Better Bottles.. great customer service!

[stumblemonk]

Just wanted to share a story of great customer service...

I have been the happy owner of four Better Bottles for about the last two years: two 5-gallon bottles and two 6-gallon bottles. I liked them enough to purchase 4 ported closures and 4 DryTraps as well. I have been preaching Better Bottles to folks in the homebrew community ever since, touting their light weight and safer handling as a great alternative to glass carboys. Unfortunately, in the last two months, both of my 6-gallon Better Bottles have developed cracks on the bottom that have rendered them unusable. My 5-gallon bottles are fine.

I dashed off an email to the Better Bottle folks and after answering some questions, they are sending me replacements.. not bad, considering they are two years old. They were very curious about some rippling in the plastic on one of the bottles and asked me to send it back to them so that they could investigate it further, which really shows how much they care about their products.

[Petedadink]

Ive been trying to decide on getting some and that now seals it for me.

[Herms]

This happened to a friend of mine, they also replaced his.

I also use better bottles and have never had this is issue. My guess is that the cracking is caused when you fill them up and quickly hold them over a sink and dump the contents. If you do it too fast you get that glug glug glug, as air enters the carboy, you can see the carboy bottom flexing in and out as this is going on.

I usually fill mine up with PBW then drain then with a hose, until it's almost empty.

Mark

[Bugeater]

To avoid the "glug glug glug" without spending the time to siphon out the liquid, I just stick a piece of hose in there all the way to the bottom. When I invert it, air flow in through the hose and the water flows out with no restriction at all. Saves a bunch of time and splashing.

Wayne

[stumblemonk]

They told me that one of the more common ways the bottoms get cracked (and still quite rare, as I understand it) is when people roll them around on the bottom rim when they are full. Usually when mixing up sanitizer or cleaning solution, aerating, or agitating yeast, etc. Not something I have been doing, but worth a mention to would-be buyers.

[shunt]

I'm also a BB user and they are very strong and durable. I do shake the crap out of them for aeration and have not seen any cracks..yet. But hey, they're pretty cheap considering you will never slice your fingers off if they break or you drop one.

[Saltycow]

I am currently looking into the pros and cons of carboys vs BB and this is a big pro =)