Food grade buckets $3 donation

[Crooked Cellars Farm]

I thought I would share this with the group as some may be able to use them. Today I went into Firehouse Subs for lunch. They had 5 gal food grade buckets with lids that they used for their pickles that they were "selling" for $3/ea. I'm not sure if this sub place is everywhere or not but we have them around here in NE Ohio. This $3 was more of a donation where the money is actually going towards firemen's/firewomens lifesaving equipment and other items they need. I thought that was pretty cool.

[Z/MAN]

I don't think you can get the pickle smell, taste out of the buckets. Some flavors just will not go away.

[Russell Lampron]

I've gotten pickle buckets before and the smell is permanent. After several cleanings and letting air out the smell is still there. They can be used for temporary transport of sap, like gathering, but not for storage. I use mine for sand and cold ashes. When I had buckets I also used them when I gathered. The sap wasn't in them long enough to soak up any of the pickle taste.

[Big_Eddy]

I worked for a whitewater rafting company. We used pickle buckets as bailers. After a full summer of continuous pressure washing they still smelled of pickles. Leave them there.


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[Ed R]

I have about 10 firehouse buckets that I use for gathering and to transport sap from my 10 taps in town at my office. The tops work good to snap down. No smell after a month or 2, still I would not use them directly on trees or to store syrup in.

[Andy VT]

Picking up on this topic again since I just found the motherlode of 5 gallon food grade pails, but they contained pickles and BBQ sauce. And the vinegar smell can still be detected after industrial dishwashing two times.
I want to poke at this a little more.
I've only heard two answers on pickle buckets:
1) "I use them for sap storage and it doesn't affect the syrup flavor even though the smell is still in the buckets."
2) "Never use them; you can never get the smell to go away."

But what I've never heard is:
3) "I tried using them and it did actually affect the syrup flavor."

Is there anyone in this last category?
is there anyone in that first category?

[Pdiamond]

This is what I can tell you. We use vinegar and water to clean the evaporator and pans and rinse well. It's a different vinegar only in that it does not contain spices. i have used a five gallon pail that was washed several times, and allowed to air dry for 6 months, then washed again. It is still being used to collect sap from trees with no effect on the sap. The BBQ buckets will be easier to clean out, but may always have a reddish orangeish tint to them. In my opinion, and others may not agree, if you think they will work and you can spend the time cleaning them, go for it.

[Andy VT]

Thanks for that Pdiamond!
Anyone else have actual experience using "savory" buckets? To be clear, the intended use is tubing drops into the buckets at the trees.
The buckets are extremely clean and look like new, but I'm still getting cold feet already... but also thinking this might be a good experiment for the good of all backyarders, as well as all landfills that are filling up with single-use 5-gallon pails.

For the experiment, I'm imagining I could do 100% "sweet" buckets for the season, but then for one or two runs, switch to the "savory" buckets, and see if anyone can tell the difference in syrup flavor. And it only counts if Mark Isselhardt can be one of the tasters.

[DrTimPerkins]

One of my techs yrs ago got ahold of a bunch of Jalapeño pepper buckets. He cleaned them multiple times with a really strong soap used in science labs and rinsed them really well. Made some interesting (accidentally) Jalapeño flavored beer. He couldn’t stand the thought of tossing out beer so he drank it all (I didn’t make it past one sip).

Occasionally syrup gets submitted for contests in reused jars. Usually not difficult to tell what was originally in them.

My recommendation…skip the pickle buckets.

[Andy VT]

Awesome, OK, I've heard all I need to hear to stay away from the pickle buckets!
So far, I've heard a lot of positive reviews and never a negative review on using plastic food grade buckets that originally contained cake frosting/icing.
Is this the general consensus?
These are more work to obtain but are obtainable for free around here.

So far I've only used brand new buckets but they sure do add up if adding some taps to the operation!