Can I use a 5 gal Home Depot bucket for bottling?

If I get a new utility bucket from the hardware store for priming and bottling, will that lead to problems? Or should I buy another Ale Pail? Thanks...

I use a bucket from Home Depot for bottling. No problems so far.

SDreher71 said:

If I get a new utility bucket from the hardware store for priming and bottling, will that lead to problems? Or should I buy another Ale Pail? Thanks...

Click to expand...

As long as it's not the orange HD bucket you will be fine...as long as 5 gallons is NOT at the top of the bucket, but one of the "bands" below.

The one I got was the semi-transparant Locktite 5 gallon bucket with the black gallon markings on it....

You can just make it out in this pic.

Revvy said:

As long as it's not the orange HD bucket you will be fine...

Click to expand...

What's wrong with the orange one's? What did I miss?

Revvy said:

As long as it's not the orange HD bucket you will be fine...

Click to expand...

Why do you say that, Revvy?

What's wrong with the orange one's? What did I miss?

Click to expand...

They're likely not food-grade. You need either HDME or PET (1) or (2)

Brewin_Bob said:

What's wrong with the orange one's? What did I miss?

Click to expand...

MrNate said:

Why do you say that, Revvy?

Click to expand...

Well I'd be worried about the dye and the beer interacting myself, and leeching pigment into the beer. Basicly the big orange buckets are the same as the white ones they sell...except that orange pigment is added to the molten plastic before extrusion....it's not like it's two separate premade plastics...they add the pigment pellets into the vat...so it's not like it's sat for awhile..So who knows how "attached" the dye molecules are to the plastic.

It may be nothing, but who knows....I'm old enough to remember when red dye number 7 was banned....so coloring I'm a little nervous about touching anything I'm ingesting...

Thanks for the information. I am going to bottle my first batch tomorrow, but am brewing batch number 2 in my one and only Ale Pail.

Unfortunately, when you contact the manufacturer of these buckets you get an interesting story. You might have heard it already, so bear with me.

When asked if the buckets they sell in Home Depot are food grade, the manufacturer insists that they are not. Now bear in mind that the same mfr sells HD the white buckets and the orange Homer buckets. Ok, lots of folks are content to stop there and call it a day. Not food grade across the board, full stop.

Me, I took a look at the manufacturer's web site after hearing this, as something about it seemed a little strange to me. What did I find there? Well, there are two kinds of buckets you can order. The regular, non-food-grade in various colors (of which orange is not an option) OR... you can order custom FOOD-GRADE buckets silk screened with your artwork by the pallet load - and guess what color is one of your options. That is the only option for orange buckets I found on their site.

Scientific? No. Good enough for me? Yes.

I want to stress two things:

First, never trust unverified advice from the internet. Don't run off and use them because I told you it's OK. I didn't. What I told you is that I did my own research and came to my own conclusions. I encourage you to do likewise.

Second, things may have changed since last year when I exchanged emails with the company rep, but as of that time his official statement was that they are NOT food grade.

Revvy, did you add the spigot yourself or did the bucket come with it? If you added it, any hints on to do it? Thanks...

In that case MrNate I think it goes back to what Revvy said. The die/paint/whatever would be my concern. Sure, the base bucket may be food grade, but you add on the paint and it's a different story.

I got a couple of semi-transparent buckets from the paint department at Home Depot. I use one for bottling and the other for sanitizing. They look to be the exact same as the one in Revvy's photo. Conveniently, the buckets have various suggested uses printed on the side, and one of the suggestions actually notes that they are food grade plastic (the orange ones do not say this).

I bought a spigot from the LHBS, and used a holesaw to drill out a hole for the spigot... I assume that's what Revvy did, too.

Revvy said:

Well I'd be worried about the dye and the beer interacting myself, and leeching pigment into the beer.

Click to expand...

Are we talking about leeching pigment during the course of fermentation or the relatively short time that the beer sits in the bucket during bottling? Truth be told, I really should start kegging

Kilted Brewer said:

In that case MrNate I think it goes back to what Revvy said. The die/paint/whatever would be my concern. Sure, the base bucket may be food grade, but you add on the paint and it's a different story.

Click to expand...

Like I said earlier, and of course speaking only for myself - The buckets in their orange state were advertised on the site as food-grade. Or, to put it another way, that group of SKUs was advertised as being food-grade and available in orange, blue, etc. So I don't think they could advertise them that way if they were food grade until they dyed them orange.

The silkscreening on the outside should not be a concern, obviously, and there's the question of whether or not beer would leach nasty things from even food-grade plastic. Take it all with a grain of salt, etc. etc.

frolickingmonkey said:

I got a couple of semi-transparent buckets from the paint department at Home Depot. I use one for bottling and the other for sanitizing. They look to be the exact same as the one in Revvy's photo. Conveniently, the buckets have various suggested uses printed on the side, and one of the suggestions actually notes that they are food grade plastic (the orange ones do not say this).

I bought a spigot from the LHBS, and used a holesaw to drill out a hole for the spigot... I assume that's what Revvy did, too.

Click to expand...

Are those the new ones with the squishy foam handles? Who makes those?

MrNate said:

Are those the new ones with the squishy foam handles? Who makes those?

Click to expand...

Yeah those are the ones with the squishy foam handles... they're made by Argee Corporation.

Huh, ok... the orange ones are Leak-Tite. I think they phased out the old white leak-tite buckets in favor of the ones you're talking about. Old habits die hard for me, I guess.