Wayne,
In fact, the HDPE Brute barrels at lowe's are indeed food grade. I
noticed this when I saw the same barrel for sale in a catalog, and
also at the local wine hobby store. I called brute myself and asked
them. They assured me that the barrels at lowes are the same AND food
grade. The trick is that the only ones that are food grade are gray,
white and yellow ones (I believe). I have a gray one. I put a large
spigot in the bottom.
Marc
On Apr 23, 7:06*pm, Wayne Harris wrote:
On Apr 23, 5:51*pm, Joe Sallustio wrote:
On Apr 23, 9:02*am, Wayne Harris wrote:
On Apr 22, 6:29*pm, Joe Sallustio wrote:
On Apr 22, 5:36*pm, AxisOfBeagles wrote:
Neither?
I don;t think you'd want to ferment Cab in a barrel anyway. What about
getting two or three large plastic fermentation buckets with lids? Will
Mrs. Harris allow that?
http://morewinemaking.com/view_product/19680/103207
Fermenting 5 small lots seems to me only to increase risks, and would
be terribly inefficient from a time / work point of view.
On 2008-04-22 13:19:31 -0700, Wayne Harris said:
This fall, *due to spouse induced space restrictions, *I am fermenting
about 25 5-gallon buckets of Cabernet Sauvignon. (I did not know this
last year, but appearently we have a standing "no-barrel" policy in my
house)
I am thinking about Pressing
Would it be better to:
Press each bucket's cap individually,draining back into the original
bucket?
(More time consuming)
Collect up all the caps, and press as one
evenly divide up the resulting juice back into each individual bucket.
(less time consuming)
thanks. -Wayne- Hide quoted text -
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Wayne,
I ferment in 6 gallon pails and it is a bit of a pain. *I drain off
the free run and scoop out the cap into the press leaving most of the
seeds behind. *You really can't fill them over 4.5 gallons and mine
hold 6.5 gallons technically.
Why not go the large trash barrel, clear plastic poly bag route others
use? *I don't know how many pounds you are talking but it sounds like
close to a ton. *It would be a lot less work and a lot less space.
You might have only 3 55 gallon barrels to deal with rather than 25
buckets.
Joe- Hide quoted text
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I was under the impression that large plastic trash barrels should not
be used for Primary Fermentation. * It that is the case, *I am happy
to run down to Lowes and pick a couple up, *But most trash barrels are
LDPE plastic, (not food grade) and I am worried about the must picking
up smells.
you mentioned liners, * *i don't know what you mean by a a liner.
(I could sell a stackable "trash" can to the spouse.
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They sell large plastic food grade inserts here for trash cans but I
am talking about huge clear plastic bags; we called them body bags
because they were 6 feet long... *Industrial supply places sell them.
They are pretty heavy grade plastic.
Joe- Hide quoted text -
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I *think* i know what you mean. *We call them "contractor bags"
hmmm,,, *mental wheels are turning here....
I saw the food grade HDPE primaries on the morewine.com *site, *they
are perfect. Its just that the shipping costs are outragous.
24 buckets are a little (not much) more expensive, *but the shipping
costs are within reason. *(And, my poor back can move these around)
I'm really not sure what to do here. *I've been thinking about this
for about 6 months, and really, *i'm still not any closer to a
decision.
Its funny you know,
I've found a way to make my rather talkitive wife clam up. * Sometimes
my wife will ask me over dinner; * "You seem distracted honey, what's
wrong?" *then I'd say something like "the acidity in this batch is
off, and I'm not sure what to do", or, I need to figure a way to press
next falls grapes better" or I need a better process for monitoring
MLF"
-End of conversation- * *;-)
This really is one of those things that i do still ponder, and don't
know exactly how i'm going to proceed.- Hide quoted text -
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