[reverseapachemaster]

You could do seven two gallon buckets.

[repo]

The bakery departments at Costco/ Sam's clubs get their icing in  2 and 5 gallon food grade buckets. They will let you have them and they work great for storing grains as well as fermenting beer. FREE

[Tim Boyden]

I still use these 6.5 gallon Lifelatch buckets from US Plastic for 5.5 gallon batches (little bit extra for boil off/yeast/trub):

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=37834&catid=626

But for 10 gallon batches (on the cheap), I'd go with one of their 15 gallon open top barrels:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=43362&catid=459

They also sell the Ace Roto Mold cone bottom plastic fermenters that a lot of nano breweries use, but I got a better deal on those from RuralKing.com:

http://www.ruralking.com/agriculture/tractor-parts-accessories/spraying/tanks-accessories/ace-roto-mold-15-gallon-full-drain-inductor-tank-infd15-19.html

That said, if I was regularly doing larger batches, I'd invest in stainless steel fermenter(s).

[klickitat jim]

I like these. Best of both worlds
http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/cambro/rfscw22135/p9954.aspx

Those are kinda awesome Jim. Do they seal up well?

I use the translucent ones and they work and seal great. But these polycarbonate ones seem a little more classy.

I like buckets for various reasons but I also like being able to see. Especially when racking.

When it's time to replace mine I'll be upgrading to the polycarbonate ones.

[klickitat jim]

I like these. Best of both worlds
http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/cambro/rfscw22135/p9954.aspx

I like those. Since I brew 3.5 gallon batches and use 5 gallon carboys, this would be a great alternative for a brewer like myself.

Those look pretty slick, but 22 qts is a tad on the small side since I'm locked in to the magic 5 gallon batch.  I'm getting tired of blow off from my 6 gallon fermenters and need to find a better option.

Joe, these are labeled to 22 qts but are 6 gallon total. I drill 5/8" hole in the lid which fits a stopper and I can snugly fit a 3/4" o.d. 1/2" I.d. tube in the hole for blowoff. I routinely fill to 5 gallons plus a 1/4", then decant and pitch. On big beers I end up with a smidge of yeast in the blowoff but not enough to hurt anything.

Edit:
If/ when I switch to polycarbonate I'll only lift if the lid is on to help it maintain its shape. I think 5 gallons is enough weight that without the support it would be a matter of time before it cracked or shattered. The tight fitting lid ought to prevent that.

[beersk]

I actually did some searching around. Polycarbonate is apparently not BPA free. And the lids aren't air tight?
Tempting though. A clear bucket would be the best of both worlds. They're definitely not cheap though.

[Joe Sr.]

Joe, these are labeled to 22 qts but are 6 gallon total. I drill 5/8" hole in the lid which fits a stopper and I can snugly fit a 3/4" o.d. 1/2" I.d. tube in the hole for blowoff. I routinely fill to 5 gallons plus a 1/4", then decant and pitch. On big beers I end up with a smidge of yeast in the blowoff but not enough to hurt anything.

It's hard to say how much blow off I'm getting, but I'm getting it just about every time in my 6 gallon Better Bottles.  I used to have some 6.5 gal glass carboys and that extra space was nice.

I keep hoping for the best, then I have a mess.  I need to be more proactive about it and get a better system than what I'm using to deal with blow off.

[Pinski]

Joe, these are labeled to 22 qts but are 6 gallon total. I drill 5/8" hole in the lid which fits a stopper and I can snugly fit a 3/4" o.d. 1/2" I.d. tube in the hole for blowoff. I routinely fill to 5 gallons plus a 1/4", then decant and pitch. On big beers I end up with a smidge of yeast in the blowoff but not enough to hurt anything.

It's hard to say how much blow off I'm getting, but I'm getting it just about every time in my 6 gallon Better Bottles.  I used to have some 6.5 gal glass carboys and that extra space was nice.

I keep hoping for the best, then I have a mess.  I need to be more proactive about it and get a better system than what I'm using to deal with blow off.

Lately, for blow off I've been running my tube into a 1 gallon glass pickle jar filled about 1/3 with StarSan solution.  Place 3-4 drops of FermCap in the StarSan and put the jar in a small plastic storage tote in case the blowoff foams and overflows the jar.  No more mess.  The fermcap works great. 

[weithman5]

The bakery departments at Costco/ Sam's clubs get their icing in  2 and 5 gallon food grade buckets. They will let you have them and they work great for storing grains as well as fermenting beer. FREE

i use some of these. also have 3.5 gallon buckets that i get from a specialty olive oil, basalmic place

[micsager]

Prior to my Conicals, I used two of these for each 10 gallon batch:

http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-16969/Pails/7-Gallon-Plastic-Pail

And if any of you are around the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, I still have about 20 of them, with lids, and spigots.

$2.50 a piece.   

[dflittle]

I've got several Cambro buckets that I use for my batch cooking: a couple of 7 quart, a couple of 3 gallon, and one five gallon (22 qt). I got real familiar with them when I managed a Luby's cafeteria! I love them due to the fact they are professional grade food service containers and can be easily cleaned. Mine are the "white" buckets but I've used the clear poly containers, too. They get a lot of use cleaining bottles, storing StarSan, bottling buckets, etc. Im getting ready to invest in a couple to use as primary fermenters for 5 gallon batches. Currently I use some snap-top Rubbermaid food grade containers for my 1 gallon primaries - they are 6 quart so I've got plenty of headspace for that initial activity. I drilled 1/2 inch holes and fitted them with grommets for the airlocks and/or blow off tube.

[grainman]

Been using buckets for the past 4.5 years, but just got this new speidel 30L (7.9G) fermenter from morebeer...

http://morebeer.com/products/speidel-plastic-fermenter-30l-79-gal.html

With all that headspace it's been fantastic. This is a quality vessel

[fistfullofhops]

Thanks for all your posts. I've learned a lot from this thread, and it's helped me confirm much of what I was thinking and raised some new questions for me as well. This was my favorite forum 10yrs ago, nice to see things haven't changed much

[euge]

I posted in a different thread about this last night. I used to use carboys myself and made the switch to these a while back. You could use 2 for a 10 gallon batch easily with plenty of headspace. And you're right - you need bigger than a 5 gallon fermenter for the same size batch.

http://shop.greatfermentations.com/product/7-9-gallon-fermenting-bucket/plastic-fermenters

A bit late to the party here but I think these offer the best bang for the buck. Normally I'll do 6 gallons in each. Absolutely perfect for ten. I never bother to snap down the lids or use a fermentation lock either.

Welcome back to the hobby!

[denny]

This was my favorite forum 10yrs ago, nice to see things haven't changed much

That's interesting, given that this forum has only been around a few years.