No room for a carboy?

If you want to have a temperature controlled brew or even lager try this out...



I got these two at walmart for like $8.97, they fit perfectly on my bottom freezer shelf... I got an Irish Red fermenting in one right now (the one on the left)... What i did was enlarged the smaller hole to 1/2 inch then used the sanding attachment on my dremel tool to fit the black airlock grommet from my bottling bucket lid... Stuck in 3/8 inch tubing for a blowoff and voila a neat little container that takes up less space than a carboy.. They hold up to 7 gallons but i would only fill to about 6 gallons without worrying about the fluid level being over the tube.

How are you planning to rack?

pictures of the airlock/blow off tube?

neat idea

Let us know how it works out. I wonder if those water jugs are oxygen permeable. Also, I recommend some kind of insulation between the jug and those freezer coils. When that puppy kicks on, those coils might chill your yeast into dormancy as it is much colder there compared to the ambient temp in the freezer.

Just a thought.

EdWort said:

Let us know how it works out. I wonder if those water jugs are oxygen permeable. Also, I recommend some kind of insulation between the jug and those freezer coils. When that puppy kicks on, those coils might chill your yeast into dormancy as it is much colder there compared to the ambient temp in the freezer.

Just a thought.

Click to expand...

I thought of this too, however since it's only at 62*F right now (low side of Irish Ale Yeast) i'm not too worried, it kicks on maybe every hour or two and runs for less than a minute... But when i lager i was planning on putting down some kind of insulation... And they're HDPE the same as a bottle bucket/ ale pail...

I'll get a pick of the blowoff tube, i plan to use the big hole for racking. What i'll do is take it out of the fridge and let it sit at room temp for a day or so and have all the sediment fall to what will be the bottom, then rack out normally... And there's a spigot (other side of big opening, you unscrew off one side and screw onto the other) so taking a hydro/ taste sample will be easy...

neat idea! GOod to hear it's of food grade

There she blows (literally) with the blow-off attached... I'd take a pic without it in to show but 1) there's nothing special there 2) i have something active in there...



Closer, you can see to the right where i dropped the dremel tool and left a scratch...



You can somewhat see through them and if you look closely you can see krausen... i thought it was pretty neat.

I like your style, man...... Let us all know how it all works out. You may have just cracked some code!

BTW-

If we should never scrub out better bottles....and that's an acceptable practice, my thinking is that PBW will make short work of that irregular shape and it should make a great primary. Oxygen permeability shouldn't be an issue for a 2 week ferment.

ScubaSteve said:

BTW-

If we should never scrub out better bottles....and that's an acceptable practice, my thinking is that PBW will make short work of that irregular shape and it should make a great primary. Oxygen permeability shouldn't be an issue for a 2 week ferment.

Click to expand...

Hmmm not sure I personally would want to save $3.00 on a primary that has limited access and visual exposure for proper cleaning. But then again I don't even own a plastic fermenter any longer due to my lack of trust.

ScubaSteve said:

BTW-

If we should never scrub out better bottles....and that's an acceptable practice, my thinking is that PBW will make short work of that irregular shape and it should make a great primary. Oxygen permeability shouldn't be an issue for a 2 week ferment.

Click to expand...

Yeah, i don't scrub ANY of my plastics.... What i do is soak my BB in Oxyclean and i'll probably do the same with these, if theyre ever empty enough to clean (lol)... That's my thinking on the oxygen barrier too, 1-3 weeks shouldn't do any harm..

An overnight soak and a sponge wipedown is all the cleaning I do on my plastic.

Very nice! I like the way you think .