Carboy-fermenter alternatives

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Progfan2010

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Where I live it is nearly impossible to find Glass carboys or Better Bottle carboys. I can´t find any adequate fermenting vessel except for plastic buckets. My concern is with the secondary fermentation.

What can I use?

I thought about using five 1 gallon wine bottles and divide the beer in 5 equal amounts. Would this work?.

I feel so frustrated not being able to find a simple glass carboy. There used to be thousands not too many years ago.

What about supposedly good quality PET carboys like the ones in this link?:

::: Bigplastics :::


Help !!
 
Personally, I would go for a food-grade plastic bucket. Unless you're planning on secondary fermentation lasting more than 6 months, chances are, you won't notice a difference.
 
I'd check out a Chinese restaurant for the large buckets they get Soy Sauce in.. clean well and you have a good food grade bucket(s) for free. Another option is restaurants that do a lot of fast food have oil containers.. heavy duty with a large opening that they get cooking oil in.. Probably take a couple of good washes with TSP or other strong cleaner to get the oil out.. but I have two of them in my jeep waiting to get cleaned.. Certainly worth a try. They come with a large screw on cap.. so you'd probably have do support the cap and drill a hole in it for the proper type stopper for your airlock.
 
I use 5 and 6.5 gallon PET carboys for everything. I use the drinking water ones that half of the people say you can't.... no problems at all.
 
I use 5 and 6.5 gallon PET carboys for everything. I use the drinking water ones that half of the people say you can't.... no problems at all.


Yes, after finding a few comments like yours I decided to go for a PET carboy. I´m not planning on doing secondary for longer than a month, so according to some people, I should be ok. It´s a cheap alternative.
 
Secondary? For what? Just kidding-Craigslist can be your friend, persistance is the key.
 
Also check out the bakery section of your local large-chain grocery store (Vons Albertsons etc). They get their frostings in 5 gallon food grade buckets, too. The aroma of soy sauce might require a bit more work to scrub out than that of plain white frosting.
 
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