I know this is going to be case by case but I am looking for opinions. Would you folks feel comfortable with a beer sitting in a 6.5gal plastic "big mouth bubbler" for three months? Its top up and I wonder if racking it would add more O2 then the permeability of the plastic will allow. Its not on a yeast cake and I hope in three months I will be able to split the batch for fruit. I don't have a glass 6.5gallon carboy but will pony up if need be.
You would have to make some calculations utilizing some assumptions. I really don't know if anybody could provide an 'authoritative' answer here. I personally would not let my beer sit in a plastic vessel (that was not a Better Bottle type vessel) for 3 months. Cheers!
Is the plastic from a Big Mouth Bubbler more permeable than Better Bottle? Or do you just assume more O2 due to the size of the opening?
Better Bottle is made of a special type of PET to make it less permeable to oxygen. Northern Brewer just mentions PET on their website for the Big Mouth Bubbler; there is no mention that is a special PET to minimize oxygen permeability. If you want some 'gory details' I highly recommend that you read this thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...ken-out-of-brett-in-bucket-discussion.248425/ Cheers!
The one time I left a beer in a plastic fermenter for 3 months it became infected. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, the argumentative fallacy, says I shouldn't conclude that is necessarily the reason so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
I've kept a brew in a plastic fermentor for ~18 months and it was one of the best I've made... but it was a sour The longest I've kept a 'clean' beer in the fermentor was a Porter that I left for ~6-7 weeks in the primary (unforseen complications meant I couldnt bottle). Last bottle was drunk ~18 months later and had noticable but very minimal oxidisation.
The 'good news' is that dark beers like Porters have some anti-oxidation properties due to the use of dark malts in brewing them. Cheers!
This is where I fail to resist to make the snarky joke that it's actually a 100% chance of infection. Just an intended one.
I go up to 6 months in plastic with my one "sour" bucket. I also leave some of the dregs in the bucket when I rack and re-pitch on them. Makes a very nice Flanders Red, and has done so three times so far.
