In my living situation these day I do not have a dish washer so bottling with traditional beer bottles is a bit annoying. I have tried boiling, one-step and bleach which all work well but they just take a long time when so much care has to be given to each bottle.
I am curious about alternatives. When I bottle tonight I am going to use mostly traditional bottles but also a liter and a half Carlo Rossi wine jug. The seal seems tight enough, I see no immediate problem. When drinking this actually seems more appealing, reminiscent more of italian communal wine jugs than of the individual packaging that the United States is obsessed with. Perfect for sharing with a few friends.
How about plastic bottles, those seem pretty easy as well and certainly air tight. Though less classy. And I am not sure how well the beer would carbonate and finish fermenting in bottle if it is surrounded by expandable plastic.
I would love some input on what you all think.

I've used plastic bottles and they work fine.

There is a cavet to that, however. Standard PET bottles are permiable to oxygen so if you are storing your beer for very long it will likely develop off-flavors associated with oxidation.

I often will use a small (1/2 liter) PET bottle with a Carbonator Cap on it to keep tabs on carbonation. I simply fill the bottle, place the Carbonator Cap on it, then depress the poppet and squeeze out the air. This will deform the bottle a bit. As carbonation develops the bottle will regain its proper shape.

At any rate, plasic bottles can be used for beer but one should probably use them sparingly and those bottles should be the first ones to be consumed.

- Scott

I use to use 22 OZ bottles & iodopher no rinse with a bottle tree & sanitiser injector. Add a bench capper & you can bottle pretty quick. Or you could go with some larger fliptop bottles. I just got in some 2 liter, 1 liter, & some half gallon ones i think. Some look like geeny bottles.

I have used water bottles before & they seemed to work. 2 liter bottles will work too!!

The Party Pig!

http://www.undergrounddigital.com/partypig.htm

Never used it, but it looks pretty cool!

Cheers
Dave

KEGS!!

+1 on the 22 oz. bottles. They make bottling go a lot faster. And you can do as many 12 oz. as you like for sampling or whatever.