Do you ferment in a bottling bucket?

This is probably old news for everyone but I didn't see it mentioned before. I fermented my last two beers in a bottling bucket. When it was time to keg I just put a sanitize hose on the spigot and ran it all into the keg in 2 minutes.
If you are already doing this, I feel dumb. If your not, you got to try it. So much easier and quicker that siphon.

Ya know I got a kit when I first started, a 7.8 gallon bottling bucket and a 6 gallon glass carboy. So I would use the bucket for primary, and the glass for secondary. Well now that I rarely transfer to secondary, I love just opening that spigot when the beer is done and go from there. Seems the perfect height to keep most trub in the bucket. I now really use nothing but bottling buckets, only glass when I have to because it's the only thing available....

And it only took me 15 batches to figure it out.

Not a good idea for a bottler...

I don't keg, so I have priming solution to deal with, and if I poured it in I'd want to stir it up some, and that creates a problem since the yeast and trub are still present at the bottom of the bucket.

...but yeah, just another reason to start kegging!

I use my bottling bucket to hold other things. Things I might use on brew day, but probably won't. I use the bucket that came with my kit (fermenting bucket) sometimes to catch the grain from my mill. It doesn't get used for fermenting beer though. I also don't use carboys for anything other than (maybe) bringing the filtered water to brew with. I also don't lift/move my fermenting vessels once the yeast goes in. Not even an inch. They sit on the floor of the basement for as long as they do before I transfer the finished beer to serving kegs.

IMO, keep a close eye on that spigot. Remove it between batches and clean it REALLY well. Sanitize the ever living snot out of it too (as well as before you use it to run the beer to keg). There's plenty of places for bad things to take hold and mess up your batch.

I've used bottling buckets several times as well. I agree, it's makes racking a breeze. Especially helpfull when dry hops are involved - no clogging of a racking cane etc.

One way I've found to help sanitize the spigot, is to place in a microwave safe vessel and boil. Super easy.

h4mmy86 said:

Not a good idea for a bottler...

I don't keg, so I have priming solution to deal with, and if I poured it in I'd want to stir it up some, and that creates a problem since the yeast and trub are still present at the bottom of the bucket.

...but yeah, just another reason to start kegging!

Click to expand...

But you could put the priming sugar in another bottling bucket then drain it right from the first bucket onto the sugar. It would work slick.

tochsner said:

But you could put the priming sugar in another bottling bucket then drain it right from the first bucket onto the sugar. It would work slick.

Click to expand...

^this. i've used that technique with great results.

tochsner said:

But you could put the priming sugar in another bottling bucket then drain it right from the first bucket onto the sugar. It would work slick.

Click to expand...

Seems to kinda defeat the purpose tho. I think the real appeal is not needing anything more than a fermenter and some hose. If I'm going to use a fermenting bucket and then break out another bottling bucket I feel like I might as well get the siphon too.

...but I don't mind using the siphon at all.