[MikeJ]

Anyone know if the common 5gallon buckets you can get at the hardware stores are food grade? Would they pass an inspector?

I am pondering making an extractor out of them.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Cedar Hill]

You can get the food grade pails from your local doughnut shops or bakeries. Much cheaper as well. Excellent for selling "raw" honey to local food coops. OMTCW

 

[hilreal]

Also leave your name at the local grocery deli departments.

 

[MikeJ]

Only place out here seems to be hardware stores for any 5 gl buckets.

I called around to the only real food services out here. No one has 5 gallong buckets. I still have to check the market's deli dept. but I doubt it.

Is there a way to identify plastics? I know they usually have a number stamped on the bottom, inside an arrowed triangle - will this tell me something? Like one bucket has 2 HDPE in the triangle. Another plastice has 5.

Mike

 

[sqkcrk]

I have about 300 plus empty 5 gallon buckets. Send me your address and I'll mail you one or two for the hardware store price plus shipping and handling. Handling is finding the right box and packaging the item. Case you wondered.

 

[Barry]

http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/52137
http://www.ecobags.com/Resources/Plastic-Information

 

[sqkcrk]

Thanks Barry. I had a potential customer there and then you come along w/ your internet sites?

 

[Deer Slayer]

Like one bucket has 2 HDPE in the triangle. Another plastice has 5.

Mike

Number 2 HDPE is good. Polyethelyene (PE) is OK

 

[MikeJ]

Wow. Thanks - great info and will be useful in the futue as well.

sqkcrk - Sorry. If I had just logged in a bit sooner Really though thanks for the offer. If I still can't find some with the right codes I'll probably PM you.

(the HDPE) bucket I mentioned won't do since it has been being used for gardening purposes :doh.

Again - thanks all
Mike

 

[sqkcrk]

In the mean time I will check the bottom of some of the buckets that I bought from a supplier and have used for a number of years. I'll go into the kitchen and look right now and get back to you.

 

[sqkcrk]

Yup, they all have HDPE 2 on the bottom. I would go ahead and buy a new one from the hardware store. It'll last you a long time.

 

[DeeAnna]

See http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?245261

In a nutshell, the triangle code is a RECYCLING code. It doesn't tell you a thing about whether the plastic item is food grade or not. Bakeries and deli's get their frosting and fillings in FOOD GRADE buckets -- ask there.

 

[fish_stix]

Yep. The bucket manufacturers have specific guidelines for food grade buckets. After doing about 100,000 non food grade they stop the assembly line and tell everyone to start making food grade buckets. So everything after that is food grade until they decide to switch again. Very complicated process; you have to know exactly where the non food grade buckets end and the food grade buckets start. This one goes to Lowe's, this one goes to Ace Hardware, this one goes to Little Debbie snack foods, this one to Crisco. Uh-oh, we gave a non food grade to Betty Crocker, STOP the line!

 

[PCM]

Just went out and checked a few of my buckets;
They were obtained from our local donut shop, icings made by Dawn Food Co.
Some are;
#2 HDPE
#5 PP { polypropylene, what some baby bottles are made from }

Course what would Dawn Food Co. Know ?

PCM

 

[PCM]

Yep. Very complicated process; you have to know exactly where the non food grade buckets end and the food grade buckets start.

Your really confused, that's the way its done for millitary items !

PCM

 

[Desert Viking Ranch]

This thread just confirms my disgust. I recently ordered a honey filtering/straining setup from thewarrestore.com and imagine my surprise when the 5 gallon pails I received were green Menards pails...tsk tsk :no:

Needless to say $60 with free shipping WAS too good to be true. I should have just built my own like I originally planned; would have cost much less and the quality would have been better. I had several other issues with the kit but it doesnt matter anymore, I paid my money and got what I got. Lesson learned.

 

[DeeAnna]

You all may very well be 100% right, having worked in plastics manufacturing for some years. If it's for home use, then by all means store your honey in Lowes buckets or whatever suits you. If a person is wants to sell honey to consumers, however, then the beekeeper has a responsibility to the consumer to ~know~ the honey is safe.

Just because buckets from Lowes are white and look clean doesn't make them food grade -- only chemical tests can verify that. Even if the virgin resin for the Lowes bucket run is the same as the resin for the frosting bucket run, the Lowes run might also have in-house recycled resin, plasticizers, fillers, or traces of dye from a previous production run that are not allowed for food grade products.

On a related note, I have read on Beesource that some beekeepers will not fill jars their customers bring, again to avoid the liability issue of not knowing what might have been stored in that jar in the past.

 

[geebob]

Ouch!

Well thanks for passing the info on! I hope you've earned some good karma for it. I guess I'll go over and save some big money at Menards.

 

[heaflaw]

I got several from Texas Roadhouse. Just don't take ones pickles were in.

 

[LITTLE JOHN]

Deer Slayer is correct, the PE is for polyethylene, and the HD means High Density. So you have a High Density polyethylene bucket.
little john