Home Brewing Beer: Plastic Bottles ok?

[The Fake Cheap]

So I'm going to be starting a brew kit in the near future, I have everything I need except for the bottles.  I have some (maybe 30ish) glass empties I have on had, so I need about 50 more bottles.  I'm thinking of going the plastic beer bottle route because the new plastic bottles are half the price of new glass beer bottles.  Does anyone have any experience with using plastic beer bottles for home brewing?  Thanks. 

[Jon Bon]

As long as they are dark plastic is fine.

Or you can buy glass ones prefilled with beer!

[Leonias]

The plastic bottles (PET I'm guessing?) should be fine as long as they are dark like Jon Bon said.  Even if they aren't just keep the beer in the dark.  The main issue I know of with PET bottles is that plastic is oxygen permeable meaning over time you could get some oxidation (stale, cardboard-like flavors.)  But that requires a decent amount of time.  If you drink them in under maybe 6 months I doubt you'd notice any issues.  If you're anything like me or the other brewers I know they'll be empty and refilled with beer long before that ;)

[therethere]

Plastic be fine as long as you keep them in a cool, dark place and aren't aging them for months on end. But even better is to hit up the craigslist free section or collect empties from others. Or put up a post on your neighborhood facebook or NextDoor site. No point in paying for bottles that others throw away.

[omachi]

Also be sure that when you clean the plastic bottles you don't scuff up the insides. Things that would love to consume your beer before you do can colonize such scratches in plastic and become very difficult to dislodge. That said you're very unlikely to have any problem if you scuff them up cleaning them right before you use them. So if you're rough with them, just find more glass before you brew again.

I'll second asking around and seeing if people you know are just recycling their bottles and if you can have them. I grew a decent collection of bottles for my brew by doing this and keeping my own empties. While you're asking, if people have 12 or 24 pack boxes, they're really nice to have for storing said bottles.

Also, don't overlook larger format bottles. If you can pick up 22 oz bottles you'll have about half the effort on bottling day and almost twice the brew when you open one. Only problem there is the beer seems to disappear faster.