Is this solution OK for racking beer out of a 60L fermenter inside of a freezer?

[BrewVerymore]

I've been fermenting using 20L(5Gallon) buckets inside of a chest freezer. They're quite easy to gently lift out so I can elevate it enough to get a good siphon going into kegs.

The way my chest freezer is set up, I can either fit three 20L buckets or two 60L plastic barrels. In other words using the 20L buckets was an inefficient use of space so I went ahead and bought two 60L plastic barrels like in the photo below for when I want to do bigger batches.

The idiot in me didn't realize there is no way I am going to lift 45-60L out of the chest freezer so now I have been thinking of solutions.

My solution is to put an additional hole into the top of the barrel lids where I can attach a gas-in line and feed it some Co2 so the pressure can push the beer into the kegs out of a tube dropped into where the blowoff tube goes in.

The barrel gets a pretty good seal with the twist-on lid which has a rubber gasket along the rim. I would say the path of least resistance would maybe be where the spigot his. I'm going to sacrifice one of these lids over the weekend to try it out with water and see how it works, but thought i would see if anyone had any advice beforehand and to see if and why anyone thinks this is just a stupid idea. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[IslandLizard]

Often great plans tend to start a life of their own.

I think slightly pressurizing will work fine as long as the barrel can take 2-3 psi without rupturing. How thick are the walls? Any weak spots? I've pressurized 6.5 gallon (25 liter) plastic brew buckets to perform O2-free transfers.

I guess you're using a racking cane with an flow inverter tippy on the bottom to prevent sucking up excess trub and yeast? Start the cane from somewhere in the middle of the barrel and drop slowly as it empties. You may end up leaving a sizeable amount of beer behind though, given the width of the bottom, unless you find a way to tip it toward the end of the transfer. Perhaps lifting it out when there's only 3-4 gallons left, tip and resume?

 

[Chanoc]

YES it is ok.
You won't need too much pressure.
Once the beer in the hose reaches the level of the beer inside
The barrel, the siphon is primed.
The problem I see is that the last few gallons will be very slow to flow out and then you may need to Up the pressure.
An idea that has ocurren to me is starting the siphon at the very bottom and pulling a little bit the racking cane/pipe/tubing until you gerente clear beer.
HTH