Substitutes for demi johns?

[Alice Abbott]

We only have six and little hope of finding any more here in France. I DO have lots of corks and airlocks though and have searched without success for something I could use as a substitute, unless I want to spend cash we don't have.

When I took some broken glass up to our bottle bank yesterday I discovered a pile of nasty looking flagons which obviously would not fit through the hole of the bottle bank. They were dirty green and were covered in mouldy wicker. Anyway I turfed my youngest out of her pushchair, piled her older brother up with four and put the rest in the pushchair for the walk home. Once the wicker was prised off and the bottles were scrubbed and cleaned inside with a handful of gravel I find I have fourteen large and four small elegant pale green bottles. They are very slim at the neck and broaden out at the base. They have the word Ayelense embossed around the neck.

I've discovered that a demijohn cork and airlock fits straight into the top of the bigger ones (they hold around 6 pints each). Is there any reason why I shouldn't just go ahead and use these for our winemaking? It would certainly broaden our scope for all the fruit I'm coming across at the moment. The small ones (about 3 pints) should make great bottles for the wine once it's ready, they take a normal sized cork.

[Green Aura]

What about 5l water bottles?
If you look on ebay for demijohns a lot of vendors sell something that look remarkably like them. If the corks don't fit the neck maybe you could cut a hole in the cap for it.

[craig.r]

I wish i had found them . They will be fine as long as you sterilize them and if making a red wine then they are perfect for racking as the green glass will stop it losing its colour.

[tiggy]

In the UK you can buy rubber grommets that fit into a hole in the lid of a 5l water bottle.you have to drill the right sizf.e hole for them yourself but thats no problem.I have some as well as normal glass demijohns.Forgot to say that a normal airlock then fits through the grommet and makes a good seal.You jars will be fine when sterilized

[MKG]

I make that about 11 gallons. That sounds like a pretty good capacity to me. Oh - and then there's your six demijohns.

Secret No. 1 - you can ferment in a bucket as long as it's food grade and you can keep the flies out. Two or three buckets means you can keep a fermentation chain going and use those wonderful bottles for finished-wine storage only.

Imagine the problem of having all your demijohns and bottles full (that would be about 114 bottles of wine) and another couple of gallons on the go. Such a terrible quandary, eh?

Mike