Better bottles carboys vs glass?

[kudapucat]

AToE is being a pedantic Engineer type, which I usually assume as my role in life. Damnable usurpers!

What he means is: Glass is made mainly from silica, and other minerals. Basically molten rock with some weirdness that makes it stay a supercooled liquid.
Rock is inorganic.
Plastic is made from oil. Oil is the long dead carbon etc from organisms millions of years ago.
Organisms and plants are organic.

You mean organic in the non-technical sense where it has come to mean 'no harmful chemicals' but really organic just means alive or made from something that was once alive.

I was busy thinking of a clever retort (still thinking) when you posted this innocent question

 

[wildoates]

What he said. The fact that something is organic does not necessarily make it safe to drink or rub on your skin or keep your mead in. There are many organic compounds that are not all that good for you, but they're technically organic, all right!

I think a better term would be "inert." Assumng it doesn't have something nasty included in the melt, glass is fairly inert--and heavy, but it's hard to stain, easy to clean and sanitize, cheap, and totally recyclable.

Okay, and dangerous if you drop it, yeah, but you've got to take the bad with the good in everything in life, including this. The truth is that whatever you decide to use, there are going to be drawbacks. It's just a matter of minimizing them to get the job done.

And yeah, I'm being a pedantic teacher-type, but it's perfectly okay...I've got a license. ;D

 

[AToE]

They both nailed it, I was just making a witty comment - organic doesn't mean "nice" or "happy" or "safe" - it means organic as opposed to inorganic (aside from organic produce, which is just a silly term, but we're stuck with it now).

So yeah, plastic is organic and glass isn't.

(I know plastic can be synthetic, but most of the time it isn't it's just easier/cheaper to make from oil or plants)


I do use glass myself, because it's more fun and the plastic carboys seem to have flex issues that bug me.

 

[akueck]

Hahaha.

Organic doesn't actually mean alive. Organic chemistry deals with compounds usually containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxgyen (nitrogen is also common), but chemicals are not alive in the common sense. Polymers are usually made of organic components. PET is a little strange, with the aromatic ring in there. But organic nonetheless. (Incidentally it's that aromatic ring which gives it some of the useful properties that turn it into carboys.) Inorganic mostly just means "no carbon".

Glass can actually be scratched pretty easily. You could do it with a pencil. If you're industrious, you could do it with your fingernail. And it's not a supercooled liquid, it's glass. It's a solid. All those stories of glass flowing down over the centuries are bunk.

 

[wildoates]

The bulk of my carboys I got from an elderly couple who made wine 25+ years ago, and they have some of the most amazing scratches on them! I wonder how the heck they got so dinged up without breaking.

 

[AToE]

Hahaha.

Organic doesn't actually mean alive. Organic chemistry deals with compounds usually containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxgyen (nitrogen is also common), but chemicals are not alive in the common sense. Polymers are usually made of organic components. PET is a little strange, with the aromatic ring in there. But organic nonetheless. (Incidentally it's that aromatic ring which gives it some of the useful properties that turn it into carboys.) Inorganic mostly just means "no carbon".

Oh I know, my girlfriend schooled me on the correct usage of the word a while back, apparently my schooling hasn't kept up with hers!

Either way, I stand by my joke!!!

 

[Golddiggie]

Tell an organic gardener that petroleum based fertilizers are 'organic' and I hope you have your running shoes on (and kevlar in some cases too)...

Maybe I'm 'old school' when I grow things, but I won't use fertilizers that came out of a science lab... My father taught me to garden back in the 70's... We had a in-ground pool put in and they put all the clay that came out of the hole all over the back yard... Within two years (of his 'organic' or natural gardening) we had a garden that did better than anyone else in our neighborhood. You could also tell where the 'run-off' from our yard touched the neighbors. They would use the petroleum based fertilizers, where we used all natural/organic (probably interchangeable terms in this case)... Shrubs grew much faster and were far healthier in the run-off area. One neighbor even started planting HIS garden against our fence... Our fertilizers were seaweed (in liquid or original form) cow manure, peat moss, and occasionally we'd plant "winter wheat" that was then 'tilled in the following spring time...

So, whenever I hear someone mention 'organic' that's what comes into my head... So in that case, glass is more organic than plastic. In the sense that glass is simply heated silica that can be formed/shaped easily. Plastic is engineered, on a molecular level, oil...

IF I had a choice, I would use all glass carboys. But, with financial limitations, I needed to get the PET carboys for some of my fermentations... Eventually, I expect I'll have all glass carboys. Plus I plan to get one of the larger beer fermenting tanks (with two valves and the conical shaped bottom)... Stainless steel is also one of my preferred materials to cook with. I have zero teflon coated pots or pans...

 

[mmclean]

Well, I really like the PET carboy (not Better Bottle) I got from Morewine.

I feel safer and I feel my mead is safer. Best of both worlds.

 

[Medsen Fey]

And then came stainless steel.....

 

[wayneb]

Tell an organic gardener that petroleum based fertilizers are 'organic' and I hope you have your running shoes on (and kevlar in some cases too)...

Maybe I'm 'old school' when I grow things, but I won't use fertilizers that came out of a science lab... My father taught me to garden back in the 70's... We had a in-ground pool put in and they put all the clay that came out of the hole all over the back yard... Within two years (of his 'organic' or natural gardening) we had a garden that did better than anyone else in our neighborhood.

I agree with AToE, the use of the term "organic" is silly, and a corruption of its original definition, when it is applied to gardening/farming/agriculture of any kind, including keeping of food animals, in today's usage. Organic, as noted by akueck, simply means comprised of compounds that contain carbon.

A much better term (in my opinion) for the kind of sustainable, natural-cycle gardening/farming that is done without the use of synthesized chemical adjuncts, is "natural" farming. Plain and Simple. Unambiguous. Either you allow the earth's natural processes to provide all the constituent ingredients that you use in your soil/nutrients/foods, or you use synthetics. No confusion.

BTW - Although I'm in no sense a "tree hugger," I see merit in pursuing natural, sustainable agricultural processes to the greatest extent possible. The relative health merits of natural techniques may or may not be real - there are still conflicting studies on much of that, with the exception of pesticides (most synthetic long half-life pesticides have been shown to do far more damage to the environment than they provide in short term good) - but the savings in energy ARE very real. Whenever you can take advantage of processes and chemical transformations that occur naturally in the environment then you don't have to waste energy in the synthesis of alternative compounds to perform similar functions. BTW - My Dad also practiced, and taught me, how to garden naturally. He got into it during the DDT scare of the early 60's, and as one result we ended up with lots of preying mantises on our property when I was growing up. I have to admit that, to a 10 year old boy, watching a mantis chew off the head of a just-caught grasshopper is a uniquely fascinating sight! ;D

To get this back on topic, now, I will add that I probably have more glass carboys than many of you; I've been collecting 'em since 1980, after all! But I have recently invested in a couple of Better Bottles, and I'm convinced that they have their uses. I am also convinced that they don't pick up residues from my meads; when I simply rinse them in a percarbonate solution after use, they come out completely clean and residue (and aroma) free. I find that fascinating!

 

[kudapucat]

I hate that I can't say my stuff is grown organically, because I don't have certification!!!
Further to that, an acquaintance of mine is unable to get organic certification, because she keeps her farmed rabbits in large cages in a shed.
Of course the law here stipulates that rabbits must be kept in cages...
So exactly why when she feeds them pesticide free naturally grown hay, and abides by the law, is it not 'organic' or as Wayneb states 'natural'
WTF does cages have to do with what 'organic' has come to mean?
Also where does their arbitrary definition of a cage come from, is not organic cattle grown in a big cage?? (paddock - or 'field' for our US friends)
This just gets me riled up, and I have to go to work, so I'm going to stall this rant early. Especially as it's OT... I seem to do that a lot

 

[ChadK]

To get this back on topic, now, I will add that I probably have more glass carboys than many of you; I've been collecting 'em since 1980, after all! But I have recently invested in a couple of Better Bottles, and I'm convinced that they have their uses. I am also convinced that they don't pick up residues from my meads; when I simply rinse them in a percarbonate solution after use, they come out completely clean and residue (and aroma) free. I find that fascinating!

I'm not a traditionalist, but I am a romantic, and there is just something about glass. That being said, I like the idea that you can tap a better bottle. I can see that making racking much easier.

 

[Robusto]

The way that I see it-
Better bottles are much lighter and much less prone to breaking, but can scratch easier. Glass is less permeable and can stand up to harsher cleaning by both scrubbing and chemicals, but is heavy and more breakable.

So what I usually do is ferment in plastic and age in glass.

 

[MJJ]

I have fermentation buckets. 3, 4, 5 & 6+ Gallon sizes.
I have glass carboys. 1, 3, & 5 Gallon Sizes.
I have plastic Better Bottles. 5 & 6 Gallon.

I have a bad back, I got rid of the 5 Gallon carboys, 3 Gallon carboys easier to handle.

I don't like using the fermentation buckets cause I cant see whats happening inside. I use them for storage.

I like the better bottles, Much lighter & I can see inside. Downside is that once they are filled, Moving them is very difficult because they act like a tube of tooth paste when you squeeze it too hard. I took a clothesline & made a harness for the better bottles. Makes it easy to move them when full. You can buy a harness for the better bottles, they cost about 20 bucks or make 4 for less than 5 bucks or use milk crates.

I find better bottles work best for me.