I just bottled my Sam Smith Taddy Porter clone and when I was rinsing my better bottle ( secondary ) and noticed a crack in the bottom of the bottle. Yes I know about the tennis ball trick BUT this was my secondary all I did was rack to it and hook up my brew hauler and carry it to the basement where it sat for a few weeks. Luckily the crack wasn’t enough to jepordize the integrity of the beer. But I have the bottle out in the recycle bin because I can’t use it again. I have one more better bottle and one glass carboy that I can still use for secondaries.
Anyone else have these issues with the Better Bottles. ??? ???
I’ve had some of my better bottles for 3 or 4 years now and haven’t had any cracks. I don’t subject them to sudden temperature changes and only clean with PBW.
You put a tennis ball under the bump to shake it around so it doesn’t hit the floor. I used to rest it on my foot to shake it, but now use a mixstir in the kettle to aerate.
I’ve got one Better Bottle I must have had for close to 10 years. Maybe more, but I can’t recall.
The only issue I’ve had with it is I got some scratches on the inside cleaning it before I knew better.
But it still works just fine. As a matter of fact, it’s full of stout right now. Next to my other Better Bottle (at least 5 years old) which is full of tripel.
I’d buy more, but I don’t REALLY need them. I’m down to one glass 6.5 gallon carboy, which I guess means I’ve broken two over the years. Funny, as I can only recall one broken…
On a side note, you can skip the secondary unless you’re dry hopping, oaking or need to free up a fermenter. Not really necessary.
My schedule can sometimes get kinda hairy ( I can sometimes get pulled away for a few weeks) and I can’t always make my bottling deadline. I don’t like letting the beer sit on a full layer of trub for too long hence the secondary. I know the recent thought process on secondaries has changed but I have made some good batches with my methods and becasue of my aforementioned schedule I will need to continue to rack to a secondary.
Unless, of course, too much beer was applied to the brewer the day it was filled.
As for better bottles, I have 2 - 5gal BB and have never had a problem with them. I have read a couple of other threads recently on people having so issues with cracks so you are not alone.
I haven’t had any problems either. I have two six gallon ones, one of which is over 5 years old and the other is over 2 years old. I also have a couple of the five gallon ones.
I haven’t broken one, but I have melted one by running hot water out of my IC into it (my not-so-great idea to clean the BB)–problem was that I got distracted and the long soak and high temps pretty much shrunk the 5 gallon container into a pruney 3 gallon container
my two oldest ones were junked last fall after developing cracks and in one case a leak. Both were 3-4 years old and probably not treated as well as they should have been. Not too worried though; have 6-8 more that are newer and I always check for cracks now.
I have one 5g BB that I probably won’t be using again. I filled it up with some barleywine to age for a few months. I put it down in the basement, right on the concrete, purged the head space with CO2, plugged it up with a solid stopper, and put the box it came in over the top of it. Apparently my basement floor is really cold. When I decided to bottle it last week, the sides were all caved in. It didn’t leak, but there are noticeable cracks now where it caved it and expanded back out once I removed the stopper.
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