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Hey,

So with all of this barrel brewing going on I find myself in need of bottles for the first time ever. What's my best bet? There's the kijiji dude who's selling them for $10 a dozen, but I also remember hearing that I could just buy them from bottle exchange depots. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Hit up friends & relatives first for free bottles - preferably non-smokers (unless you like cigarette butts in your bottles). If that is a no go, I think the recycling depot is your next best bet - especially if you are looking for flip tops.

Yeah, I'd like flip-tops for sure.

recycling depots fo sho, but call nowish and ask them to hang onto them for you b/c they might take a while to gather them up for you as they come in

couldn't hurt to call a few. And tell them to stop when they reach XX dozen bottles, or bring a big truck. haha

I called the depot by the McKay bridge and asked for 12 dozen. She said it would taker her awhile to collect those and i asked how long. She said maybe 2 weeks! lol.. I only want to do this once, and I figure that'll allow me to bottle a few litres here as well as the two barrels I'm involved in at the moment.

Apparently there's a list of folks who are looking for them too. But it's pretty easy if anyone else is looking into it.

Word of warning. Those recycle people aren't to picky about who they're handing the bottles out to. In other words, every day there's 20 Dave Gillette's coming in to grab his bottles....

mr x wrote:Word of warning. Those recycle people aren't to picky about who they're handing the bottles out to. In other words, every day there's 20 Dave Gillette's coming in to grab his bottles....

And that's why you don't pay up front....

How much will that gross cost you?

mr x wrote:Word of warning. Those recycle people aren't to picky about who they're handing the bottles out to. In other words, every day there's 20 Dave Gillette's coming in to grab his bottles....

Who's Dave Gillette?

Water N Wine sells brand new 500ml flip tops (I imagine NG does too), but they're like $2.50 each methinks... however, the rubbers are replaceable, so they should last a while. That's the price of convenience I suppose

In some ways, I think you might be better off to pay them up front with some kind of guarantee, or you may never see a bottle....

Sent from my Nexus S

bluenose wrote:

mr x wrote:Word of warning. Those recycle people aren't to picky about who they're handing the bottles out to. In other words, every day there's 20 Dave Gillette's coming in to grab his bottles....

Who's Dave Gillette?

It's a fake name people give when dropping off or picking up bottles at the Depot. Kind of like "John Q. Public" or "Alan Smithee".

I've gotten a bunch before from the depot. Best way I found to clean them was to fill a large tuperware or garbage can with an Oxyclean mix and let them soak for a few hours. No scrubbing needed: the mold, cigarettes, and (in one disgusting case) mice come right off.

The mouse one's weren't actually from the depot.They were part of a giant batch of old Keith's, Alpine, etc., bombers that I bought from a kid selling his dad's long neglected gear (his mom drove him to the meet up, and she looked ECSTATIC that the stuff was leaving the garage).

man if I saw a mouse in a bottle it's going straight back to the recyclers.

chalmers wrote:How much will that gross cost you?

$4/dozen, $48 for the gross

CorneliusAlphonse wrote:man if I saw a mouse in a bottle it's going straight back to the recyclers.

Take it back to the beer store for a free 2-4.

Ha!!

chalmers wrote:

CorneliusAlphonse wrote:man if I saw a mouse in a bottle it's going straight back to the recyclers.

Take it back to the beer store for a free 2-4.

classic

Well, I got the call on Firday and picked them up Saturday morning. They came in the milk crates which was pretty cool, and after a quick look through I sadly did not find any mice (or ciggy butts!) Here they are:

Nice..Now for the fun part, cleaning & sanitizing

Jimmy wrote:Nice..Now for the fun part, cleaning & sanitizing

A laundry tub, some oxyclean and an overnight soak will take care of the cleaning (tho' I'd be hard pressed to fit that many into a laundry tub). For $5 you might want to pick up one of those bottle washes that attach to the tap & hopefully you have a dishwasher with a sanitize setting.

I've learned that if it doesn't cleanup with a soak in oxyclean and a quick blast with the bottle washer, I won't waste anymore time on it. Just move on to the next bottle and get your 10 cents later.

I usually just fill up one of my large (clean) garbage cans with a mild bleach solution and let them sit overnight. Then a quick rinse and we're good. Might take two rounds, but I'll get em done in time for the two barrel brews.

Take 'em to Noble Grape and run 'em through the cleaning/sanitizing machine! Something like $2.79 or $2.99 to do enough bottles for a batch (usually 2 machine loads).

I find the noble grape washers won't get the hardened blobs of mouldy goo unstuck from the bottom of the bottles. Fill a spray bottle with Starsan and give each bottle a few squirts and let them sit over night. It should loosen them up.