Beer & wine equipment

[umpa]

Just been watching a YouTube video of a man making a kit wine, in it he says not to use plastic equipment from beer making. Can anyone tell me why this is so, I have fermented both wine and beer in my plastic FV and not had a problem (yet).

Cheers

Ump...

[steve_flack]

The Americans in particular have a thing about not using plastic. They say it scratches too easily and can habour bacteria (which is true). On the other hand, many homebrewers and even commercial breweries use plastic lined fermenters so isn't an no-no so long as you look after your kit.

http://www.pbcbreweryinstallations.com/polyethylene.htm

Americans would rather risk major injury and blood loss by moving around large wet glass containers weighing over 40lbs when full of wort.

EDIT: Actually read your post properly now! About using them for both. As long as there's no flavour contamination from the vessel I can't see the problem. Every time you brew your fermenter is biologically filthy until you sanitise it. If bugs could make it from beer to wine and vice versa then you'd never make an uninfected batch.

[Laripu]

The Americans in particular have a thing about not using plastic. They say it scratches too easily and can habour bacteria (which is true). On the other hand, many homebrewers and even commercial breweries use plastic lined fermenters so isn't an no-no so long as you look after your kit.

http://www.pbcbreweryinstallations.com/polyethylene.htm

Americans would rather risk major injury and blood loss by moving around large wet glass containers weighing over 40lbs when full of wort.

I found that the quality of my beer and wine improved when I switched from plastic to glass (over 15 years ago), since I lager my beer (even ales) for at least 1 month. Besides bacterial problems, there is also the fact that plastic is more permeable to air. (Although there are new plastic bottles whose makers claim that they are impermeable - I will be looking into those.)

The risk of injury is mitigated by:
1) drying the glass containers before moving them from a counter to the floor, and
2) using a wheeled wooden platform to move them horizontally. (You know - the kind meant for potted plants.)

The way you phrase it makes it sound as though Americans think risk of injury is a good thing (actually maybe you have a pont there ). I think the attiude is more that if we are going to invest all that time and work, then we want the results to be as good as possible.

[umpa]

I think your looking far to deeply in to it, the original question was why should we not use equipment used for beer for wine or vice versa ?

I have and not had a problem doing so, if you clean and sanitise correctly there should not be a problem?

The dangers of using glass carboys didn’t and should not come in to it, that’s a personal preference.

He did go on to say that a glass thermometer was OK but plastic was not, so Steve's post would concur with that school of thought.

maybe its the fact that plastic can harbour flavours of the last batch ?

ump..

[Laripu]

the original question was why should we not use equipment used for beer for wine or vice versa ?

I have and not had a problem doing so, if you clean and sanitise correctly there should not be a problem?

I have done that as well. I agree that cleaning and sanitizing is most important.

As far as plastic goes, I still use a plastic bucket for bottling and have had no ill effects from it. When I make wine (about once a year) I use that bucket as the primary.

I apologise if I came off sounding rude. I didn't mean to be.

[maxashton]

My wife is American. She definitely likes the idea of me injuring myself, but that's because she thinks it's funny.


We have several users of better bottles here, i intend to join them myself.