weirdboy

Recipes 

I am surprised Revvy hasn't chimed in yet with a million links proving it's impossible to remove the pickles from those buckets. At least according to Revvy, many people have tried to remove that smell over the years, all unsuccessfully.

I think you can maybe do it eventually, if you make a dozen batches in it, and you are willing to throw away the ones you can't drink. My reasoning is that I had a big-ass jar that I have used for yeast rinsing, which originally was a pickle jar. The jar itself is glass, and was completely odor-free after the first wash/rinse, but the lid on the other hand took a few time of processing yeast leftovers before the smell went away. It DID eventually go away, but it sure took a while.

meaderbaker

Recipes 

Go to a brew store and get a fermentation bag.

bigdaddybrew

Recipes 

Oxyclean and hot water? I have used the lids but they still smell faintly like pickles but don't touch the beer much. The buckets I haven't tried.

__________________
Primary: Irish Dawn
Secondary: hard apple cider
Kegged: Buck Brown Ale
Bottled: Apple-Blackberry Wine
Future: Summer Cerveza, Red Cream Ale

Have you been drinking beer? No. Why not?

Whattawort

Recipes 

I would try the following process
1. Bleach solution (~4 or 5 hrs)
2. Vinegar solution (~3 hrs)
3. Oxyclean soak (over night)
4. Direct sunlight (~6-8 hrs)
5. StarSan (over night)

I did this for a used keg I got and most of the odd odor came out. Obviously, I shortened my bleach solution time since SS and bleach don't like each other a lot but plastic and bleach don't mind each other at all.

__________________
Bottled - Nadda
Kegged - Star San
On Deck - Zythos IPA

New Yorkers think they’re so jaded that it’s impossible to shock them. They think they’ve seen and heard it all, and that may be mostly true. But I can tell you from experience that, at 2am in Midtown, pretty much every person on the street will stop and gawk when they see a guy holding hands with one midget, and another midget on his shoulders yelling out: “WHO RUN BARTERTOWN? I RUN BARTERTOWN!”
- Tucker Max

USAFSooner

Recipes 

You can't get rid of the smell. I bought a pickle bucket from Firehouse Subs to store my walnut media for brass tumbling in. I've used it for over two years and it still smells of pickles.

sput

Recipes 

This looked like the most recent thread regarding use of a pickle bucket for a fermenter and wanted to chime in. I was given 5 pickle buckets and soaked them all in bleach vinegar for two weeks, 2 weeks with oxyclean, and a week with starsan sitting in the sun the whole time. Then brewed several batches in each.

I wish I had labeled the buckets so I knew which were the worst offenders but those buckets are still making pickle flavored beer to varying degrees however I also used one of the buckets to make a kit black raspberry merlot and with a contact time of 4 weeks you can't taste the pickle in the wine once bottled. I have many bottles whose cap labels now start with P for pickle. Surprisingly the Marzen lagered for 7 weeks wasn't the worst offender and was kegged and consumed in a day.

I'm stubborn and had a hard time believe that 3 months of leaching in various beers and cleaners wouldn't get the pickle out. My recommendation is to spend the 4 bucks for a bucket and lid from home depot, soak that in some bleach and move on with life.

Luckily I had several PP, PTFE, and glass carboys running along side so at least some of the beer was picklefree. I'm currently letting some C3C sit in glass and the best pickle bucket for a few weeks to do a side by side to prove I'm not crazy.