It needs to be food grade stainless that has never been used for anything else.
Thing about brewing is if you take, say, a drum that once held pickles all the beer brewed in it would take on the taste of pickles.
All my brew gear is dedicated to nothing but brewing beer for that very reason.

TTIWWP

:D

But how would you carb it?

Lots of dextrose? Or malt or whatever?

idk my dad used to make wine and malt for his whiskey in 55 gal. drums dont remember a complaint.

OMG! Like, a real girl? I've only seen those outside my window.

What did the drums hold before being used for brewing?

idk he bought them from the farm and home place. I dont think they had held anything before hand.

Ah, good. What part of the process was he using them for, boiling or just fermenting?
If he was just fermenting it’s probably not such a big deal that it be food grade stainless. I know besides stainless people ferment in plastic, glass and copper.

fermenting the mash and wine.

i didnt ever see them make the actual whiskey. It stank and was dangerous.

I'm a year or so away from making mead.

We got our first hive last year, and we'll see how the little buggers do. Flying good today.

Any of you Springfielders see a swarm of bees, lemme know. I'll gladly take em safely away.

I spoke with a guy who used steel drums for his mash tuns and boil pot. I think he used one for fermenting too, but I can't recall. I also don't remember what they were originally used for either. The problem is finding a burner that can deliver the BTU's to get that much wort to boil. Then you would have to have a fairly complicated wort cooling system, a high temp march pump, high temp food grade tubing, counter flow chiller, etc.

When you get into batches that big, those are small brewery batches and generally requires regular commercial brewing equipment.

It is also illegal to brew more than 100 gallons per person in the household with a limit of 200 gallons per year. Not that anyone cares..

that's badass. I think I'm going to give it a try. Probably get some good honey from Whole foods or something to use.

this is an awesome thread. I've been thinking about giving this a whirl for awhile and admittedly will probably start with a mr brew kit---just to see if it hits my fancy. I'd rather do that than drop $175 on garage filler.

Brew with a MR Beer and you will never want to brew again.