I have had two 6.5 gallon plastic buckets for about 12 or 15 batch each now and I have noticed a few mysterious off flavors in the last several batches. I am carefull when I wash them and try to get them clean with either a sponge or a scrubber part of the sponge. I use PBW and star stan (I tried povidone iodine for a few batches but it left a bad taste for me). There are a few minor scratches and scuff marks in them from the scrubber but I think they get sanitized with the star san.
I am curious - do you have a definite life span for your buckets? Do you replace them every so many batches or every so often? Given the price, ($8 or so) I think I have gotten pretty good use out of them but I don't want to replace them unnecessarily.
I am curious - do you have a definite life span for your buckets? Do you replace them every so many batches or every so often? Given the price, ($8 or so) I think I have gotten pretty good use out of them but I don't want to replace them unnecessarily.