Bottling bucket as secondary?

[Kobrew]

I wasn't really thinking and used my glass Carboy as my primary then I transferred to a plastic bottling bucket today to sit for two weeks. Will this be alright? I made sure to clean and sanitize well with out being abrasive.

 

[worksnorth]

I wasn't really thinking and used my glass Carboy as my primary then I transferred to a plastic bottling bucket today to sit for two weeks. Will this be alright? I made sure to clean and sanitize well with out being abrasive.

This should be fine. Wouldn't worry about it.

 

[jc5066]

Not the best thing to use. A bucket leaves too much head space. I would rack back to the carboy.

 

[worksnorth]

Ok,so here are some more thoughts on this.... You've already racked it to the bucket, yes it probably has more head space than a carboy so it's not optimal. However it's done. You've exposed it to O2 once in this transfer, the beer has probably revived fermentation some what or at least CO2 has broke out due to the racking. Most likely this breakout has displaced the O2 in the bucket by now. That's why I'm saying I'd leave it. Racking again now exposes your beer once again to a lot of O2, yes you'll end up with less head space and it'll probably be fine, but why do this? If you're going to rack it again you may as well bottle it or keg it at this point.
Cheers and good luck.
It'll be good beer, no worries

 

[Braufessor]

I see no problem. I would not rack it back to something else... that is for sure.

I actually ferment almost all my beers in bottling buckets..... I don't secondary, just primary right in the bottling bucket and then transfer straight into kegs using spigot and tubing rather than screwing around with siphoning.

Big thing with bottling buckets as fermenters is you really need to be meticulous about sanitizing spigots. Take the spigot completely apart .... not just the nut and rubber washer - but the spigot itself pulls apart into two pieces. I assemble the spigot under water in star san solution and put it into the bucket while it sits in star san tub. I also put a sandwich baggie over the spigot with twist tie to eliminate dust/etc. getting into the spigot while it sits for 2-3 weeks.

I have 8 bottling buckets I use for fermenting - I think they are great. Also makes it easy to drain yeast into mason jars for repitching.

 

[thisisbeer]

Wouldn't you have to move the beer again to mix in priming sugar? If you didn't it seems like you would move anything that had already cleared out of the beer back into suspension. Sounds like you will have to move it again regardless. I think now would be as good as time as any so you can clear it out. If not seems like you just wasted the whole reason you secondary anyway.

 

[thisisbeer]

Unless of course you are kegging then just leave things as they are.