Question about 55 Gallon Drums

I'd trust the peroxide ones more than the bleach ones. Some sulphite should get rid of any trace peroxides left, whereas you may have organochlorines in the ones that contained bleach.

---The Mad Alchemist---

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The hydrogen peroxide barrels will be perfectly safe after a thorough scrubbing & rinsing & drying. Maybe after a rinsing alone, but I'd give a good cleaning just to be safe. H2O2, while dangerous in higher concentrations, is quite water soluble and breaks down readily with heat, light, drying, etc.

I'd stay away from (Chlorine?) bleach barrels at all costs, as you'll have a very hard time eliminating the taint from the plastic, and it would likely ruin the first batch (or several) you try.

I don't know if those will be safe to use...I get my new drums Greif Brothers Corp. They are manufacturers and wholesalers, but they also sell to the public. They charge about $45 for a 55gal open top poly drum, and about $35 for 30gal drums. They have locations in most major cities. Go to their website at

and select your state at the bottom. I have no affiliation with them...just a happy customer.

Good Luck, David D.

snipped-for-privacy@v> Plastic 55 Gallon Drums

I have some 16 gallon ones with peroxide from a local laundromat; I'd fill it full of the hottest water you can find 55 gallons of, let it soak a good while, then rinse it three times. Triple rinsing with a few gallons each time (enough so you can actually pick up the drum and physically shake the hell out of it) should work wonders. Drums from soft drink plants that once contained phosphoric acid are good too. HTH, Blobert

-- "A 90 year old man was arrested and charged with rape. He was so flattered that he pled guilty." -George Burns-

The ones that contained peroxide should be just fine, as long as you wash and rinse them before use. I'd steer clear of the ones that contained bleach though.

Tom S

You could get rid of the bleach by soaking it with a solution of sulfite (potassiun or sodium) to neutralize the hypochlorite (This is done often in the industry). If the plastic is porous then you may have to soak it quite a while... In any case the cost of the sulfite would probably be too high to be worth it!

I was with you until this. It really shouldn't take much sulfite to do the job. We're not talking about 55 gallons of bleach, just the residue left in the drum.

Andy

I would watch out the one with bleach for another reason - not sure about the 55 gal drums but the regular household containers are sometimes treated with something that gives them a "floral" scent. This is the case even if the blech itself is inscented - which it should be for any winemaking application. The floral scent is pretty much impossible to remove, so make sure your drums are not treated with this.

Pp

JEP62 wrote:

residue

The best reason to avoid the drums that have contained bleach is that there's the possibility of sufficient residue remaining to cause TCA (trichloroanisole) problems in your wine. Commercial wineries no longer use hypochlorite (bleach) for this reason. It takes very little TCA for it to be a problem in wine - as little as a few parts per trillion IIRC. TCA has become such an issue that many wineries don't even use it to clean _floors_ anymore!

Tom S

I agree 100%. It appears that the chlorine doesn't even have to come in contact with anything that come into contact with the wine. One winery attributed their TCA taint issue to residue in floor drains. Chlorine has no place in a winery.

Andy

I've been using it forever. What are "TCA problems"?

Doesn't drinking water contain chlorine?

Pp

JEP62 wrote:

winery

Not if you live on a small island and have a well. :-)

Our drinking water has a higher concentration of chlorine than therapeutic levels of chlorine in public swimming pools.

TCA is a short name for 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole. It's a compound that can be detected in very, very small concentrations (parts per trillion) and is most commonly described as the smell of old, moldy cardboard.

Its formation is linked to combination of factors that include certain molds detoxifying chlorine in the presence of phenolic compounds. It has been traditionally blamed on corks (hence the nickname of a wine tainted with TCA being called "corked"), but more recent evidence has suggested that the TCA can and is commonly formed in the absence of cork.

It doesn't appear to be formed unless chlorine and mold are present but since it's impossible to eliminate mold in most environments (sans a true clean room) it appears that the best way to reduce TCA creation is to eliminate the use of chlorine in all steps of wine making.

IMHO, the wine industry had a very high level of TCA taint a while back and a lot of this was traced back to some cork harvesters using chlorine bleach to treat the cork bark to eliminate mold and other infections. This practice (AFAIK) has been stopped and IMHO, the incidence of TCA taint has been reduced. Couple that with the education of wine makers about the hazards of using chlorine in the winery, and I'm hopeful the incidence of TCA wines is on the decline.

pp wrote:

Yes, most public tap water contains either chlorine or chloramines or both. That's one of the reasons I use a sulfite rinse on all of my equipement after rinsing with tap water. Sulfites can neutralize both very quickly.

Andy

Use bottled drinking water to make your wines.

Tom S

What the hell!! Distill it yourself or get the Culligan man do a pickup-n-delivery on demand.

Dick

-- Richard D. Adams, CPA Moderator: misc.taxes.moderated

I myself have for many years used bleach for that purpose. It's OK as long as you rinse very thoroughly.

A good alternative (although more expensive) would be sodium percarbonate.

Tom S