Bottles: PET vs Glass - My experience

[TempTest]

Hello!

I've seen a few threads on the discussion between bottling into PET vs glass. I'm only a few (kit) brews under my belt but my experiences thus far have found there to be a very clear winner to this question: Glass is best.

I've got a full complement (48 bottles) of both Coopers PET bottles (brown) and St Peters glass bottles (green). In all brews to date I've made a few observations:

1) Beer appears to condition quicker (and achieves a nicer, more mellow taste) in half the time in the glass bottle (the PET gets there but much slower)
2) The PET does not carbonate as well
3) PET are harder to keep clean (I'd avoid a bottle brush with them) and harder to clean (easier to knock them over or find them floating when fitting them with a cleaning solution)
4) Glass work better with the bottles rinsers (due to the narrow neck compared to the PET)
5) And for similar reasons, the glass pours better too
6) Glass 'feels right' where as serving from plastic does not
7) The 'ridges' on the base of the PET bottle make it harder to pour without disturbing the yeast (due to the turbulence they promote when pouring)

I'm sure some will disagree but wanted to get my opinion out there. I'd planned to buy a few more cases of the Coopers bottles (lighter and won't smash as well as being very good value) but given point one (and two) above, in particular, it's just not something worth considering. The others points are interesting but not absolutely essential, the first two however are - The beer has to taste right. In all of my brews after 6 - 8 weeks conditioning I've poured both a beer stored in PET and a beer stored in glass and blind taste tested (blind folded and had them passed to me backwards and forwards a few times not knowing which was which in order to check, and double check, which was best). Every time the glass one tastes better. I've just done the same with my most recent brew and whilst the glass bottled beer could still do with a little longer to mellow further the PET was completely undrinkable! I was going to bin it, but, well... You understand!

So: my summary... Glass beats PET hands down. I won't bin the PET for now - at least until I'm pushed for space - but I see no reason to bottle in them again otherwise.

And, your experience?

[legion]

Use mostly some glass but also some pet and haven't noticed a difference.

Other than after some unpredertimined length of time pet will loose pressure but that doesn't cause the beer to go off. This could be six month's or two years....

[LeeH]

I use both, mainly glass but notice no difference in the end result of the beer.

I always use a couple of the Coopers bottles per batch to check for carbonation and can never see or taste a difference.

Very strange that people have varied results.

[legion]

Haven't used coopers, use coke / Pepsi etc...

[dbg400]

I prefer the look of glass, but PET bottles are easier to deal with when empty! I've got a number of the Cooper screwcap bottles (approx 50p each), some cheaper clear PET screwcap ones (25p) and some brown PET bottles that take a crown cap (32p). The latter look much closer to a glass bottle, being domed at the base just like glass, and if anything feel even thicker than the Coopers bottles. When I need to get more plastic ones it'll be this sort. I also use a few 500ml fizzy water bottles - they are only 17p with the water, but I only use them a couple of times, and discard any with any noticeable damage.

I've not noticed any difference in how the beer turns out, based on the type of bottle, and most of my brews use a mix of bottles. I tend to keep the plastic ones, and any giveaways are glass (as I don't always get the empties back)

[TempTest]

Interesting

I'd definitely recommend trying a beer, bottled at the same time, back-to-back (possibly even blind-folded) and see if you can taste a difference. It's not so clear-cut and obvious if you've first had a pint of one and then go to another but I definitely can taste a difference when I'm tasting them back-to-back.

Either way, we're all different and I guess many must be happy with PET or they'd not sell them anymore. For me, though, I'll stick to glass.

For what it's worth: To date I've always bottled 1 in a clear 500ml PET to test for carbonation and how well the beer is clearing. I'm aware it could suffer light strike but it's a single bottle and I still keep it with the others (in the dark). The remainder of the beer has been split 50:50 between brown Cooper's PET and glass bottles.