6.5 Gallon plastic fermenter with lid and Drum Tap

I came from a Mr. Beer setup (don't knock it, good starter) and I didn't care to rack with a siphon. I liked a tap on the fermenter to, of course, drain beer out. I do a long primary fermentation and then I just put my 5/8 inch hose on, and into the keg. Worked great. Only thing is on my next batch I will tilt the bucket BACK some. The trub and such of course settled on the bottom and some went into the tap. Other than that, great setup.

NOTE: Take the lid off or crack it to not create a vacuum. I did this and had to fix it, now I know.

Nice fermenter, built well, tight lid, only down fall is it needs two rubber gaskets for the tap, i only received one. I liked it so much i ordered one more

Good low cost fermenter. There are no leaks and it seals well.

This bucket set up is poor. There are too many sharp edges for bacteria to live in. The pre-drilled lid has a poor gasket installed; a rubber stopper sent with a bubbler would be better. The bucket was filthy when it arrived from Midwest (had to scrub it three times to get the grime and dust off of it). Also, if you are using 3/8 tubing, you need to buy tubing that will work with the drum tap that comes with this unit ( I think it's 5/8 but not sure). Finally, seeing the water line from the outside of the bucket is difficult (possibly a good thing to prevent light exposure but my set up is completely darkened.) I'm not happy with this fermenter but I will make it work for me. I recommend looking to other companies first.

The drum tap does not seal so your product leaks out all over. I was making mead when I found these out. HUGE MESS!!!!!! Save your money buy without drum tap.

I am really disappointed in this product!
The tap leaks around the threads! The drilled hole is just slightly to small and requires a lot of force to get the threaded tap through the bucket to put the nut on. Seems to me someone at MWS needs to QC these buckets. Lucky me that I tested it with water before using it for a ferment! I would have been really T'ed off if I had a wort going into it!

After installing the tap in the bucket and testing with water it leaked around the o-ring gasket. Fixed that leak with some food grade silicon sealant. I am using this bucket as a secondary. During my first use the tap worked well. My second use of this bucket and tap I could not get the tap to shut off completely! I had to put a stopper into the tap before I had a complete mess on my hands lost about a quart of wort before I could stopper it! Very disappointed in the quality and performance of this tap!

Fermenter worked as advertised, sealed well, with good title closure. Cost is a little pricy for a plastic buck so value is just moderate but acceptable. I will not know the overall value until after the first or second washing and weather it continues to maintain a seal. I am a little concerned about sterilized the drum valve threads but we will see.

When i first saw people using these i thought that they would not work well as a cheaper alternative to a glass carboy. Now that i have tried it i think that in many ways they are better than the glass carboy. Here is a list; they are light(makes it easy to lift to siphon or to transport), it has a wide lid makes for easy filling,the tap works about as well as an auto siphon,they do not shatter or break when dropped, it doubles a bottle bucket. All this makes it easy to keep it sterile, easy to work with,and resilient.

The price is great. The only issue that I had at first was that the bucket struggled to hold a full 5 gallons of water. I screwed the tap on harder and it held. I will probably end up buying another rubber washer for the outside of the bucket just in case.