Fermentation Container; Large Black Trash Bin

[Mr.Moonshine]

Howdy folks,

With the silly summer season coming up, I've had alot of demand put on my fermenters and space with friends asking for me to brew them diffrent beers. I was thinking that to save time, it might be worthwhile making a huge batch of something like an american wheat beer or a cream ale and fermenting it in a 60l black garbage bin I picked up from bunnings. the bins have previously only been used to collect water when cooling and when flushing kegs, and obviously would be sanitised quite scrupulously before use. Does fermenting in these vessels mean weird solvents and things like that get leached out into the beer? Is it safe to brew in these?

Cheers,

Mr.Moonshine

 

[MVZOOM]

I'd just check the plastic recycling symbol thing which tells you whether it's suitable for foodstuffs. Otherwise you risk leeching.

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

I checked the bin, the recycling number is a 5, which wiki indicates is polypropylene. My net research says they use this plastic for margarine and yohgurt containers, but is this safe to brew in? Nothing specially indicates that I can't, but I wanna be sure before I commit 50l of brew to something.
?

Cheers,

Mr.Moonshine

 

[Pennywise]

This is just SWMBO's opinion, so don't shoot me down if it's wrong. She's always reading up on stuff like this (she's vegan and a general earth hippy), I just asked her about #5 and she reckons it's bad because it has potential to leech chemicals. I wouldn't be using it, she's usually pretty switched on with this kind of stuff.

 

[flattop]

Look Fermenters are cheap, you can use water barrels from "Bunnies", i think they are about $25 each just split your batches just watch the threads and lids if you buy one or two (they don't seal well and work better with gladwrap and a rubber band).

 

[wynnum1]

what about 15 l bottled water containers

 

[manticle]

Water is obviously foodsafe so I would guess it's fine. You may need to check what temperature rating it has before you put anything hot in it though. Also I'm guessing it may have a problem with exposure to light (although people use glass carboys so maybe it's not an issue??)

Can someone who knows help with that?

 

[Nick JD]

Line it with a new foodsafe plastic bag. No need to sanitize or clean afterward.

 

[Bribie G]

Line it with a new foodsafe plastic bag. No need to sanitize or clean afterward.

Many thousands of litres of beer have been made that way. In the 70s in the UK Tom Caxton, the biggest beer kit mob of the era, put out a kit with a tin, a big polythene bag and a twistie tie. You would put the plastic bag in your plastic garbage bin (waay before wheelie bins so they were plentiful and cheap), mix the kit, sprinkle the yeast and tie off loosely with the twistie tie. Works well.

Problem is that you have to rack using syphon.

 

[brettprevans]

Dude just use fermentors. Either split it up in smaller ones or get a 60l one. It's not worth risking ending up with bin juice beer. Trust me I've giot 2x 60l fermentors plus 5 x30l. You'll use them

 

[Pennywise]

Depends where you're located, but Winequip had cheap 60L fermenters not long ago, might still be cheap. Either way it's really not that big of an investment $$ wise to make beer

 

[brianman]

My 2 cents worth, a bloke at work and his mates have been brewing in large garbage bins for years, glad wrap over the top, 2 hoses into buckets of water for an airlock. No problems, except 1 batch something got in, spoiled the lot. Coopers draught every time, nothing but sugar, guess where that comes from.
Briby

 

[Infinitee]

Hey, I may be new to posting, but not to reading this here great forum.

I just laid down a brew in a non-foodgrade 46L garbagebin the other day.

Not too concerned about leachates and the like (that's why I eat fresh - to counterattack all those free-liberal plasticisers)

But seriously, I have a question connected to this issue.

Anyone have experience in relative duration required for brewing in a larger vessel compared to a smaller (20L) one?

Intuition says longer, but I doubt it's 2 or 3 times longer for 40/60L respectively.
Surely the yeast can colonise and work faster due to increase of size, space and the same relative amount of nutrient.
(No airlock, just gladwrap with a pinprick)

(I also wonder if tall-ies take a bit longer than stubbies to carbonate after bottling ... but that's another question)

Thanks.

 

[crozdog]

Hey, I may be new to posting, but not to reading this here great forum.

I just laid down a brew in a non-foodgrade 46L garbagebin the other day.

Not too concerned about leachates and the like (that's why I eat fresh - to counterattack all those free-liberal plasticisers)

But seriously, I have a question connected to this issue.

Anyone have experience in relative duration required for brewing in a larger vessel compared to a smaller (20L) one?

Intuition says longer, but I doubt it's 2 or 3 times longer for 40/60L respectively.
Surely the yeast can colonise and work faster due to increase of size, space and the same relative amount of nutrient.
(No airlock, just gladwrap with a pinprick)

(I also wonder if tall-ies take a bit longer than stubbies to carbonate after bottling ... but that's another question)

Thanks.

It may take a little longer, but not much. it all depends on your yeast pitching rate. Checkout MrMalty.com for his calculator to work out how much you should pitch.

As you're doing 46l, you should be pitching twice the amount ie if you pitch 11g (2 packs of dry) for 23l, you will need 4 packs for 46l to keep the same rate.


Crozdog

 

[Infinitee]

I understand the principal of scaling up.

But being the cheapo piece of dump that I am, I try to cut costs whenever possible (please don't flame me, I'm poor).

Supposedly your average sachet of yeast contain 2.5 billion yeast cells?

So no matter the size of the vessel, they should have the 'upper-hand' over a limited number of stray bacteria (or fecal coliforms) ... right?

Maybe I'm being too cheap, maybe I'm being too paranoid in even raising the topic.

I just thought yeast was the sort of opportunistic organism that would capitalise (in any ratio) within a favourable environment to win out on top.

I'm guessing a bit longer to get established and a bit longer to finish it's job, but hopefully not too longterm.
Or else my enterprise ... cough, sry alcohol for private consumption project may not be as viable as I had initially hoped.

Oh and thanks for your reply, advice and website Crozdog. (like your sig too!)

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

You could pitch just one sachet of yeast to save money, but you're going to stress the yeast out if you do that, and you'll either end up with odd tasting beer or an infection (Even though you've got the 1 sachet already in there, seeing as there's so much more wort something else can still grab hold).
What I do when I want to scrounge money with yeast is make up a smaller batch of a weaker beer, pitch the sachet yeast into that, and then just use either part of or the whole yeast cake at the bottom of the fermenter for the next batch. For instance, if you did ~20l of a 4-4.5% beer, with 1 sachet of US-05, from what I can garner that's about the right pitching rate. If you were to ferment that beer out, bottle it and then pitch the whole yeast cake into a 45-55l batch, you'd be at about the right pitching rate again (according to my guesstimation- it might be an overpitch). As long as the beer before is lighter than the one you're pitching into, it should be fine. This is the same principle as making a starter, but you end up with easy beer at the end and can stretch out the use of 1 lot of yeast much more. From what I've heard, alot of people who use liquid yeasts also pitch from batch to batch.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

In regard to the first topic - there was an article in BYO a couple of months ago about large bins on wheels being used as fermenters

Can't remember what kind of plastic though...

I'll see if I can find the article

Cheers

 

[matti]

Some thing I heard on brewstrong podcast.
In principle any vessel that is clean and sanitary will do but just to add something regarding fermentation vessels.
The bottom should be smooth and circular when possible.
This will give the yeast freedom to swirl around during activity.
If the vessel has crevasses or square the yeast will get entrapped in corners and you will get a different result.

Good luck Moonshine.

 

[Infinitee]

Thanks matti, wouldn't have thought of that one, but makes sense.

There is probably cause to worry with plasticisers, alcohol and resulting leachates.
But it probably beats the industrial vats which "Need more dog" :icon_vomit:

I certainly should be reusing my yeast slurrys (a whole fermenters worth of slurry seems like a lot though, for just double the liquid capacity).
Part of it is laziness, part is that I don't have any specialised yeasts worth saving.

MrMoonShine (two, please) why should the first beer be lighter than the second?
Is this just so no colour/flavour is brought across or do the darker beers cause the yeast to become protein dependent?

Our council is rolling out new 120L wheelie bins soon. Brand spanking new!
I can just see all the microbreweries popping up as a result :lol:

 

[WitWonder]

So no matter the size of the vessel, they should have the 'upper-hand' over a limited number of stray bacteria (or fecal coliforms) ... right?

Maybe I'm being too cheap, maybe I'm being too paranoid in even raising the topic.

I just thought yeast was the sort of opportunistic organism that would capitalise (in any ratio) within a favourable environment to win out on top.

Not really. Bacteria will grow at about 10x the rate of yeast. Bacteria will win if they are given a foothold.