Homebrew wine storage - plastic 5L water bottles?

hatrickpatrick

I'm guessing the answer to this is a firm no, but thought it was worth asking - would it be feasible to store home brewed white wine in empty 5L water bottles of the kind you can buy in the supermarket? I got myself a wine kit before Christmas but royally screwed up in that I mistook a 23L kit for a 5L demijohn kit, and my issue is that I don't have 30 empty screw top wine bottles - and even if I did, storage would become an issue as the cupboard I use for beer bottles isn't tall enough for wine bottles.

I was curious as to whether I might be able to get around this using empty large plastic bottles - would this ruin the taste or vastly reduce shelf life, assuming I store them in a cold, dark place such as a cellar?

And if this idea is indeed a non-runner, does anyone have any other suggestions for how to package a finished wine kit apart from having to source 30 empty bottles and try and deal with storage issues?

BeerNut

I'd say the plastic option is fine, it just won't keep as long as it would in glass. Pay attention to the best-before date on the water bottles: that's an indicator of how long you can expect it to keep.

sharingan

you would be fine temporarily storing the wine in 5L containers until you could transfer to bottles that you are trying to source.