Cheese Balls Container for Fermentation

Walking through Walmart I noticed they had Cheese Balls (lol..balls.) on sale for 5 bucks a jug.

Not really caring for Cheese Balls, per say, I did notice the containers were made of HDPE.. which is, obviously, food safe.

Now, if I were to try and ferment in these bad-boys after polishing off the Cheese Balls (heh, polishing balls), do you think the "cheesy" smell would affect my precious beer? I don't want my ales to smell of balls, let alone cheesy ones..

whaddya think?

mmmmm....Cheese Ball Ale

actually the more I think about it..

the more I want those damn cheese balls...

Are those cheese balls salty?

Soak those bad boys in oxyclean, I'm sure it'll rid the container of any scent.

I think a container from some Schweddy balls would work much better as a fermenter...

fishkid said:

Soak those bad boys in oxyclean, I'm sure it'll rid the container of any scent.

Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I was leaning towards. Worse outcome is that the container still stinks like balls after a soak and I'll have loaded up on about four pounds of cheesy balls. heh heh

biochemedic said:

I think a container from some Schweddy balls would work much better as a fermenter...

Click to expand...

lol I was thinkin about that skit the whole time I wrote this thread..

I just brewed an IPA and realized that I must have some sugar left in the mash, so I sparged again with 2 gallons of water and made what I call a Stepchild Blonde. I am fermenting in a pretzel container that is similar to the cheese ball container you are talking about. I say go for it !

Brewenstein said:

I just brewed an IPA and realized that I must have some sugar left in the mash, so I sparged again with 2 gallons of water and made what I call a Stepchild Blonde. I am fermenting in a pretzel container that is similar to the cheese ball container you are talking about. I say go for it !

Click to expand...

This is pretty cool...I've thought about trying a "third running" experiment too! I've got a couple of 1 gallon "carboys" (old Carlo Rossi wine jugs...) that I keep around, so perhaps I can get a gallon or two extra going next time I brew! Or maybe I'll hit the Sam's Club for a larger snack container...drill it for a #6 stopper. Maybe I can even use this as an attempt to perfect some yeast washing technique without worrying about ruining a whole batch!

I've got a couple third runnings batches in 1 gallon wine jugs. I make these my experimental batches- adding honey, cranberries, or anything else I want to experiment with.

WalMart ran out of cheese balls so I ended up getting pretzels...

The containers should work though, I emptied out the pretzels and the jug is soaking in oxyclean now. The only concern I have is when I turned the container upside down after filling with water it had a small, slow leak; it's not exactly air tight. I will probably cover the fermenting beer with sanitized aluminum foil.

I measured and marked the levels and it holds 1.5 gallons, so I got two of them to split the 2.5 gallon batch of pineapple wheat. These are going to be used for secondary with the pineapple.

I'll probably save them to have extra fermenters for my 2.5 gallon batches!

:rockin:

i have a couple of those. i store small amounts of base malt. i think they'll hold about 12-14 pounds.

This worked out great, brew tastes pretty good. Mmmmm.. pineapple...