Thoughts on the Better Bottle after a year or so

[spiderwrangler]

if they would make them thicker, and 6.5gal i could justify the $40.

That's pretty steep, I wouldn't justify that either.

A guy at the shop I work at was doing his first batch of beer with some of his friends (ie, drunk, ignorant, a-holes), and forgot ice. He went on a run to get it, telling them to just shut the stove off when it got to 0 min. They got impatient and poured it into his BB... sucker melted and slumped to the side, but didn't spill his beer. He fermented it out in that... I'm sure there were all kinds of bad things there...

[Fugglupagus]

A guy at the shop I work at was doing his first batch of beer with some of his friends (ie, drunk, ignorant, a-holes), and forgot ice. He went on a run to get it, telling them to just shut the stove off when it got to 0 min. They got impatient and poured it into his BB... sucker melted and slumped to the side, but didn't spill his beer. He fermented it out in that... I'm sure there were all kinds of bad things there...

That's sad. But in a funny way. Bet he'll always remember his first batch. Any chance you can scrounge up some pics?

[spiderwrangler]

I think that was his only batch. No pics that I know of...

[TheeMattSmith]

I use these exclusively, only had one crack on me. I left PBW in it for a couple of weeks and right after that it cracked on the bottom. I was dumb with my first one and sprung for a 5 gallon with the fancy racking port. I never use it. It could be handy for a secondary though, if I used secondary's. I do worry about scratches so I buy a new one once a year and rotate out the old and use it for water measuring. Ditto on the 6.5 size. I've been eyeballing conicals though lately.

[jcpilot]

I have five better bottle fermenters. I also have better bottle stoppers, racking adapters, simple flow valves, dry tap airlocks, and hose adapters for all of them. After fermenting a batch of pale ale I disassembled the valve and racking port for cleaning only to discover that the racking port base had cracked almost 270 degrees around. In early January of 2015 I emailed better bottle to see what might cause this, and if this would be covered under warranty. The racking adapter was only three months old at this point. I received a response from Walter saying "That is very odd. Are you getting your carboys and fittings clean between batches. How do you clean and sanitize?" I detailed that I disassemble the valve and clean all components with warm pbw and slosh a cotton rag around the fermenter to dislodge any solids, and then rinse thoroughly. Before use, I sanitize with Star San I received no response to my email. I send another email to the same address on January 23rd and that gets bounced back to me as a bad email address. On February 26th I send an email to a different address I found on their site detailing my experience with pictures. No response. I called them in early April to get an answer to this and we played phone tag a bit. I finally got someone on the phone and the first question he asked is "How do you clean it?" As soon as I mentioned pbw he essentially said "That stuff is caustic and you ruined the part". "Directions on how to clean our products are on our website." I had to dig to find them, and yes they do warn about prolonged soaks with pbw. They do not however say not to use pbw. He also said it would be more expensive for them to send a replacement than it would be for me to go buy one. Am I missing something here? More expensive for whom? Their accessories are expensive! This guy changed the subject to tell me about how their phone lines went down and they had a flood that ruined very expensive equipment. You just lost a customer buddy and I don't give a F@#k about your phone lines or flood, that's what insurance is for. I told him he just lost a customer and I would be replacing my fermenters. He asked me what I would replace them with and threw me a sales pitch about the dangers of glass and expense of stainless. I will be selling all of my unused BB components on ebay shortly and buying a stainless conical or going to glass carboys. I haven't been this mad at a manufacturer in a long time. Don't expect Better Bottle to be any help if you have a problem. Rant over.

[brewinhard]

if they would make them thicker, and 6.5gal i could justify the $40.

That's pretty steep, I wouldn't justify that either.

A guy at the shop I work at was doing his first batch of beer with some of his friends (ie, drunk, ignorant, a-holes), and forgot ice. He went on a run to get it, telling them to just shut the stove off when it got to 0 min. They got impatient and poured it into his BB... sucker melted and slumped to the side, but didn't spill his beer. He fermented it out in that... I'm sure there were all kinds of bad things there...

That is absolutely hilarious! You must have been laughing on the inside watching that happen.

[spiderwrangler]

A guy at the shop I work at was doing his first batch of beer with some of his friends (ie, drunk, ignorant, a-holes), and forgot ice. He went on a run to get it, telling them to just shut the stove off when it got to 0 min. They got impatient and poured it into his BB... sucker melted and slumped to the side, but didn't spill his beer. He fermented it out in that... I'm sure there were all kinds of bad things there...

That is absolutely hilarious! You must have been laughing on the inside watching that happen.

If I were there to watch it happen, I would have stopped them. I was working at the shop when he came in to get the ice... then he called me once he got back home to ask me what I thought he should do.

[brewinhard]

A guy at the shop I work at was doing his first batch of beer with some of his friends (ie, drunk, ignorant, a-holes), and forgot ice. He went on a run to get it, telling them to just shut the stove off when it got to 0 min. They got impatient and poured it into his BB... sucker melted and slumped to the side, but didn't spill his beer. He fermented it out in that... I'm sure there were all kinds of bad things there...

That is absolutely hilarious! You must have been laughing on the inside watching that happen.

If I were there to watch it happen, I would have stopped them. I was working at the shop when he came in to get the ice... then he called me once he got back home to ask me what I thought he should do.

Tell him to come buy another one and not be such an idiot next time. Anyway, we live and we learn.