stainless drums? what the heck do i do with them?
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:17 pm
okay guys, i bought 7 55 gallon stainless drums about a year ago on the cheap. with the help of a few guys out there in cyberspace for help on the design (thanks plise), and a few friends with some serious welding mojo for actual construction, i am now the proud owner of a kickass one tier, propane fueled, 55 gallon, tippy-dump equipped brewing monster (weeeeeellll ,((in jamil voice)) i brew with two other dudes, so we all own it). It works great. just great. we can easily pump out 40 gallons once a month and split it 3 ways, instead of killing ourselves by brewing every weekend on our old converted keg system.
anyway, i still have 4 drums that i can't figure out what to do with. They are closed top with a 3" bung. if they were brand spanking i'd have no problem using them for maybe lagering/storage, but they are all, let me say, "weathered" and have the remnants of some sort of food product in them, so i'm very hesitant to fill them with pbw, drain, and call them sparkling. one of the 3 kegs we used for tuns had this disgusting, viscous orange goo in it. we cleaned that thing 10 times before i was satisfied. all this stuff is safe, but just being safe doesn't mean not disgusting.
so anyways, i'd have to plasma cut the tops to really make sure they're suitably clean. that blows out the quick, easy airtight storage container... plus we only do 2-3 lagers every year, so lagering space isn't really that high if a priority.
i initially envisioned using one or two as conicals (toledo metal spinning has some hoppers that would fit right on the bottom). but after the welding experiences we had, we found out these drums are very thin (about half the thickness of a standard sankey) and our welder had to patch a lot. patching on a boil kettle is one thing, but i want my conical smooth. then we'd have to figure out the lid, outlets, pick ip tube, blah blah blah... sounds like a money pit.
i think i'm just going to look into a plastic conical tank from usplastics. i'm not a fan of plastic but they're cheap and i think probably pretty safe for quickly-kegged ales, which is probably 90 percent of what we brew.
so what do i do with all these drums?
anyway, i still have 4 drums that i can't figure out what to do with. They are closed top with a 3" bung. if they were brand spanking i'd have no problem using them for maybe lagering/storage, but they are all, let me say, "weathered" and have the remnants of some sort of food product in them, so i'm very hesitant to fill them with pbw, drain, and call them sparkling. one of the 3 kegs we used for tuns had this disgusting, viscous orange goo in it. we cleaned that thing 10 times before i was satisfied. all this stuff is safe, but just being safe doesn't mean not disgusting.
so anyways, i'd have to plasma cut the tops to really make sure they're suitably clean. that blows out the quick, easy airtight storage container... plus we only do 2-3 lagers every year, so lagering space isn't really that high if a priority.
i initially envisioned using one or two as conicals (toledo metal spinning has some hoppers that would fit right on the bottom). but after the welding experiences we had, we found out these drums are very thin (about half the thickness of a standard sankey) and our welder had to patch a lot. patching on a boil kettle is one thing, but i want my conical smooth. then we'd have to figure out the lid, outlets, pick ip tube, blah blah blah... sounds like a money pit.
i think i'm just going to look into a plastic conical tank from usplastics. i'm not a fan of plastic but they're cheap and i think probably pretty safe for quickly-kegged ales, which is probably 90 percent of what we brew.
so what do i do with all these drums?
