Can I use buckets for a wine kit?

[TheSalad]

Hi Folks, I'm 2/3rds of the way through making a California Connoisseur Merlot 6 bottle kit and I have to say, the sneaky little taste I had today was very good. So already thinking of making one of the bigger kits. I have plenty of large buckets which I've brewed my beer in but I don't have a large 5 gallon demijohn. Is it okay to do the larger wine kits in buckets only? Any danger?

 

[engineer]

I had issues with very vigorous fermentation using the bucket type fermenters. That was mostly with wine buddy reds, one actually buckled the lid and blew it off. I believe the older type had stiffer lids so were less susceptible to distortion when fermenting.

Because of the above i moved on to using a barrel type fermenter with screwed on lid and blow off tube in place of a bubbler and haven't had a problem since.

I would say make sure its sterile and give it a go as long as you have plenty of headroom and consider using/making a blow off tube.
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=48970

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I use FV's for wine making and other than the WineBuddy kits trying to escape (see blow off tube link in post above) i have never had a problem, the juice wines i make dont need the blow off tube as they don't ferment as vigorously as the WineBuddy ones.