Can I use another bucket?

[MisterSteve124]

Hey I'm making beer for the first time and I made my batch and right now it's in the fermenter. I really didn't want to spend the extra money on getting a capper and bottles so I figured that I could just get another plastic food grade bucket and put the beer in there and then add sugar so it would ferment there. The bucket is one I bought from a homebrew supply store and I was just wondering if it would be ok to leave the beer to carbonate in that. I am pretty sure it will hold the pressure and this will work but I just wanted to check and make sure with you guys. Thanks

 

[Orfy]

No.

The bucket will not hold enough pressure, plus how do you plan to serve it and stop it oxidising or getting contamination.

If you really can't justify paying a few $$ for a capper and caps then maybe just leave brewing for a while and use the money you save to buy one so you can do it properly.

 

[MisterSteve124]

I think that a air tight fiid grade bucket would easily hold the pressure but I guess I'll just put it in soda bottles.

 

[Whelk]

I don't think that not bottling is a very good idea. Your bucket will allow air to get in. This isn't a huge deal during (relatively) short-term fermentation, especially since the beer is off-gassing pretty seriously. If you try to carbonate in the bucket, you will basically be creating a 'cask' beer--which is great, but you'll have lower carbonation levels and the beer will go bad much faster. In fact, by the time you finish 9 days of carbonating, your beer will already have started oxidizing, and the longer you leave it, the worse it will get. Also, the beer will go flat and be exposed to a lot of oxygen when you dispense it, since air will come through the airlock when the beer inside starts coming out. All in all, the $11 for a capper and the $3 for a few hundred caps is worth it--saving $14 to flatten and oxidize your beer (and forcing you to drink it real fast before it goes bad) isn't.

 

[MisterSteve124]

I wasn't going to put an air lock on it. I was going to just plug up the hole in the bucket so no air would escape.

 

[Orfy]

MS.

It is a bad idea and wont work.
If you want to try it then do but don't expect any one to advise it or agree with you.

 

[Whelk]

I wasn't going to put an air lock on it. I was going to just plug up the hole in the bucket so no air would escape.

Right, right. Still, you'll have to pull the plug out eventually, since as the beer drains it'll be harder for gravity to pull the beer out. Also, as you dispense with the plug in, the beer will come out much more turbulently, shaking out most of the CO2 in the beer. If you pull the plug, it'll flow smoothly, but you'll get all that oxygen in there (and lose the CO2 in the headspace). Anything is worth a shot, but I'd still say that you should spend the little bit of money now to be totally sure it'll work--especially since you can use that 11$ capper for a good long time, and caps cost almost nothing at all.

 

[MisterSteve124]

Ok fine I just bottle it

 

[Whelk]

Ok fine I just bottle it

Good man.

 

[MisterSteve124]

I'll tell you guys how it turns out. My son is actually getting extra credit for it, they're learning about alcoholic fermentation in animals in Biology.

 

[boo boo]

I'll tell you guys how it turns out. My son is actually getting extra credit for it, they're learning about alcoholic fermentation in animals in Biology.

Wow, you can go to school for that? I'm a self taught alcoholic.

 

[MariaAZ]

As a demonstration of how airtight a plastic bucket with lid is... there are many stories in this forum of brewers with airlocks on buckets that got blocked by krausen during the fermentation and the lid blew off from the pressure.

 

[Alamo_Beer]

beer in a box? *shudders*


weird man

 

[david_42]

A typical carbonation level (chilled) is 12-14 psi. So, a bucket lid would have around 1300 pounds of force on it. That would double or triple at room temperature.

There is nothing wrong with using 2L soda bottles for carbonating and storage. Just sanitize them and the caps. It does make for a larger serving size.

 

[MisterSteve124]

Yeah thanks thats what I plan on doing.