Could repurposing a used food grade bucket cause any issues?

Hi everyone,

So I have a bit of a unique question to ponder here. One of my cousins owns her own donut store, so she routinely gets in 5 gallon pails of donut fruit filling. Obviously these have to be food grade. Well that seems like an awfully good resource for me!

My concern though is how likely would it be that the buckets could happen to hold a scent or even a flavor to them that might effect the beer?

Because our family hunting camp doesn't have running water we have for the better part of 20+ years hauled up our own water to use for boiling and washing dishes with, etc. And we have about a dozen or so of the buckets from my cousin's store that we use for this. I literally think that we been using some of them since the mid 90's! Without having seen any mold or anything growing in them or recalling ever getting sick from the food up there I would assume they are safe. Now I know that drinking water and yeast are a different story though and that scratches in a plastic bucket can harbor bacteria that can infect the beer.

Realizing that these aren't big enough to really ferment in I am debating using them for 2 things 1) A bottling bucket and 2) Sanitizing solution storage.

So that brings me back to my question above. Could having 5 gallons of cherry filling in them allow them to pick up an odd flavor?

I do recall that even with routine and regular washing before refilling you could still pick up a faint odor of cherry or strawberry, etc for years after we got them.

If I can smell that odor of the old donut filling could I also TASTE it in my beer? Could that effect the Star San at all?

I'm aware that Ale Pails are cheap enough, but I'm thinking that picking up some of the buckets for her just to have around wouldn't hurt.

 

LOL Now you're on to something!

 

Thanks guys, I'll have to give her a call and see what she has handy to give me.

 

Chocolate Eaclair or Bavarian Creme stout sound good too!