Home Distiller

I had a brainwave yesterday

Been having problems storing all the different recipes i've been working on...a 50 litre stainless beerkeg is too big and bulky, 4 litre glass jars are too dear and fragile, same with demijohns, barrells are too expensive.
I've got half a dozen different recipes i'm working on at once and more small batch stuff hatching in my tiny little brain, cheap, safe storage is becoming a real dillema.

Well i spotted some aluminium bottles around the 10 litre mark yesterday that i can get for next to nothing. There's a virtually unlimited supply and they'd be available to anyone who wanted em anywhere in the world

There's some bigger, and some smaller too.

I just want peoples opinions on whether they think aluminium would be a sound material for storing barrel strength spirits? If it would leach or taint into the spirit?
I'm guessing it'd be safe, but i haven't read anything on here one way or the other (cept for boilers).

Punkin,
Ever get a hold of an old sodapop or beer with that metalic taste to it?
I wouldn't really care to store booze in one.
Course that's just my uneducated opinion.

Hi, Punkin.

I kinda agree with Hawke. Many folks I know won't even drink commercially canned beer (Budweiser, Miller, etc) out of a can because they claim it leeches a poor taste from the can, and that's about 5% abv (hey, at least they won't drink up all of MY beer! ). Me, I drink commercial beer out of the can all the time and it doesn't bother me at all, but it might at such a high proof of alcohol.

I'm kinda having a storage dilemna, myself, and have even caught myself eyeballing plastic containers. I have to slap myself back to reality everytime I catch myself thinking along those lines.

So, to be honest, when it comes to this hobby, I'll stay clear of anything plastic or aluminum just to be on the better side of caution.

Beer cans actually have a coating to protect the beer from the aluminium, I'm told. I'd stay away from it.

Head down to a kitchen supply place and get yourself a handful of large, glass cookie jars. Some easily hold 2-3 gallons and cost very little.

I use 5 gallon (18 litre) stainless steel corney Kegs for long-term bulk storage.

They work great, are easy to clean, and have a small footprint.

bugger, thought i'd made a major breakthrough on my problem (which is a problem of economics) when i talked to a fire prevention shop yesterday. They just get rid of old extinguishers for their scrap value....were quite willing to pass half a dozen along for nothing.

I thought it'd be great, and would help everyone out. They just have a thread on the top when the handle comes off and are easily washed out...only had baking soda in em...good thick aluminium cans

theholymackerel wrote:I use 5 gallon (18 litre) stainless steel corney Kegs for long-term bulk storage.

They work great, are easy to clean, and have a small footprint.

Please forgive my ignorance but I often see references to corney kegs, what is a corney keg? Also the missus found 1 gallon beer kegs at the grocery store with the beer in them and she thought that might work for storage. I've not checked them out yet cause I'm not allowed in the grocery store while I'm hungry and I'm usually hungry. She says she thinks their SS but I would bet they're alluminumum.

A corney keg is a soda syrup keg. (Cornelious Kegs) I have seen them on the internet for $20 and up. my local brew shop sells them for $45

Punkin,

Those reject shops or $2 shops have those glass 1ltre bottles at about $2.50. You could get different colours, put labels on etc.

Just a thought, as that is what I am using with a little Alfoil on the cap.

VicBill wrote:Punkin,

Those reject shops or $2 shops have those glass 1ltre bottles at about $2.50. You could get different colours, put labels on etc.

Just a thought, as that is what I am using with a little Alfoil on the cap.

Thanks anyway mate, but 1 litre bottles wouldn't quite do the trick for me

I save low wines up till i have twenty to thirty litres before i do a spirit run, and i've usually got 4 or 5 different type of brews going at once. Then i have to store the finnished spirits in a safe state (ie watered down) until we can either mature em, drink em or give em away.

I do have one brew keg here for low wines, but i've been buying the 4 litre glass jars and they soon add up at $5 each and take up a lot of room as thm pointed out.

Corney kegs are $120 each from the brew shop here and about $90 each from ebay by the time they get delivered.

The boys at the fire extinguisher shop did have a couplea stainless ones there, they said they weren't suppossed to refill em anymore, might have to drop em in a bottle and see if they can take a few out of circulation....

Low wine storage in those AL containers would probably be OK. You are going to redistill any way, so if there is a little metalic "taste", the distillation would fix that right up.

However, for finished product, glass (or wooden barrels) is your friend.

H.

Hey Punkin'... don't give up on the corney kegs yet. Folks over at E-bay regularly sell 'em in lots of 4 (or more) for less than 20$ each. You can get 'em even cheaper than that in bulk if yer willin' to take nasty ones and clean 'em yerself.

It's hard to beat a corney keg for alot of stuff... a small mod and they are great fermenters, 18 litre stainless bulk storage that's air-tight and has only a roughly 10 inch circular footprint, and , of course, they are great for servin' beer or homemade soda from.

punkin wrote: do have one brew keg here for low wines, but i've been buying the 4 litre glass jars and they soon add up at $5 each and take up a lot of room as thm pointed out.

Where you getting 4 litre glass jars for $5?

A 4 litre glass jug for 5$ doesn't sound like a good price to me.

I can get a 4 litre glass jug full of cheap, yet drinkable red wine for 8 to 9 $.

I have to pay $25 for a 5 litre demijohn. So $5 for a 4 litre jar is cheap to me!

hear I have the opposite problem ,small containers as 1-liter seem there's a law (here)that they have to be broken so unscrupulous people wont refill them
now who would do that ?

HookLine wrote:I have to pay $25 for a 5 litre demijohn. So $5 for a 4 litre jar is cheap to me!

Damn, Hook!!!

I feel for ya.

This reminds me of that scene in Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala" where the Russian soldiers are WAY out in the Boonies in uncharted Siberia... they are target shootin' at a bottle hangin' from a rope. Dersu Uzala, their Siberian tribal guide is cringin' at the waste of a precious (to him) commodity. He asks for a turn to shoot, and asks if he shoots the rope, may he keep the bottle? The Russian soldiers laugh, and agree. They all miss with their modern cartrige rifles, and Dersu carefully aims and slices the rope, and the bottle falls unbroken to the ground. He walks up and retrieves the bottle and walks away cleanin' it off and holdin' it like the Prize that it is.

In South Australia there is a wholesale/retail bulk store that sells many cheap glass storage containers for the local ex european home wine makers right up to the 45/60 litre or whatever it is demijohns and amongst them I found 2 litre flagons for $1.70
I can do a more detailed price search for you if you wish.
Cheers

Yeah, THM, those prices are ridiculous, but in fairness to the local brew shops we are a small market, a long way from anywhere, so there is a substantial delivery cost in that price. And we're talking large fragile glass containers.

Tracker, got a link for that store? Although, I live a long way from Adelaide, so again delivery costs would probably be prohibitive.

I am currently investigating the local restaurants for used wine bottles. I also recently scored another good condition keg from a friend of a friend for a couple of bottles of vodka, so I might have to go to bulk storage in those.

HookLine wrote:

punkin wrote: do have one brew keg here for low wines, but i've been buying the 4 litre glass jars and they soon add up at $5 each and take up a lot of room as thm pointed out.

Where you getting 4 litre glass jars for $5?

One of the local reject shops, large square cookie jars with a removable rubber seal and a wire clip down lid.

Seen the bloke yesterday and told him i'd be interested in a couplea aluminium ones, but the main thing was, he'd have to start enforcing the non refilling of stainless ones with his customers...he seemed happy enough when i left

I will do searches for the soft drink kegs more often

Not kidding now, i have just realised how many stainless bottles are at our fingertips...


Photo shows three bottles;

The short one in front is an aluminium bottle (no good for me), the other two are both stainless kegs.

The taller one is 14.75 litres, the medium size one is 14.25 litres. They are deadset free stainless kegs. Metric thread 30mm by something i haven't worked out yet, but i have plenty of oak to make bungs out of.



If aussies are looking for the difference tween stainless and alloy ones, you might pay attention to the shape of the necks, and the welds on bottom and top....

The 'Paper' extinguishers that are used and labelled 'Water'. i believe have only contained soda water... the foam ones i've yet to identify.

Unless it's a secret and everyone but me knows about this, i'd consider it a bit of a staorage breakthrough...have a look around....







Y'allCanJustThankMeLaterPunkin

We got a bloke that comes around once every three months and test all our extinguishers wonder what he drinks

Hookline
http://www.gaganisbros.com.au/index.cfm ... 86B3C6156E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
They don't list individual items as such but if you are really interested and can't get any sense from the site, I should be passing by the store in the next few weeks and can make some enquiries if you pm me.
Cheers.

Rudi wrote:We got a bloke that comes around once every three months and test all our extinguishers wonder what he drinks

Exactly.

Or you could be a bit proactive (like me) and look up the fire extinguisher buisnesses in the phone book and go round to the back door



Wouldn't be to hard to seal em up with a mock up of the extinguisher either. People would just think you are safety concious having that many extinguishers round the house.

I totally agree with THM for cheap bottles, just buy some inexpensive Carlo Rossi or other Jug Wine. $7 for distilling material and the jug, seems like a win win to me. And Punkin, good find as I am about to hunt out my local fire extinguisher fella to see about getting a couple of them from him.

Cheers

punkin wrote:

Rudi wrote:We got a bloke that comes around once every three months and test all our extinguishers wonder what he drinks

Exactly.

Or you could be a bit proactive (like me) and look up the fire extinguisher buisnesses in the phone book and go round to the back door



Wouldn't be to hard to seal em up with a mock up of the extinguisher either. People would just think you are safety concious having that many extinguishers round the house.

Just a bit time poor at the moment have to wait for them to come to me while I'm earning a crust.

Looked into storage quite a bit - someone should warn newbies that storage can cost more than a still...
I coulda used that bit of advice...
Found a cheap source of glass... worked out how many liters of storage I wanted... worked out how many bottles I needed and the price. $600. Ouch. Screw that, honestly... I may have been a bit ambitious though

Anyways, I was wondering how much you might pay for one of those? I know the prise would differ a lot depending on what the seller wants... Obviously you'd have to offer more than scrap price... but I don't know scrap price (and if I look it up it'll be per kilo - useless if I don't know how much an empty one weighs). Sorry for a weird and dumb question, but I'm horrible at this sort of thing. I'm bad at haggling and if they ask me to make the first offer I am truly screwed. Rough figure or the scrap price or weight or anything of an SS extinguisher that size would be fantastic. Thanks

I think the blokes who get the fire extinguishers that i get em from are partial to a wee dram.

Other than that, i'm not saying too much in case i get talked at.




JustAskEmWhatTheyWantPunkin

Hehe, I hear ya Punkin. My local plumbing supply place also does fire suppression gear. And it just happens to be staffed by young blokes with Bundy and Beam stickers all over their B&S-style utes.

They love me

Fair 'nuff.
Doubt I can go about it the same way though.
Just don't want to be in the situation where I pay like $10 for one when scrappers only offer like $1 if I can avoid it, is all.
(Just pulled those numbers out of my ass)

Damn fast replies, both of you

EDIT: $10 would still be pretty cheap for ~15L storage, though... so not bad. Don't know if i can get them for $10 even as of yet... so yeah