Tap A Draft bottles for small fermenter?

I have aquired 12 TAD bottles and I'll never use them all for serving beer. I was curious about using them to ferment small 1 gallon test batches. Does anyone see an issue with this? The only one I could really think of is that they are fairly dark and hard to see into so racking would have to be done carefully so as not to suck up any trub. Well...one other thing is that they are 6L (1.59 gallons) in size so I'm not sure if that would be enough headspace for a 1 gallon batch.

 

I used one once, I think they will work. In my case I just had a little too much left over from a 3Gal batch, and put the excess into the bottle. I would recommend a drilled stopper...in my case I was out of airlocks, so I put some sanitized foil over the bottle mouth. It came out with mold growing on it. Now I did leave it for an excessive period....maybe six weeks (forgot about it) but I think with an airlock/drilled stopper you'd be fine.

Not trying to scare you away from it, just relaying my experience.

 

I've got plenty of screw on caps for them. I thought about just drilling one out and putting a grommet in it's place.

 

A good cheap solution.

 

Wow! Great idea! I was looking at something to use for a small fermenter and didn't even think of the TAD bottles i have stored away!

Did you try it and if so, how did it turn out? I was thinking of buying some 2 gallon buckets from us plastics fora bout $5 each but these seem like a viable alternative. I am also not certain if the buckets from US Plastics are suitable for fermenting...

 

No, I haven't tried it yet. I'm putting together a list of ingredients to order and might give it a shot in the next few weeks if I still have them. I'm thinking about selling all of my TAD equipment and just sticking with bottles for the time being. I have 12 TAD bottles and 5 taps taking up space in my brew closet and I could use that room for other things.

 

Just a followup, I have 2 batches fermenting in my tap a draft bottles currently. So far so good. I drilled through the cap to add an airlock. So far the only problems are the tops not sealing very well. I thought my yeast wasn't taking off at first, but then saw the krausen. Tightened up the lids and the airlock started to bubble. A few days later, bubbling stopped, tightened the lid again and it continued. I am just using the standard black tops, not the multipiece ones I use when I bottle into growlers or tad's.