PET plastic secondary -- MELTED??
Back from the beach to discover something a bit odd: my Better-Bottle five gallon secondary was misshapen. It looks like it melted, but I am not sure exactly how. I had my Altbier in cold conditioning in the fridge using that vessel. After bottling a week ago, I cleaned and sanitized the fermenter as I would always do, and then upended it to drip dry, open, on the drying rack. I went away to the beach for the week, came back and found the bottom of the fermenter had buckled.
Checking their website there is a note about not cleaning the bottle with hot water and then sealing it, because that would cause a vacuum as it cools, damaging the fermenter. I understand that, but since the bottle was open, the one leaves me a little at a loss.
On the good side, since the Nut Brown and Alt have been in the bottle for a week, I plan to try them tonight.
posted by Jeremy Wolff @ 9:22 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Could it be because you turned it upside down? I'm totally going out on a limb here -- the Better Bottle (plastic) gets heated and washed and sanitized, basically removing all the air from inside. And the website says, don't cap because you cause a vacuum. But I wonder if turning it upside down to dry might also keep a vacuum. Any air that's inside would fall as it cools to room temperature (remember, warm air rises) so what would go UP into the bottle to fill it? Warm air from your apartment? Not likely, you probably left the place at 75 degrees or so, much cooler than the air in the bottle after washing. That's my guess.
Love the blog, can't remember how I found it last night. Probably Google, like everything else.
Thanks for writing! Good thinking. I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. I contacted the company and they said I should be able to get a replacement. I'll be watching the washing temperature from now on -- and drying upright.
Happy to hear you like the blog!
Jeremy
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