H&G 10 gallon bucket for boiler

[jimw86]

I tried the other day with one of these. They DO NOT WORK!

YES THEY DO WORK;;;;;;iv done 5 brews and its mint

Is that trying to prove a point boy?

Just to try and clear this up once and for all I have emailed patsy at H&G to find out the exact reason why these should not be converted.

[PhilMcGlass]

There seem to be two materials used for buckets.
Polythene - mostly used in fermenters.
Polypropylene used in boilers such as Bruheat.
Polythene will soften when heated.
Polypropylene will not soften as much as polythene IME.
If you want to make a boiler use polypropylene.
Generalisation: polypropylene is more opaque than polythene and appears white while polythene is slightly translucent.
It's not always obvious in website adverts what material is used.
As always this advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

I did find this
http://www.hopshopuk.com/products/view/ ... cket-w-lid

[jonny8ball]

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/jonny10ba ... 2116127442
theres my boiler its from hop and grape
this one to be exact:http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/catalog/de ... HA20225648
put elements in and bingo its a boiler and it WORKS fine like i say iv done 5 brews now in it and it solid

[markyd]

found this on a on the homebrewforum.com

John and Patsy wrote:
Thanks for your enquiry.

Around the middle of last year we were told that HK Plastics had changed the design of their 60litre buckets to give a stronger, more rigid top. We asked for and received some samples. The first thing I noticed, apart from the re-designed top was how light the buckets felt.

I drilled one to take an element and tap and found that the thickness of the body was reduced, from 3mm down to 2mm. I filled one and set it heating. When boiling it was a lot softer and the tap, when pushed from side-to-side, distorted the bucket and felt that it might pull through the plastic very easily. Patsy and I were considerably disturbed by this and as responsible retailers felt that we could not use these as boilers.

We bought up all the original stock we could find and continued to make boilers whilst informing people that the new design was, in our opinion, not suitable.

A few days ago I had some stainless reinforcing plates made to strengthen the tap hole, which worked but the body of the bucket still felt very soft and dangerous.

The situation now is that after I make the current orders, we will not be able to supply our 10gallon boilers unless I can find a suitable substitute. I have tried and better tried to find a suitable alternative, but with no success, although we will continue looking.

I am sure you can imagine that we have not taken this decision lightly but as responsible retailers we have no choice. Anyone converting these new-style buckets into boilers do so at their own risk, we strongly do not recommend this and will not accept any responsibility in this regard.

I hope that this makes everything clear and you may forward this to Jim's forum if you wish,

Kind Regards,

John

[boingy]

You've got to go into this with your eyes open.
It's unlikely that a plastic boiler will suddenly catastrophically fail and instantly dump 5 gallons of boiling wort on your feet/floor/child/cat.
A typical failure will be the development of a small leak around the tap mounting or other similar hole.
Maybe a worse scenario is that you are fiddling with the tap when it pulls through the softened walls and causes a "wort spout".
Not good but nowhere near as bad as it could be.

So the message is you need to be sensible with the placement of the boiler and always be thinking "what if?".
If there are kids around then teach them the dangers and make sure they believe them.
If you leave the boiler boiling without any supervision (and I don't!) then make sure no-one else is near it.
In other words, acknowledge that DIY boilers are inherently a bit dangerous and use your common sense.
Hop and Grape have, quite rightly, decided to advise against using the new buckets as boilers because they have too little safety margin for them to risk a lawsuit in the event that something goes wrong.

I was never particularly happy even with a "proper" bruheat boiler. Even that would get noticably softer as the boil progressed so for me the solution was an ali stock pot and a gas burner. Still not risk-free but a whole lot safer imho.

That does not mean you should not use the H&G buckets as boilers. It just means you need to be aware of the risks.

Edit: I've just re-read this and realised I sound a bit like my dad. Which is mostly a bad thing....

[adeybambam]

well said boingy. I'm using my converted 10 gallon bucket and had no problems on my first AG hour and a half boil. I am happy to keep monitoring it and as I brew in a garage (with no kids / pets etc) and use RCD's, my view is that I am happy with the safety of it.

But I wouldn't risk selling it to others to use, so understand the H&G position.

[sdcspeak]

I have used a Hop and Grape pre-made boiler for dozens of brews, no problems ! You will probably find that because it is not the use that the buckets were designed for that they have to put a disclaimer to protect themselves in case one fails.

Simon

[Kev888]

Just to address a small point made above; the melting point isn't the key attribute in this case - actual melting (turning to a molten state) should be 'way' beyond the point at which its being used, as 'long' before then it'll have given way and there'll be boiling wort everywhere. Its more how it softens and weakens with temperature relative to the load/weight of water its expected to hold.

PP is much better than HDPE and if its a reasonably well made bucket should be okay, you can get some from copperkettle for example that seem very good and they specifically say are fine for boilers, just as the older H&G ones were. But PP does still soften and weaken a bit at boiling temperatures so there are limits to how thin you can go even if it won't melt; whats just about thick/strong enough to safely ferment in isn't necessarily thick/strong enough to boil in - hence what H&G experienced with the thinner versions.

I did in the past (after months of normal use) have a cheap/thin PP FV boiler suddenly split wide open on me when boiling, which was spectacular, scary and painful, but it seems such a rare event that I'm beginning to think it may have been defective - as Boingy says, most likely the failures would just be cracks and leaks. For me, after that, the small saving in cost no longer seems at all worth it, as there are good thick PP buckets available quite cheaply and even reasonably priced stainless options from french/german ebay and the malt miller. But I'm not trying to police, just offer experiences, so by all means take an informed risk, though 'please' keep kiddies away from under it and such like..

EDIT: by the way, I think the EC 60000 mentioned above stands for Euro Container 60L (or 60,000ml). The copperkettle ones that are said to be suitable for boilers are also called eurocontainers - there's no guarantee that all eurocontainers are equal but the coincidence is perhaps encouraging

Cheers
kev