Hi all,

I'm fairly new to this hobby, and I have two primary fermenters - food-grade
plastic buckets I purchased from my wine supply store. One of them, I've
made maybe four or five batches with it, the other I've only made one, but
it came filled with freshed pressed apple juice (for my apple wine, which is
coming along nicely).

After my last uses of these buckets (made apple wine and mead at the same
time) I noticed an odor in there...rather acidic I guess, that's the only
thing I can think of to describe it. I've soaked them with pink chlorinated
cleaner overnight, soaked them with sodium metabisulphite, left plain water
in them for days, and still I can smell it.

I wash these things after every use, sanitize them before using them again.

I'm afraid this could flavour future batches. Surely I don't need to
purchase new buckets, these are not old yet. Can anyone recommend anything
else to render my primaries odorless once again? Or do I just need to buy
new ones?

Thanks!

KD