Goonbags For Long Term Aging/storage

[KudaPucat]

It was recently suggested to me that I use 'goonbags' (wine-in-box) bags to age my mead.
A friend who often makes small batches recommended this, as you can severely limit the headspace and it's food-safe.

Well, I don't drink cask wine, so don't have any lying around. 4 litres is also a little small. So I thought I'd do some research, and voilla, I found where I can buy 15 litre goon-bags for under $3.00 ea!
That's a lot cheaper than a 15 l carboy or even a plastic bottle.
Add to that the ability to 'resize' the bag for less headspace and we're on a winner here.

My problem is however, that the manufacturer does not have any distributors, so the minimum order would be for 135 bags.
Is anybody in melbourne or anywhere in Aus interested in a group buy?

Does anybody have any reccommendations against using these bags?

 

[Airgead]

Interesting idea. I know the bags themselves are impermeable but I'm wondering about the seal. Do those goon bag dispenser thingies give a good long term seal? I don't buy cask wine either so I haven't looked closely. Do they have a secondary long term seal that you break to dispense? Also, how do you fill them? The commercial guys have them open at the top then they fill and heat seal from memory. I suspect you wouldn't be doing that. Fill through the dispenser thingy? Would that then let the bag seal up properly again?

Cheers
Dave

 

[adryargument]

Interesting idea. I know the bags themselves are impermeable but I'm wondering about the seal. Do those goon bag dispenser thingies give a good long term seal? I don't buy cask wine either so I haven't looked closely. Do they have a secondary long term seal that you break to dispense? Also, how do you fill them? The commercial guys have them open at the top then they fill and heat seal from memory. I suspect you wouldn't be doing that. Fill through the dispenser thingy? Would that then let the bag seal up properly again?

Cheers
Dave

Seal should be fine, many times they have supported my head all night without deflating.
Best filling practice would be to open the seal and jam a thin tube in, fill it from there.

 

[big78sam]

Seal should be fine, many times they have supported my head all night without deflating.

And how did you wake up feeling in the morning after these occasions? :icon_vomit:

 

[kjparker]

And how did you wake up feeling in the morning after these occasions? :icon_vomit:

 

[Florian]

I have no idea how good they really are for long term storage, but the easiest and cheapest option to get them would be from mineral water dispensers. They sell them at Aldi, 10L for $4 or thereabouts.
There is no need to jam a tube in to fill them, you can actually take the whole 'front' of the dispenser, just grip your finger into the dispensing bit and pull, comes off fairly easy and is easy to close again.

As a bonus you get 10L of brewing water and a carton to store and dispense from, rather than having the bags wobble around.

 

[Bribie G]

In the UK, polypins are the same thing and are just massive goon bags and seem to work well, I see from my Brewing Beers Like those you Buy book (Dave Line) that they were in common use in the 1970s so they are obviously tried and tested. I saw that they also have them in New Zealand where breweries such as Twisted Hop supply their real ales to the pubs for hand pumping on the beer engines. Maybe an email to Twisted Hop or some of the other Real Ale Kiwi breweries may dig up an Australiasian supplier.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Goonbags - ha ha. There's another term for them in North Queensland (where my missus is from), which is even funnier.

In NQ - goon is cheap grog, whereas the other term is what they're contained in.

Sorry to be OT, it's just funny.

 

[Greg.L]

This year I used 250L bags for my cider. It is not true that they are impermeable, oxygen can diffuse through, though the bags with a metallised barrier layer are less permeable. A 4L bag will start to oxidise in a few months, thats why winecasks (goonbags) have a use-by date. The 250L bags are top-fill, bottom-empty, but the bottom has a membrane over the hole which has to be burst to empty the bag, so its clean until you start to empty them.
Because the surface area/volume ratio is very important with storage I am hoping the larger bags will be ok for up to a year, they cost $35 each. A 15L bag should be ok for 4-6 months storage. New bags are pretty much sterile which is good. I bought some cardboard barrels to support the bags, you can see the pics in my gallery, it was $100 all up each barrel+bag, but I can buy new bags for $35, the cardboard barrels should last a few years if I can keep them dry.

Greg

 

[ekul]

250L goonbag!? Buggger the pillow, you got a whole bed after a big night!

 

[haysie]

250L goonbag!? Buggger the pillow, you got a whole bed after a big night!

Hmm, water bed bladders.

 

[pokolbinguy]

As greg said the bags are not completely free from air migration into the bag. goon bags are similar to a foil balloon (better, but similar). when filled with gas (say helium) the balloon will stay in the air for days/weeks until the gas leaks from the balloon through the walls. this action is the same (but in reverse) or air/oxygen migrating into a goon back making it oxidise and go off. this is why a goon bag is the only wine product with an expiry date as they are known to "leak" unlike a bottle with a cork/screw cap which is unknown (should not happen but we all know about bad corks).

Cheers, Pok (reading from Bangkok)

 

[KudaPucat]

Hmmm interesting info guys.

Well to answer some questions.

These bags are made for wine, and come with the tap detached. You fill, then fit the tap. The tap is described as difficult, but possible to remove.
They are sold to various wineries in SA, though I do not know what the intended use is. My guess is wine for catering.

The next smallest bag they make is a 200. This is why I wanted to go for the 15s. I currently brew in 23 litre carboys, but am considering moving to demis. Certainly I will not be progressing to 200 litre batches in the near future.

Thanks for the Aldi tip, I'll check it out.

So, the general consensus is: 'they may be useful, but I wouldn't bulk age in them' Is that correct?

I should have posted this earlier: Scholl Bag in box

Interestingly, now that I look properly, they're not foil bags, they're clear plastic...
I'm going to ring him back, and ask for a datasheet.

 

[KudaPucat]

here's the datasheet the guy sent me.
Any comments? I have NFI how to read the Oxygen transmission rates (ie what it'll do to the wine/mead)

View attachment 800447.pdf

 

[Wolfy]

I was looking for something similar to 'cask' condition Uk-type Ales (as BribieG suggested above) but like you have found they are not available in small/cheap quantities locally.
However, a number of UK home-brew retailers will ship here, so you could/can buy them in smaller quantities if you want to have them shipped from the UK.

 

[KudaPucat]

These will be good for 'bottling' beverages, especially for distribution to outlets.
What I really want to know, is how good they'll be for long term storage/aging, as I have no outlets to distribut to.
Can somebody who has more idea than me read the pdf and give me an idea?

 

[Airgead]

Well.. I can see from the datasheet that the bags will allow in .93cc O2/square meter of bag/day. The surface area of the bag is .51 square meters so that makes .47cc. The taps allow in an additional 1cc/day for a total of 1.47cc/day. That does sound like quite a lot.

That's about the limit of my usefulness though. Exactly what 1.47cc/day of o2 will do to a wine I shall leave to the experts. A quick google tells me that for a cork closure the figure is around .0179 which is a lot less.

Cheers
Dave

 

[KudaPucat]

Well.. I can see from the datasheet that the bags will allow in .93cc O2/square meter of bag/day. The surface area of the bag is .51 square meters so that makes .47cc. The taps allow in an additional 1cc/day for a total of 1.47cc/day. That does sound like quite a lot.

That's about the limit of my usefulness though. Exactly what 1.47cc/day of o2 will do to a wine I shall leave to the experts. A quick google tells me that for a cork closure the figure is around .0179 which is a lot less.

Cheers
Dave

Hmmm I didn't want to google cork data, as I knew it'd be a lot different and didn't want to be scared away.
That's quite disappointing really though, as I would have thought PE and Metalised film would do a better job. After all we generally consider plastic bacgs to be 'sealed'
1.5 cc a day is 10ml per week right? and 45 ml per month?
That seems like a lot for a 'sealed' container :-(

But I have NFI what mead can handle. It's been said recently (on gotmead I think) that synthetic corks don't breath enough. THese figures make it look like the bag is panting.

 

[Greg.L]

This is where the surface area/volume ratio is important. A 250L bag has a surface area less than 3m sq so even though it may allow 2 or 3 cc/day, it is for a much larger volume, so the oxidation is a lot slower. The small bags are meant for dispensing, not storage. In England they put a 20L bib of cider in pubs, it gets consumed in a couple of weeks, much easier than bottling it all.

 

[Shed101]

I have some of the 5l ale bags (without the box) from this site, but haven't tried them yet.

Cheap as chips, except they don't post here (unless you want to pay a fortune) so I got my old dear to send some over for experiments.