The company I work for gets ether and ethanol in our lab in 1 or 1.25
gal. amber glass jugs. If cleaned out well, would these be good for
making wine in?

I can't see how a chemical could ruin glass.

Thanks!

Alex.

"Alex Brewer" wrote:

The company I work for gets ether and ethanol in our lab in 1 or 1.25
gal. amber glass jugs. If cleaned out well, would these be good for
making wine in?

I can't see how a chemical could ruin glass.

Hi Alex,

The laboratory jugs should be just fine for wine. Glass is pretty much
impervious to everything, which is why it's used to store chemicals. As long
as it has a narrrow "bottle-neck" which reduces exposed surface-area when
topped up, it will work. Even "wide-mouth" (1.5") gallon jugs are ok.

The amber finish is both an advantage (since light can harm wine) and a
disadvantage (since it makes it a bit more difficult to monitor what's going
on inside the container). I think I read somewhere once that green tint was
preferable to amber, but I can't remember the reason. Regardless, they will
do the job.

Some chemicals can leave deposits on glass which are difficult to remove.
I've found that putting a bit of builders sand in the bottom, adding just
enough water to be able to slosh it around, and doing so, will remove such
deposits just as well as I could do with scouring powder if I could get
inside the bottle. That's quicker and cheaper than chemical cleansers.

The screw-tops should probably be replaced as the waxed cardboard gasket
will be irreparably contaminated by whatever was in the bottle before, but
if this was only ethanol, it wouldn't matter. But I would recommend using
rubber stoppers over screwtops anyway.

Got any extra jugs? The 1.25's would really be nice.