months on end before dosing. I also had a low ph. And have made wine using none at all throughout the entire process too. There’s lots of variables involved in this game
 
I just use water from a drinking bottle, never had a problem.
 
Storing your wine in a plastic jug with a loosened cap is not the same as storing it in a carboy with and airlock. The loosened cap will easily let air and oxygen in giving rise to the potential for an oxidized wine. In an s-shaped airlock, the liquid may move back and forth a bit with pressure and temperature changes, but not enough to let any air in unless, of course, there's a dramatic change in either such as a 20° drop in temp.
 
I got all mine from the Primo kiosk at my Walmart. They put them on top of the recycle machine. The 4 gallons get turned in but can't be reused, thus FREE. Picked up 20 one day. Find out when the delivery/pick-up guy comes around, they will gladly give you the 4 gallon ones, less work for him.
 
The air lock debate, The purpose of them is to lock air out. If you have a solution in the lock the negative pressure will suck in a little fluid, not air. To avoid too much fluid sucked in on PET carboys, I remove the lock while moving them, so the flexibility of the carboy does not suck in the fluid. I mist with Kmeta as I replace the air lock.

Glass carboys will experience little if any negative pressure as CO2 is constantly trying to escape, even after a year of storage. I for one hate oxidized wine, so I am diligent about the fluid level in the lock, and I always use a dilute Kmeta solution, weaker than my sanitizing solution.

I took a tour of the Biltmore winery, even a 1000 gal vat had a tiny plastic air lock sticking out of the top, the same type as I use.
 
Thats irrelevant.

Well, that pretty much sums it up. I posted my personal experience in an attempt to be helpful. Obviously I am a complete idiot because you were able to completely and absolutely dismiss my procedure in no time flat rendering my personal experience meaningless.

Congratulations on being the second smartest person on the message board. I'm sure you and CK55 are going to revolutionize the wine making hobby with your groundbreaking new concepts. Dullards like me will just have to sit back an learn from your amazing genius. Hard to believe us imbeciles have been locked into the faulty practice of using airlocks for thousands of years. Thanks for setting me straight.
 
YOU could be that person! Do a scientific split test and let us know the result!
I have some going now but it will be a year before i know.

The air lock debate, The purpose of them is to lock air out. If you have a solution in the lock the negative pressure will suck in a little fluid, not air. To avoid too much fluid sucked in on PET carboys, I remove the lock while moving them, so the flexibility of the carboy does not suck in the fluid. I mist with Kmeta as I replace the air lock.

Glass carboys will experience little if any negative pressure as CO2 is constantly trying to escape, even after a year of storage. I for one hate oxidized wine, so I am diligent about the fluid level in the lock, and I always use a dilute Kmeta solution, weaker than my sanitizing solution.

I took a tour of the Biltmore winery, even a 1000 gal vat had a tiny plastic air lock sticking out of the top, the same type as I use.


Thats interesting that co2 is still trying to escape after a year. I hadnt paid attention to that. So do you not degass with a stick and just let it naturally degass during bulk storage or do you degass and that still happens?

Well, that pretty much sums it up. I posted my personal experience in an attempt to be helpful. Obviously I am a complete idiot because you were able to completely and absolutely dismiss my procedure in no time flat rendering my personal experience meaningless.

Congratulations on being the second smartest person on the message board. I'm sure you and CK55 are going to revolutionize the wine making hobby with your groundbreaking new concepts. Dullards like me will just have to sit back an learn from your amazing genius. Hard to believe us imbeciles have been locked into the faulty practice of using airlocks for thousands of years. Thanks for setting me straight.

Im not sure gow you got all that out of what i said. Are you having a bad day?

I said that filling the air lock with sanatizer is not relevant to the question of will not using an air lock oxidize the wine more then using an air lock.

I mean do you believe that using sanatizer in the air lock makes the air lock do a better job of not oxidizing?

I suppose you were saying contaminants but rhis isnt a debate avout wine making or if i think your intelegent or not, im sure you are.

In relation to sanitizer i was saying if air is passing thru only a small portion of it touches the water. You can do research in industries and while industries do pass contaminated air thru mist to filter very few bubble it thru water. Only if its water soluble compounds.

Further look at practical examples like a hookah. If the water completely filtered all the smoke it would filter out everything that the person is trying to smoke and why bother? You would be smoking clean air. Early it filters some as the water changes color. But thats my point. Sanatizer in water may filter some contaminants, mabye even 20% but it still would let 80% or more pass (no scientific basis on those numbers just guessing, id guess its more like 5% filter but trying to be conservative) which means i guess by all means use it.

For me if its not going to filter like 95% or 99% then its not worth the effort and i need a better solution. That or its really not a problem.

Which is really the core question here when you boil it down. Sure a winery or any self respecting person that wants to guarantee great wine could go all out and use head space eliminators and air locks and other tools. Im not opposed to these, i use air locks and have.

What im really asking is what can i get away with? What is the minimum effective dose?

Some people just have to know what that boundry is so they can work up from there.


I recok ill just have to try and see.
 
Last edited:
I really don't try to wade into debates like this, please google "old time wine making" and prepare to be shocked. Also its pretty hard to oxygenate wine..................there I said it. Anecdotes? A fellow winemaker and I bought some carboys from an old timer. One we couldn't have, it had his last batch of blueberry he made. It was about 1/3 full. When he wanted a glass of wine he'd simply pour some wine out. He'd been doing this for over a year. We tasted it and it was really good. So this carboy was 1/2 full and would get agitated everytime he tapped it. Blue water bottles? Use then for blueberry wine every year, they get aged about 9 months-no problems.
 
Loopline, I see your point that a bubble burping out an airlock doesn't seem much different than trickling out a loose lid or bung. The thing is though, I'm not so concerned about the occasional macro bubble coming in or out. I'd be more worried about what happens when the pressure is equalized inside and outside the vessel. Gasses such as oxygen will always try to flow from regions of high concentration to regions of low concentration. Given enough time, they will succeed. So with a loose lid, even if the wine is stable and the pressure inside and outside are the same, eventually enough oxygen molecules will find their way in to saturate the wine.
 
Kevinlfifer, sorry for my part in hijacking your thread. In hindsight, putting an exclamation point on the obvious is kind of pointless. Sorry for my part in taking things off track.

I did find the original post helpful. I have several of those 4 gallon water bottles sitting around and my carboys are all full following the recent harvest. I plan to head to my LHBS today and get some appropriatly sized bungs and put them to use. Using three of them to free up two 6 gallon carboys leaves me options to start more wine. Thanks for the tip and thanks to other who weighed in with your experience.

Now I'll go back to quietly lurking and learning. Thanks everyone.
 
I would point out that there are 2 kinds of airlocks. S locks suck air, while 3 piece locks suck liquid. Sanitizer is useless for the former, while it could plausibly be better for the latter to be sucking in sanitizer rather than 3 month old water with a dozen fruit flies in it. Which I'm pretty sure I've done without harm on several occasions, so it's probably not a big deal either way.
 
I looked at these in Walmart yesterday. Do the ones you use have a built in handle? Also do you use the water in your wine making process?
 
I used PET 4 gallon water bottles from Sam's Club as carboys for secondary and bulk aging. I used 3 carboys (=12 gal) for 2 juice bucket batches (=12 gal). Not to be confused with those blue 5 gal water bottles that are 02 permeable.

I think its a great idea and I do use some types of plastic storage containers but so far not the water bottles you refer to.
I am not familiar with the type of bottles you are referring to and we do not have "Sams Club" where I am.
Can you please explain what those "blue" bottles are and how to tell which plastic bottles are safe?
Many thanks
 
I got all mine from the Primo kiosk at my Walmart. They put them on top of the recycle machine. The 4 gallons get turned in but can't be reused, thus FREE. Picked up 20 one day. Find out when the delivery/pick-up guy comes around, they will gladly give you the 4 gallon ones, less work for him.
I checked the Primo kiosk today at Walmart. I only saw options for 3 and 5 gallon Carboys. Am I missing something?
 
If you really stop and think this thru your answer isnt logical. As air pressure and environmwnt changes air flows in and out of an air lock.

For example go read all the posts of people who ask if their wine is ok when they seal their car boy with a solid bung and it gets pushed out as pressure changes.

Air flowing into a carboy due to pressure and environment and temperature change will pass thru the water as an air bubble. Force it to happen by squeezing a bottle and watch.

You're not as smart as you think.

If your carboy is topped up the amount of change in pressure is negligible. Even if you did have some bubbles coming through that's nothing like having a free exchange of air.

Go ahead though and see the results yourself. We'll wait. Ferment one with an air lock and one without.

That being said, if someone is using PET I'd recommend not moving it except for racking. The flexibility will mix air when handled.
 
Wine making is both an art and a science. It can involve some carefully controlled physical or chemical processes and it can also involve subjective experiences. The two are not mutually exclusive and all of us use both in every batch we make. Because of the subjective nature of wine making. any scientific experiment will be clouded by subjective interpretation of the results. Taste, color, clarity, etc. are all subjective based upon our sensory observations. You can do all the scientific studies you want, but in the end what scientifically is deemed to be an outstanding wine might taste like rotgut to some of us.
 
Last edited:
The 4 gallon bottles get left there or put in the machine for the discount coupon, but they cannot be used again, The rep will be glad to set them aside for you so he does not have to dispose of them.
 
Back
Top