Buckets!

[johncrobinson]

These poly-prop buckets are great for getting a fermentation going but once its underway you cant beat the old GLASS demijohns

 

[johncrobinson]

By which i mean to say as soon as the primary foaming has died down get it in to glass demijohns.
Glass is best.

Fruit juices can leach plasticizes can you imagine how much more effective an alcohol-water mix might be.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

By which i mean to say as soon as the primary foaming has died down get it in to glass demijohns.
Glass is best.

Fruit juices can leach plasticizes can you imagine how much more effective an alcohol-water mix might be.

Thanks John. Will do. However one of them has a lot of fruit (probably a little too much) so it’d be a nightmare to transfer all that.

I think I made a mistake with one of them. I should’ve used a sparging bag to defrost the fruit and then squeeze it out and put into demijohns. I’ve ended up with a really thick must as all the raspberries have disintegrated. Not sure if it’ll ferment. Having trouble taking a gravity reading as the must is so thick that the hydrometer just stays where I put it. I think this one is gonna be a fail.

I know it’s silly but I feel like the yeast will suffocate . Just pitched the yeast about ten mins ago (it is 6:45am now).

 

[Gerryjo]

If you're near a bakery or deli nip in and ask for their buckets as that's how they get their mayonnaise, fondant and even dried egg powder and they are of course food grade but have the snap on lids which they then pay to dispose off.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

If you're near a bakery or deli nip in and ask for their buckets as that's how they get their mayonnaise, fondant and even dried egg powder and they are of course food grade but have the snap on lids which they then pay to dispose off.

But they have no hole for a grommet, and to be honest we are not very good at making holes and stuff ourselves in the top. Would probably radge it up completely!

 

[Andrew Taylor]

Youngs make a 15 litre foodsafe fv with snap on lid. I have one, it's handy for smaller brews. The lid didn't come pre drilled but was easy enough to drill a hole and fit a grommet to take an airlock if needed. Up until recently I just left the lid on loosely to let the co2 escape when brewing beer, same foe when I have made wine with no problems. Once initial fermentation of wine has completed it would be transfered in to a demi John to give a good air tight seal with bung and airlock so I wouldn't worry about the first few days, so long as the cover stops any air borne nasties getting in, that should be good enough

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Youngs make a 15 litre foodsafe fv with snap on lid. I have one, it's handy for smaller brews. The lid didn't come pre drilled but was easy enough to drill a hole and fit a grommet to take an airlock if needed. Up until recently I just left the lid on loosely to let the co2 escape when brewing beer, same foe when I have made wine with no problems. Once initial fermentation of wine has completed it would be transfered in to a demi John to give a good air tight seal with bung and airlock so I wouldn't worry about the first few days, so long as the cover stops any air borne nasties getting in, that should be good enough

Thank you. The idea was to keep the pulp for the whole fermentation so I didn't lose any of my colony when transferring over. Next time I am going to use a sparging bag and squeeze out the juice, before putting in the glass demijohns

 

[Shunter]

To gerryjo and lisaMC

Beware of buckets that used to contain mayonnaise and other foodstuffs. They may have changed over the years but they used to have a layer of a kind of waxy substance coating the inside. I used one once for wine and the alcohol or yeast or whatever was in the brew began to strip the coating off. Hate to say it, but through experience, I've found if you want good wine/beer you have to fork out for the right equipment.

In the past I have used a bit of cotton wool as a bung instead of an airlock when the grommet was too tight. Not the best I agree. Also, drilling a hole in a plastic lid in the first place, or to widen the hole that is already there, put a piece of flat wood directly underneath and drill through into that. It stops the plastic splitting. Plastic lids off non-wine/beer making buckets are usually quite brittle.