Neat. Although if I was doing SMaSH not sure I would use 2row for the grain. And 25 gallons of beer? Holy cow that would be enough for a year I'd bet for me...
Those just standard fermentation buckets? I've been thinking of getting one or two more but looking for a way to do it on the cheap.
Well, yeah. 25 gallons is quite a bit much. If the batches are good, we plan to give away a lot of it to friends, so they, too, can participate in the "Educational Hop Experiment".
Yes, they are plain 7.5 gallon fermenting buckets bought at the local homebrew store. Cheap and they work great.
I've had buddies who go even cheaper, fermenting in 1 gallon glass jugs, 1 gallon milk jugs, 1-3 gallon pickle jugs and those big 3-5 gallon plastic water jugs you see used in office water fountains.
All these items are more challenging to clean than a nice food grade bucket, however. We've done enough batches of beer, between the two of us, that these are all easily paid for by now.
If all our brews end up being good, then compared to your average $1.50 bottled craft beer, we'll make about $240 in avoided cost. If you compare to the average $4-$5 taproom pour, we'll earn about $1080 in avoided cost.
We aren't kegging these, but it occurs to me, that's another good reason to keg: You recreate the taproom experience at roughly 1/10th the cost.