Food Grade Material - White Home Depot Bucket

What are people's thoughts on using the following bucket for fermentation:



It says on the side "food grade material", but I have no idea if the lids are food grade or not. Or if they even have lids for them.

I did a search for home depot buckets and could only find posts regarding the orange ones. Not sure if this is a new product or not.

I do small batch brewing and would like to add a couple of fermenters to my inventory.

-- Todd

It does say food grade material. If you don't trust them, check mfg name on bottom of bucket and google it.

Might be a little small for a 5G batch at full krausen.

samc said:

It does say food grade material. If you don't trust them, check mfg name on bottom of bucket and google it.

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That's a good idea. I'm not sure if I trust them or not.

mmb said:

Might be a little small for a 5G batch at full krausen.

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I mainly do 2.5G batches, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I think it would be small for 5 gallons, but it would make a nice secondary or bottling bucket. Before buying it though, you should check out Walmart or a bakery. I stopped by my local Walmart a couple weeks back and ask the bakery counter what they did with old frosting buckets. They said we recycle. I asked if they ever gave them away. The lady stepped away from the counter and came back with three buckets and lids. I had to soak them in bleach for a couple days to kill the frosting smell, but they work great. I have used them for secondary and bottling. Just a thought to save some $$$.

Seriously, not be an environmental walkko, but these 5 gallon food grade buckets are thrown away by the thousands everyday. I got a couple that held malt extract from my homebrew shop. Maybe it's my Scotch heritage, but I just can't see buying something I can get for free.

The only effort is asking about them (and you could just dumpster dive if you'd prefer) and cleaning them...and it's not like we aren't cleaning stuff all the time, anyway.

Mmm . . . frosting beer.

ghack said:

Seriously, not be an environmental walkko, but these 5 gallon food grade buckets are thrown away by the thousands everyday. I got a couple that held malt extract from my homebrew shop. Maybe it's my Scotch heritage, but I just can't see buying something I can get for free.

The only effort is asking about them (and you could just dumpster dive if you'd prefer) and cleaning them...and it's not like we aren't cleaning stuff all the time, anyway.

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My local bakery GAVE me 4 food grade 5G buckets for free all I had to do is ask and wait for them to empty them... two weeks and they called me to get them... and the smelled of frosting.... a little cleaning and bam bucket and lid FREE... no diving required...

Also check out doughnut shops. We have a local shop that offers the buckets for $1 - $2 each. Never really needed them so I have not asked for any. I assume if I was buying a dozen doughnuts they would throw one in for free.

The problem becomes eating a doughnut vs. drinking an I2PA !

samc said:

Also check out doughnut shops. We have a local shop that offers the buckets for $1 - $2 each. Never really needed them so I have not asked for any. I assume if I was buying a dozen doughnuts they would throw one in for free.

The problem becomes eating a doughnut vs. drinking an I2PA !

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Doughnuts and beer, mmm. Not sure how an IPA would do, but a nice imperial stout with some Krispy Kreme, I need to try that.

It's okay to use, HD buckets, on another board a chemist who was a brewer talked to one of hd's plastic chemists in "their language" and confirmed that even the regular HD buckets are food grade, though not labeled...but like may have said it is probably too small to use as a primary..but I use a very similar one as a bottling bucket...

The water people at work just started delivering 5 Gal PET water bottles. I now have a fairly unlimited supply for $5 a piece!! Much better than a HD bucket IMHO.

I really like the idea of re-using the buckets from a bakery. I'm going to give that a shot before I go with the home depot bucket.