Home Distiller

There has been a recent thread that got a bit out of hand and in that thread a contributor stated that he recalled that I fermented in a plastic rubbish bin.
The truth is that he recalled incorrectly. When I say 'stay safe' I follow the same rule. All of my ferments are - and always have been - done in the same blue, food safe containers that everyone else uses or alternatively I use a stainless steel cut down keg.

Stay Safe like I do.

I have 2 75L (20usg) and 2 159L (40usg) blue HDPE food-safe barrels which I use for fermenting.

In North America "Rubbermaid" market 120L (32usg) wheeled garbage cans made from HDPE. The manufacturer asserts that these Rubbermaid products are made from food safe plastics.

Despite the visions of young maid(en)s clad in rubber their trademark might suggest to some of us , these appear to be equally suitable for fermenting for those of us whose finances stop short of buying stainless steel.

i was looking for suitable fermentation bins, and as daft as it sounds, the biggest and cheapest option actually turned out to be......

25l fermentation bins!

theres a place near my brother sells em for about 8 quid complete with the snap down lid!

i couldnt find decent sized plastic pins for that price.
whilst there is a certain amount of pride in repurposing stuff to good and economic effect, sometimes the best solution is the simplest!

j

Fermenters only have to tolerate up to 18% alc absolute max. Stills must tolerate 100% alc at 100*C and there's the difference between a fermenter and a still. Exaggerations are applied equally to both sides of this here equation.

Don't worry too much about your fermentin barrel. Do worry about your still

This is the very reason I posted about the fermenter in the beginning. Some new distiller may come in and read what an experienced distiller commented about another distiller out of nothing but pure malice. This is why it is so important to do your own research.

What ayay said is 100% correct. Worry about your still.

Stay Safe

the horse has been beaten enough about plastics , if anyone has bothered to read anything here they will know better

i saw some pics a while back of using HDPE plastic bags inside "normal" garbage bins
the bag was tied at the top with a blow out tube to a small bottle.
once the brew was done they rack the liquid out of the bag and dump the yeast cake

what you save in time, water and cleaning products you spend on the bags

if i find some of those clear bags they use for bin liners i might try it

Twenty litre square containers from bakeries, food manufacturers, cafes etc.
They buy vinegar etc. in them. Often have ten or twenty litre buckets too.
You can often get them free or for a few dollars.
And if you drill a hole through the lid so that a plastic tube (1/4 inch?) is a close fit you can set the end of the tube in water in a small bucket on top of another, upside down.
(Or a big bucket well filled.)
You won't need an airlock, which quickly deteriorates (three or four years?) and becomes worthless.
You can place eight of these around the central water container, and that will give you a hundred and sixty litres capacity.

whiskymonster wrote:i was looking for suitable fermentation bins, and as daft as it sounds, the biggest and cheapest option actually turned out to be......

25l fermentation bins!

theres a place near my brother sells em for about 8 quid complete with the snap down lid!

i couldnt find decent sized plastic pins for that price.
whilst there is a certain amount of pride in repurposing stuff to good and economic effect, sometimes the best solution is the simplest!

j

I had progressed to using a SS conical fermenter for both my wine and my beer. Price alone is the reason I do not buy similar, but sized for distillation purposes. When I win the lottery, I'll buy larger sizes to suit my new needs. I'm not holding my breath

I paid $23 CAD for each of my 4 32L fermenters which were equipped with drain spigot, drilled lid and airlock. They are $14 if you opt for the fermenter and undrilled lid alone. Made from PP (plastic type #5) they appear to have similar chemical resistance properties to HDPE.

I paid <$16 for my 121L (32usg) wheeled Rubbermaid trash cans which are clearly marked with the #2 HDPE symbol (exactly the same as my blue food safe 20 and 30 usg barrels, which I am now using for grain storage). Since I prefer to do fewer but larger fermentations, three 9 gallon strips and one spirit run from a single large fermentation has become my preferred SIMPLEST method.

Incidentally, 4L (or 1usg) milk jugs are also clearly marked with the #2 HDPE symbol which is rated as having good acid resistance and I have used them for both temporary cold storage and long term freezer storage of backset and dunder*.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES would I ever use a fermenter made from un-marked plastics. I also wish to stress that NONE of these plastics come anywhere near my strips or final product - no matter how alcohol resistant they are listed as being.

*Edited to add "of backset and dunder"

I just stopped by a local HB shop to see what they had for larger fermenters. And they were selling trashcans 10 and 20 gal ones with lids. They were white and pretty. But the price made me laugh. $60 for the 20 gal. I will stick to my free 15 gal blue barrels that held Dr pepper syrup. No I'm not using the syrup! : crazy: