Turning a Water Bottle into a Brewing Demijohn

Some of our Almost Off Grid customers make their own beer, wine, cider and mead because it is their hobby, some do it to save money. Often it is both. Turning a water bottle into a brewing demijohn is an inexpensive way to create more fermentation vessels for brewing at home, and it is very easy to do. You can also turn a food grade bucket with lid into a brewing bucket.

Turning a Water Bottle into a Demijohn

Home Brewing already saves you money 

Some modern homebrew ingredients kits, like the really popular Pale Ale Beer Kits or Merlot Wine Kits, enable you to make a very drinkable beer for around £1 a pint. Or quaffable wine for around £1 a bottle. People who have never bought kits before look at us in disbelief when we tell them this, and are waiting for the catch. There isn't one. Once you've bought the basic equipment to get going, which is all resusable, you just need to buy another ingredients kit each time you want to make more. After that, the most it costs you is your time.




The main reason making alcohol at home costs less than buying it is because there is no duty on the ingredients. That is because our ingredients and kits don't yet contain alcohol. They only produce alcohol through the brewing process, which is the part you do at home. A large proportion of the price on a bottle of wine is tax and duty, and the largest quantity of anything you're likely to add is water. This is why making your own wine and beer and home is so much cheaper than buying it.


Making Home Brewing even more Sustainable

A homebrewing equipment starter kit is not only inexpensive to begin with, it can be used multiple times. We have customers who bought one from us years ago and are still re-using them, month after month. Plus you can store your wine in recyled wine bottles, and your homemade cider and beer in recycled beer bottles. So other than caps, corks and labels, you don't need much else to remake wine, beer, cider and mead over and over again.



Glass is ideal for reusing multiple times because it is the easiest to clean, but glass demijohns can be difficult to source and expensive to buy new. We don't stock them at all, largely because the cost of purchasing them for us is very high. As we're predominantly an online business, getting them to customers in one piece is a challenge which lost its excitement in the end. Very often you can reuse old demijohns which are relatively easy to source - more about that in my previous blog post about sourcing glass demijohns.

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We sell many PET demijohns, but we also encourage our customers to make their own by turning water bottles into demijohns. Whilst they don't usually get reused as much as the glass demijohns do, they most certainly can be reused.


Turning a Bottle into a Demijohn Fermenter

A 5 litre water bottle from the supermarket can be used, transforming it from being a single use plastic item destined to end up in landfill once the water is drunk. Ironically, you can buy a 5 litre bottle of still drinking water from the supermarket for less than some food grade PET demijohns plus lids cost us to buy. So it's an ideal way to increase your capacity to produce multiple brews at the same time, at a low cost.


Turning a bucket into a fermentation vessel

You can use the same process to turn a good grade bucket with tight fitting lid into a fermentation vessel.


Why food grade? Because not all buckets are created equal, and you will be fermenting alcohol in your bucket and then consuming the final product. 5 litre water bottles contain drinking water, so you know they are food grade plastic. Buckets are not always designed to contain anything for human consumption, so do check.


Why tight fitting lid? Because you will be fitting an airlock to the lid so that air only moves one way, allowing air out of your bucket but not allowing non-sterile air or contaminants in. The lid must therefore be secure so it doesn't allow anything unwanted in or out.


Why do I need a pvc or silicon grommet for this project?

The grommet is, again, ensuring air tightness. A loosely fitting airlock will allow contaminants in. The grommet ensures a good seal between the airlock and the bucket lid.


What drill bit do I need to drill the right sized hole in the lid?

We use a flat Dewalt 12mm drill bit in the shop which works perfectly on bottle tops and bucket lids, and in which our grommets create a perfect seal. If you often have these bottles in the house, it's worth saving the lids even if you don't turn all the bottles into demijohns. That will give you some lids to practice on. 


Turning a Bottle into a Demijohn, or a Bucket into a Fermenter Demijohn


You will need

  • 1x 5 litre bottle of water with lid 
  • a drill
  • a flat 12mm drill bit which will look something like this*

  • a small rubber, silicon or pvc grommet measuring approximately: external diameter:  approx. 15mm/0.6", internal diameter: approx. 8mm/0.3", height: approx. 8mm/0.3" *
  • a standard homebrew airlock.
* if your drill bit is a different size, then you may need a different sized grommet to ensure a tight seal. Or vice versa. In other words the drill bit and the grommet sizes must match, plus the neck of an airlock must fit in them to create a seal. We find the dimensions above work the best.

In the video below you will see us drilling the lid on a block of wood with holes in. We drill masses of these every week and having this speeds up the process and reduces the risk of drilling through a tabletop (ahem). It is for you to decide whether you want to make a block if you are only drilling one cap or bucket lid. It certainly makes life easier if you have one.

Method

If you're using a 5 litre bottle: empty the water from the bottle into another vessel. The good thing about it is you can use that water in the homebrew you're about to make.

Drill a hole in the plastic lid as close to the centre as you can manage. You could work out the centre in advance and put a dot in the middle of it in pen as a guide.

Fit the grommet into the hole.

Fit the neck of the airlock into the hole.

That's it!

Here we are doing just this over on Instagram:

 



Then go ahead and make your cider, wine or mead (using the water you saved from the bottle if you have drilled a bottle lid rather than a bucket lid). 

When you're ready to transfer the content into the fermenter, ensure everything is sterilised properly and away you go. 

Once you've sterilised everything, you're all set to get going with your homemade fermentation vessel.

If all that sounds like a bit too much, you might want to check out our PET demijohn sets, complete with thermometer strips plus either bubbler airlocks or handy airlocks.


This post contains links to our webshop and/or affiliate links to other shops. If you click on them, I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Find our disclosure policy here.











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