Plastic barrels for long term storage

[dye4me]

I'm just wondering if anybody has used blue food grade plastic barrels for long-term storage for sour Ales. Im at a bottleneck where the most expensive thing for me is storage for aging. it would sure be a cheap way for me to keep going. Tia

 

[RPh_Guy]

I've seen success stories from people storing in HDPE, but I prefer PET.

FWIW you can get 5gal PET water jugs for pretty cheap, less than $10 USD.

I'm focused on bottling faster. I don't really want to have a hundred gallons sitting around in bulk, unable to drink it.

Cheers

 

[cactusgarrett]

I've used it, and it's fine. Though, I haven't kept anything much past 1 year in it, so take that for what it's worth. If the walls are thick enough, you have to worry more about oxygen ingress through any spigot, sampling, or adding adds than you do from permeation thru the barrel walls.

 

[dye4me]

Were moving from 1bbl to 2 bbl size bates so were kinda hoping to use 55 gallon hdpe. Not aware of any PET containers that big.

We currently purge our sankey kegs after sampling, would probobly do the same with barrels.

With new barrels pushing 4 figures and old ones being difficult to find and unreliable when we do, we were thinking about building a baffel of oak staves and using big blues for the long nap.

 

[chrilr]

Yes you can do it successfully. A brewery, in the Charlotte area, uses them exclusively and I have gone 3 years in one.