6.5 Gallon Translucent Fermenting Bucket

Everything you need and nothing you don't

Bucket brewing is still my personal favorite way to go. Simple and convenient way to get a brew started and with the measuring marks everything is just that much easier.

nice buckets

I just bought 3 of these buckets with the grommeted lids in order to replace my very old and well used buckets. These are great and I'm well pleased with them. Several batches are bottled using these already. Very happy!

Optimal Size and Shape for Initial Cider Fermentation

The tall form 6.5 gallon is my go-to for most early stages of cidermaking including a collection bucket for ground apples and then raw juice, and particularly for the first few weeks of fermentation. The tall form allows the sediment and dead yeast to form a thick layer at the bottom with a deeper pool of somewhat clearer juice / cider above, which means that racking disturbs less of the lees. The big issue with these buckets is that the lid is very difficult to remove so the settled lees tend to get stirred up. Also, the use of an O-ring in the lid is problematic since it's not easily removed for cleaning and sanitizing. Rather, I use cling-wrap (Glad wrap, Handi-wrap etc.) to keep the dust and bugs out and generally retain a CO2 blanket during turbulent fermentation phase.