Fermenter krausen space?

[outside92129]

I'm giving my buddies some square-ish water containers, 5gal, to use as fermenters. What's the max wort they should put in it to leave enough room, 4 gal? The containers are relatively cube shaped, 10x10x14 or so.

 

[GodsStepBrother]

4 gallons should be fine, but it all depends on the temperature this beer will be fermenting in, what yeast is doing the job, and the gravity of the wort.

The higher the fermentation temp of the beer the crazier it will go. Hefe yeast are notoriously very vigorous yeast and love to make a mess, Belgians as well. High gravity beers like Imperial stouts and such have huge blow offs. Either way you can just put a blow off tube just to be sure, until you get the hang of different recipes.

Also what type of plastic are these water containers? 1, 2, 7?

 

[Catt22]

I'm giving my buddies some square-ish water containers, 5gal, to use as fermenters. What's the max wort they should put in it to leave enough room, 4 gal? The containers are relatively cube shaped, 10x10x14 or so.

The capacity of those containers is just over 6 gallons. You should be able to ferment five gallons in them no problem.

 

[outside92129]

The containers are type 2 / HDPE plastic for purified/USP water. I didn't think to do a volume calculation, i just assumed it was 5gal per the label. It looks like it holds closer to 7 gal.

I'll let ya'll know how it works out and if anyone wants some i'd be glad to ship some out at cost (or pick up in San Diego), no cost for the actual container as we just throw/recycle them away.