Plastic Bucket Lifespan

I had heard that at some point plastic buckets and tubes start harboring bacteria and always impart off-flavors so they need to be replaced. Has anyone had experience with this, and how often do you find you need to replace your buckets and tubing?

I've only had my buckets sevens years, so I don't have experience replacing them.

Tubing, when it won't clean up.

I think the reason equipment goes bad is through improper care.

If you let your bucket sit around uncleaned for days sure, you'll have a problem or two.

I usually wash them out within minutes of being used so I haven't had any problems with mine. Some of my buckets are over 14 years old.

if when you sniff the bucket you want to gag then ya you should replace it

If my buckets start to have the faintest hine of stains or lingering odor, they get a soak in water w/oxiclean over night and they're good as new. As for tubing, I've found that as long as you are thorough with cleaning after use they'll last quite a long time depending upon where you store them. Sometimes things happen though. I had to make due today without my tubing to drain from my keggle to primary because it had some mold in it. I'll get a new piece the next time that I'm at Lowe's - the stuff is dirt cheap.

I started getting a progressively worse random off-flavor in my brews over the past year. My fermentation buckets always held a lingering odor no matter how hard I cleaned or how long I soaked. I eventually gave up on plastics and switched to glass carboys exclusively for my fermentation since they're more chemically inert than plastic. That in conjunction with a few other minor modifications to my brewing process has resolved that issue. I had those buckets for about 5 years before they bit the dust.

I find ever since I switched to using a Primary Pale Liner my pales don't really get stained and the time to clean / sanitize improved.

Cheers
BeerCanuck

homebrewer_99 said:

I usually wash them out within minutes of being used so I haven't had any problems with mine. Some of my buckets are over 14 years old.

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+1. I still use my original bucket. I've been brewing around 10-12 years.