Cleaning free plastic buckets

I'm not real fond of paying $12 for plastic buckets from homebrew stores, so I asked the ever-so-kind bakery ladies for their 5 gallon icing buckets. I'd read about people using these type of buckets before, and was wondering what I could use to remove the oily-greasy feel on the inside of the bucket. My significant other recommended detergent but I'm not sure how I feel about that in my beer buckets, even though I'll sanitize them as well.

What do you say, guys? Dish detergent and elbow grease or is there something which would clean them without imparting soap flavoring?

I would use nonscented dishwashing detergent and a bit of elbow grease.

Beware of putting 5 gallons of beer in a 5 gallon primary fermenter, could get messy.

BTW welcome to the forum.

- magno

...and don't use anything stiffer than a wet sponge to wash it with...

Somewhere I read to soak the buckets full of water with 1 cup baking soda for a week in the sun, then full of water with 1/3 cup bleach for one week in the sun, then wash wash wash and you should be set. I have a bucket that had stored detergent, and even though I'd washed and soaked and washed and soaked I never got the smell of washing soap out of it. I use it for a sanitizing bucket instead.