olive barrels primary fermenters vinegar taint?

[Royal Magnell]

I'm considering purchasing some plastic olive barrels, cleaning them and using them as primary fermenters. They have nice lids, look fairly easy to clean and are a nice size. My local salvage yard has them quite inexpensively, but I'm hesitant to use something that might taint a large batch of cider. Some of them have held garlic stuffed olives - they are out of consideration. The ones I'm considering held Olives, Vinegar, Salt, and Lactic Acid. I'm a little concerned about Vinegar and salt leaching into the plastic and tainting the flavor of my cider. Should I be worried? Could that Vinegar taint risk infection of my cider with acetobacter?

The barrels look like the ones in this link.

http://www.lexingtoncontainercompany.com/publishImages/Olive---Pickle-Barrels~~element39.jpg

[Tim]

Perfect, just use the plain olive oil ones, you only need to steam clean them out prior to filling. Fermentation cleans them up a treat.

 

Tim in Dorset

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[Royal Magnell]

So, even though there used to be vinegar in the barrels with the olives, it's not a problem? Cool!

[downside perry]

Yes I have some of these. They are really nice and look a lot better than the blue oak barrels. Good, easy to clean lids.

Personally, I cleaned them by first swishing a washing up liquid mixture round them to clean out the oily residue, rinsed that out and then I filled them with a weak sulphite and acid solution and let it sit for 24 hours. Afterwards there was absolutely no smell and after a year no impact at all on finished product.

If you want to fit a tap to them, I'd put it just above the curve of the bottom.

[downside perry]

All the ones I have got (about 20 so far) have had the olives+oil+vinegar+salt in them. All have had no impact on the cider. The flavour does not seem to penetrate the plastic. Just clean them really well.

[Tim]

No, just the ones that have had olive oil in, not vinegar. I didn’t mention vinegar.

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[Andrew Lea]

I think you would be just fine. The flavour components of vinegar are typically quite polar and hydrophilic, and will not leach into or remain in the plastic for long. Salt, acetic and lactic acid should be removable by a good wash in a proprietary cleaner followed by water rinsing. The danger of viable acetobacter remaining in plastic is minimal since unlike wood there are few pores where bacteria can lurk long term. In any case the original product probably only contained pasteurised vinegar without viable acetobacter. 

I agree it would be safer to avoid the ones which contained garlic. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[jitd...@aol.com]

I've used olive barrels which previously shipped olives in brine. My cider doesn't taste that great but I think that's down to other factors. I can't trace any olive or brine flavour. I also use one for my vinegar, and that has proved very acceptable.
Jit

-----Original Message-----
From: Royal Magnell <royale...@gmail.com>
To: Cider Workshop <cider-w...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 21:16
Subject: [Cider Workshop] olive barrels primary fermenters vinegar taint?

I'm considering purchasing some plastic olive barrels, cleaning them and using them as primary fermenters. They have nice lids, look fairly easy to clean and are a nice size. My local salvage yard has them quite inexpensively, but I'm hesitant to use something that might taint a large batch of cider. Some of them have held garlic stuffed olives - they are out of consideration. The ones I'm considering held Olives, Vinegar, Salt, and Lactic Acid. I'm a little concerned about Vinegar and salt leaching into the plastic and tainting the flavor of my cider. Should I be worried? Could that Vinegar taint risk infection of my cider with acetobacter?


The barrels look like the ones in this link.
http://www.lexingtoncontainercompany.com/publishImages/Olive---Pickle-Barrels~~element39.jpg

[Royal Magnell]

Thanks so much. I'm going to give them a try. After a proper washing of course.