To you "All glass" people: how do you bottle?

So all you people who refuse to use plastic during your cold side of the process, how do you bottle? Are there glass/metal bottling buckets for this purpose? Something homemade perhaps? Or are you not as concerned cause the beer isn’t in contact with the bottling bucket for very long?

I ask because I’m really starting to look at my process and trying to improve any possibly flaws in sanitation on the cold side. No infections yet but I would prefer to remain diligent rather than get lax.

I’ve been storing my bottling bucket with my fermentation bucket (which I don’t use for fermenting anymore) inside it. I was washing my bottling bucket after using it the other day and I felt a scratched ridge all the way around which I imagine is from the bottom of the bucket that would sit inside it.

I’m inclined to get a new bottling bucket and never put anything in it. Wondering if there are other options to avoid scratching but is still relatively easy to clean.

When I used to bottle I would just siphon from the carboy into the bottles.

I might not be the best resource, because I’m not completely appose to using plastic.

There are stainless racking canes, but you use tubing with them. When I bottle, I rack my beer into a purged corney keg, add bottleing sugar, then have a bottleing wand attached to my picknick tap to fill the bottles. This way I can use co2 to push the beer.

I’m not concerned about plastic - but if I was - my reasoning/excuse would be that the beer isn’t in contact with plastic for very long at all

For bottling, I’m doing it both ways. If I have a spare glass carboy, I’ll rack into that, then into bottles. If not, I use a plastic bucket. I figure the contact time in the plastic is so short that it won’t hurt anything. I should probably invest in more than 3 carboys.

For those who care or don’t care… I don’t use plastic to ferment anymore because the contact time is long and I have had WAY too many bad batches fermented in plastic. I actually ran an experiment last year, splitting a batch between glass and a clean plastic fermenter. The glass fermented batch tasted excellent. The plastic fermented batch tasted like butt and I had to dump it. Same mash, same wort, same boil, etc., just split up into two different fermenters. I ain’t going back to plastic, at least not for fermentation. But for quick racking to hold the beer for just a half an hour, yeah I’ll still do it. At least as long as I don’t get any bad beers.

+1 Dave, I use an old SS brew pot to bottle out of. Star San it and go. Not real fond of plastic, just me.

My brew pot doubles as a bottling bucket. I just attach the wand to the spigot.

I bottle from the keg… that is, when I want to bottle…

Hi Dave, really surprised to learn this. I’ve gone entirely away from glass the last few year (except for the small % of beer I package in bottles), and the quality of my beer has improved tremendously. Of course, going to long primaries in plastic buckets isn’t the only change I’ve made, but if plastic made the beer taste like butt I would think that would overwhelm the other factors.
Perhaps you were not using food-grade, high density plastic buckets?

I don’t know… everyone tells me it’s my fault, so it probably is. Regardless, I am going to play it safe in glass for the rest of my life.

I use a plastic bottling bucket, but only store my bottling equipment in the bucket (hose, wand, auto siphon). I clean it with a soft cloth. No problems so far. I just don’t want my brew sitting in plastic for a long time. Logical and rational? Probably not.

Not at all. Plastic over time is oxygen permeable. For short periods it would be ok but I’m like many and avoid it. Easy to scratch, if infection sets in its trash… and my heated/cooled conical is just so much easier to use. :smiley:

everyone is using plastic of some sort, they are full of shit if they tell you they are not

I use glass (carboys; 5 gallon, 6 gallon, 7.5 gallon) and stainless steel (boil kettle) except for my bottling bucket, stir spoons, autosiphon, bottling wand, funnels, and starter container.
The only thing I store in my bottling bucket is a cup or two of sanitizer.