StillSmart

Hi

Was just wondering if I could use a waterbutt as a fermenter? B and q offer a 110l for £27 and it is hdpe. Which I believe is what we need to be food grade and safe to use?

Been using smaller HDPE fermenters for years so can't see why you shouldn't think big.

A single use ex factory juice drum would be better and cheaper.

Not sure it would be food grade either.
Probably much thinner and potentially the wrong shape.

This question has reared it's head on a number of times over the years on forums, the question of food grade always comes up.
Mango tubes from your local takeaway have been sorted in the past.
My 2 cents on the water butt....no.

I don't know about the materials those purpose made water-butts use, but there's no end of cheap, food grade drums available on ebay.

I have 3 nice terracotta ones here. With nice screw on, 2 part lids. £9 each (had to drive to pick them up).

If it wasn't for the fact I want them for a condenser water supply, they'd be idea for sorting apples/cider etc or even for a mega sized sugar turbo (they're 225 litre volume and originally had olives in them)..........

Hell, if you have the room/space somewhere, you can use a food grade IBC (intermediate bulk container), there's plenty of those on ebay as well. They hold 1000 litres and I know of some small/start up type breweries that use them for their ferment.....

The blue ones are food grade. Also consider cutting them down.

Mashy wrote:The blue ones are food grade. Also consider cutting them down.

No point. If you look around, you can get them in about 4 or 5 different sizes. 225 and 25 litre are most common, but 50 and 100 litres are also available.

A bit like IBC's, a "standards" pallet footprint gives 1000 litre volume and a "Euro" pallet sized one is 660 litres (standards are more common and generally cheaper)........

sorry I was thinking (but not typing) you can get a better shape by cutting down.

Yeast prefer short and shallow (not in extreme) as opposed to tall and thin - and so do a lot of humans. Trugs are rising in populalrity too

I was at the farm shop today,4750 litre HDPE water tanks for sale.
I know what I will be dreaming of tonight..
Aided by the fact that Lidl sugar is now down to 39p a kilo locally.

Robert.