Has anyone seen food-grade buckets with lids that are smaller than the typical 7-gallon size? I do small batches and currently use a 5-gallon Better Bottle fermenter, but for ease of use am considering a move back to food-grade buckets for most quick-fermenting beers. A 4.5 or 5-gallon bucket would be perfect. I could drill the airlock hole myself.
Edit: I just did a Google search (duh…) and found buckets like this:
So I may have answered my own question–food-grade is food-grade–right? (Note: it is possible to buy a blue bucket. Just sayin.) Now to measure the lid hole on my existing bucket…
Check out your local grocery store’s bakery and/or talk to your grocery store manager.
Their frosting often comes in perfectly sized food-grade HDPE buckets with lids that they throw out when whey are empty.
All you got to do is ask. Price is right, too! (Free).
Definitely confirm that they are food-grade (and yes, anything FDA approved is fine for brewing).
I made the mistake of getting a couple round, 3-gallon jobs through US plastics which I discovered afterwards were NOT food-grade and ruined two batches of beer due to plastic-y off-flavors and weird fermentations.
After researching further, I think I found the smallest food-grade buckets they carry practical for brewing are squarish 4-gallon units http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=30661&catid=818. I’m going for some of these as they’re great for splitting 5-gallon batches for yeast-experiments, etc.