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Just read an article about a NYC beer hall filling 2-liter plastic soda bottles instead of glass growlers. I wouldn't expect this to make a significant difference over 24 hrs, but is there any chance this might affect the flavor?

Aside from the risk of skunking by light through the clear container, what about other flavors? While many of us use plastic BetterBottles, they claim to use a special plastic with "No tastes or odors" and "no carry over flavors". What of these problems would a 2-liter suffer?

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Before I got kegs, I used to bottle with 1.5 liter PET soda bottles (the standard size in Norway.) The beer tasted fine, even after several months, and no hint of soda.

I used to soak them for 24-48 hours to remove the labels, then clean thoroughly with PBW or OxiClean. Then sanitize with StarSan.

After this, there is no odor from the bottles and, as far as I could tell, no transferrence of flavor, even after being stored for several months.

Like the BetterBottles, soda bottles are also made of PET, so if you trust the BetterBottles, then no reason not to also trust the soda bottles. PET has a "1" for the recycling symbol so you can easily check if the soda bottle is PET (most, if not all, are.)

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  • Comment from @goodytx: The article says to purge the bottles; do you follow that step, and if so, how? (@goddytx - the add comment link is at the bottom of the question.)
    – mdma
    Mar 6, 2012 at 17:39
  • If you're priming in bottles then you don't need to purge before transferring - the yeast activity will take care of any oxygen uptake. If you're repackaging from a keg, then there is often little yeast, and you should purge with CO2 if the beer will be in the bottle for more than a 2-3 days. One way is to use a CO2 bottle filler (beer gun) - another way is to use a carbonation lid. You can make these for next to nothing - youtube.com/watch?v=OJD0bv9kLAQ
    – mdma
    Mar 6, 2012 at 17:44

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