bigljd
Well-Known Member
So, I've been using a wallpaper tray for about a year now to soak my wine thief, racking canes, autosiphon, airlocks, etc in to sanitize them. I would leave everything soaking in the tray so if I needed a wine thief to grab a gravity sample, everything would be sanitized and ready to go. It was uncovered, so after a while the starsan would be full of dead gnats and I'd have to replace the starsan regularly.
This worked fine until I abused the wallpaper tray once too often and it sprung a leak, so I headed to Home Depot to find another one to replace it and it turns out Home Depot does not carry wallpaper trays (I knew wallpaper was a dead form of decorating your home, but I thought the trays would still be available for some reason).
I could have gone to Sherwin Williams to get a tray, but I decided to walk around and look for an alternative. While wandering thru the garden area I stumbled across some plastic window box planters that were 24" long and did not have a hole drilled in the bottom. They did have a couple holes that were meant to be knocked out to let water drain out, but they were still sealed. They also come with a drip tray that I discovered fits nicely in the top of the planter and could act as a lid.
I ended up buying two planters so that they would be more stable nested inside each other. Also, the second planter acts as a safety backup in case the inner planter leaks. You'd probably be ok with one, but the planters are much more stable when you nest two of them and I want this to last a long time.
When I got them home, I decided to strengthen bottom areas that were meant to be knocked out by applying some JB weld to them (yes, I have to put JB weld on everything). This should prevent them from leaking in the future.
Below are pics of the finished product - the total cost for the 2 planters and drip tray lid was about $17, but I hope this will last much longer than a wallpaper tray. The only con about using the planters is that they are a couple inches too short to store my autosiphon in. I have to dip the autosiphon in one end at a time to sanitize it.
The two planters nested inside each other, and the drip tray lid
JB weld patches to strength the base
Tray with lid on it
Airlocks, wine thief, and other stuff soaking in a fresh batch of starsan
Sanitizer tray covered up and sitting in it's home on top of the fermentation fridge
Larry
This worked fine until I abused the wallpaper tray once too often and it sprung a leak, so I headed to Home Depot to find another one to replace it and it turns out Home Depot does not carry wallpaper trays (I knew wallpaper was a dead form of decorating your home, but I thought the trays would still be available for some reason).
I could have gone to Sherwin Williams to get a tray, but I decided to walk around and look for an alternative. While wandering thru the garden area I stumbled across some plastic window box planters that were 24" long and did not have a hole drilled in the bottom. They did have a couple holes that were meant to be knocked out to let water drain out, but they were still sealed. They also come with a drip tray that I discovered fits nicely in the top of the planter and could act as a lid.
I ended up buying two planters so that they would be more stable nested inside each other. Also, the second planter acts as a safety backup in case the inner planter leaks. You'd probably be ok with one, but the planters are much more stable when you nest two of them and I want this to last a long time.
When I got them home, I decided to strengthen bottom areas that were meant to be knocked out by applying some JB weld to them (yes, I have to put JB weld on everything). This should prevent them from leaking in the future.
Below are pics of the finished product - the total cost for the 2 planters and drip tray lid was about $17, but I hope this will last much longer than a wallpaper tray. The only con about using the planters is that they are a couple inches too short to store my autosiphon in. I have to dip the autosiphon in one end at a time to sanitize it.
The two planters nested inside each other, and the drip tray lid
JB weld patches to strength the base
Tray with lid on it
Airlocks, wine thief, and other stuff soaking in a fresh batch of starsan
Sanitizer tray covered up and sitting in it's home on top of the fermentation fridge
Larry