Newb Question Gallon jugs

[dinich]

I posted a request for gallon jugs and recieved much good feedback.
The question came up as to why jugs and not wide mouth gallons.
I did some searching and found airtight lids with pre drilled airholes online.

My question has or does anyone use wide mouth gallon jars for brewing?

Thanks in advance

Doug

 

[BigKahuna]

They would work nicely.
The reason we mostly don't use them is the lid issue, they don't make a very good rubber stopper that's 5" across.

 

[petes]

I have a heap of old Coca Cola extract gallon jars - wide mouthed - I picked up for brewing. Will put them to work when I work out a suitable capping method. Shouldn't be too hard.

 

[Ecnerwal]

I have a couple of 1 gallon jugs and appropriate stoppers, etc, but I've found a lot less use for them that I originally anticipated. "Just the thing for little experimental batches" I thought. I fact I had collected about 6, and ended up recycling all but a couple, which I had to keep for "just in case."

In practice, doing a gallon is about 75% the work that doing 5 is, if you have any way to do 5, and at the end of the process, you have 5 times as much end product. There's also proportionally far more waste with the inevitable bits that cannot be siphoned, lees, etc.

Lids with holes for stoppers of reasonable size will probably work fine, so long as you replace the lids before they rust on you - which, having had holes drilled in them that damage the coatings, they eventually will.

Or you could go the other direction and grab a 4000mL flask from a chemistry supply - then you could even boil in your fermenter...

 

[BigKahuna]

In practice, doing a gallon is about 75% the work that doing 5 is, if you have any way to do 5, and at the end of the process, you have 5 times as much end product.

I had this discussion HERE and I agree, BUT: If you are content to make a batch of wine or mead every 6 months or a year, it works fine to do 5 gallons at a time...especially if you are making tried and true recipies. I, on the other hand....like to brew someting almost every week, and I can not afford to shell out $40 - $60 for honey every week when. Also, the expiramental nature of a lot of my wine leads me to a failure rate that is a bit higher than most. I can however, make 1 gallon batches that can be converted to meat marinade if they suck, without breaking the bank.

 

[Tusch]

Such a great response Kahuna. The only thing keeping me from making a new gallon each week like that is even further limited brewing funds. Guess I never thought of each being potential marinate, perfect!

 

[claphamsa]

im gonna stock up on gallons.... do the primary in 5 gallon chunks
then experiment with flavers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Baumgartner]

I use 1 gallon Carlo Rossi jugs with a hole popped in the cap. The airlock didn't quite seal in the holes i made so i sealed them with that posterputty stuff. It works and it is cheap.

 

[bluespook]

A friend just told me that one of our local pizza places, Metro, gets hot sauce for wings in one gallon jugs...and then pitches them in the trash. Maybe other similar places use the same kind of stuff. Worth checking.

 

[brauhausjoe]

im gonna stock up on gallons.... do the primary in 5 gallon chunks
then experiment with flavers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is exactly what we are doing, Just started getting into mead making. It works great for us....but we need more jugs or jars...