$18.99 for a 20 gallon fermenter?

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There was a write up in byo a few years ago using a rubbermaid brute. All you nee to do is put a grommet in the lid, then put a thin bead of keg lube on the rim of the can, and use some spring clamps to secure the lid down.
 
The biggest issue I'm seeing right now is siphoning the beer off. I sure won't be able to lift this thing when it's full, and I'm not sure if I have anywhere in my house where a 20 gallon trash can with 15 gallons of beer could sit safely.
 
I'm betting (guessing) that a ball valve or valve of some kind a few inches north of the bottom (to leave yeast cake behind) would work quite well as a drain for the finished beer.

Kind of like the Williams brewing Siphonless bucket fermenters. You could damn near start a nano brewery with those if you had a decent cold room for ferment temp control.
 
15g of beer is 120lbs or so. If you have a counter-top or table that you can stand on, it'll hold that much weight in beer, yeah? I'd put a speidel valve in the bottom about 2" up, then shim the front so the cake settles in the rear, away from the valve. You can secondary, rack, everything from that one vessel.
 
Too funny, I just gave away a 35 gallon version of this on Craigslist. Also, down at my community garden there's a trashcan that started out life as a 35 gallon fermenter with the valve as you described. It looks as though it saw a LOT of batches before it got repurposed to an outdoor lifestyle.
 
Too funny, I just gave away a 35 gallon version of this on Craigslist. Also, down at my community garden there's a trashcan that started out life as a 35 gallon fermenter with the valve as you described. It looks as though it saw a LOT of batches before it got repurposed to an outdoor lifestyle.

That's great! Did you find any issues with keeping it sealed, or is the keg lube trick pretty solid?
 
I used a sanitized garbage bag over the top of my 20 gallon brute can. I was going to go with clamps and caulk, but this worked just as well for just a couple cents.
 
Very interesting idea. Anyone gonna try it?

I'm in for that price. TOTAL: $37.83 with lid including shipping.
I have been looking for something inexpensive. I need to do 15 gallon batches in order to fill a Hoff Stevens keg. I'm going to do some Real Ales in a firkin. This is the last piece of the puzzle. I had my eye on some 25 gallon one piece drums that had bungs, but they turned out to not be food grade; anyway, this might be as good. It sure is a lot better than trying to combine (3) 5 gallon batches.
 
That was my thought exactly! I have enough carboys to do the entire batch split into 5 gallons, but I feel that's just nowhere near as desirable. I wouldn't want the pitch rate to be off in one carboy and I sure don't want to do 3 separate starters...
 
my LHBS sells the 15.5 gallon casks that bulk extracts come in for $10.. for $15 they give you a bung, airlock, and 5 food grade bag inserts. a garbage can isnt a half bad idea though!
 
That's great! Did you find any issues with keeping it sealed, or is the keg lube trick pretty solid?

N/A - this was back in my first brewing incarnation in the late eighties, before people thought that you should seal stuff. I was content just to keep the ants from finding it.
 
I use the Brutes for all my wine fermenting. You can get them as small as 10 gallons. The lids snap on tightly (not air tight). I have the wheel cart that attaches to the bottom so it's easy to move, you could also craft a furniture dolly to do the same thing. Pumping is easiest but there are a lot of bulkhead options out there if you go the valve route. I use 2' of Fermwrap and a heating pad attached to my STC-1000 to control ferm temps.
 
sloose said:
my LHBS sells the 15.5 gallon casks that bulk extracts come in for $10.. for $15 they give you a bung, airlock, and 5 food grade bag inserts. a garbage can isnt a half bad idea though!

I have used that blue food grade cask straight up. Oxy-cleaned the hell out of it, then sanitized it. Got a 41 on my Cat23 Imperial West Coast Red 10g batch. All I did was cover the bungholes with SaranWrap.
 
I use the Brutes for all my wine fermenting. You can get them as small as 10 gallons. The lids snap on tightly (not air tight). I have the wheel cart that attaches to the bottom so it's easy to move, you could also craft a furniture dolly to do the same thing. Pumping is easiest but there are a lot of bulkhead options out there if you go the valve route. I use 2' of Fermwrap and a heating pad attached to my STC-1000 to control ferm temps.

If the lids snap on tight but not air-tight, what do you do?
 
If the lids snap on tight but not air-tight, what do you do?

Well with red wine it doesn't matter because once fermentation ends it gets pressed and goes into carboys. If I used them for beer (I don't make big enough batches) I would just rack into carboys after primary...there's too much headspace. It doesn't need to be air-tight for primary fermentation.
 
BudzAndSudz said:
If the lids snap on tight but not air-tight, what do you do?

Fermentation doesn't necessarily need to be airtight. Anchor brewing does shallow, open air fermentation with filtered air. Airlocks & airtight containers just reduces possibility of wild yeast and bacteria.
 
That was my thought exactly! I have enough carboys to do the entire batch split into 5 gallons, but I feel that's just nowhere near as desirable. I wouldn't want the pitch rate to be off in one carboy and I sure don't want to do 3 separate starters...

lol We do 30g in 6 carboys...it sucks! But, it does give us the ability to play with different dry hops and secondary aging additions. We are saving up for a 60g stout fermentor...but i wanna go 90g....come'on tax return hurry up!!

Our mash tun is a 33g trash can just like that, going to move up to a 55g drum once we get the fermentor.
 
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