Barrel Fermenter Adv ice

[elmito]

So I bought two of these off craigslist.

From what I understand they are food grade and are meant for "emergency water storage" among other things. I've seen posts about them being safe to ferment our beer in.

Assuming I haven't wasted money on these, how would you folks suggest I put a side port / valve at the side of the barrel? (near the bottom, to serve as a racking port). Would a regular SS valve kit work on the thin plastic?

Thanks!

 

[haberdasher]

My neighbour happened to give me a 15g one the other day...the plastic isn't that thin, I think you'd be fine with a regular weldless bulkhead valve.
My lhbs actually has them for dispensing the lme.
I plan on just racking out of the top with an auto siphon, but I'd love to see if you find a better solution.
They are hdpe, by the way. Food grade etc

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[haberdasher]

But the ports at the top are pretty small, unless you have a skinny kid to reach in there, I don't know how you'd tighten they inside nut on a weldless

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[elmito]

Damn, that's a good point. I didn't think about how I'd get the inner part of the valve assembly into the barrel. I really wanted to stop using my racking cane. There has to be a way. Aren't there carboys with a port at the side? How do you attach those?

 

[BigLuke]

Find a racking cane that reaches at or near the bottom, and a compression fitting. Install those into the screw cap, as well as a gas "in" corny fitting. This would allow you to rack under pressure (2-3 psi). The compression fitting would allow you to adjust the racking cane above the yeast cake. You could even cut a second racking cane short to use as a blow-off tube while fermenting, similar to the sanke keg fermenter kits available on the web.