Lawrence Brewers Guild

I was in Home Depot last week and found an item that may be useful to the many of us that store grain in "homer buckets".



It's a permanent lid for the bucket. The outer ring snaps on top of the bucket and has a gasket (It's hard to see in the photo because it's black) just like the standard orange lid. Then the inner lid screws into the ring, and the inner lid has a white gasket (as in the photo). They are on the shelf next to the other lids in the paint area for $6.97 and the regular gasket lid is $1.28. Even with the price difference I like the looks of the new lid because I have already had to replace a couple of the cheap lids in the past year. Since they are designed as one time use lids the repeated on and off I have ripped the lids at the notches.



I plan to replace each lid as I break them.

Good tip! Those look like they probably seal tighter and would last a lot longer too.

Any issues with stacking buckets with the new lids?

Any difficulties getting them open once they've been sealed? Looks like they might be hard to unscrew once they're on.

Matt

The top of the lid is very similar to other lids so stacking shouldn't be a issue. Getting them apart seemed fairly easy I was able to take this apart in the store with my hands. It would be even easier once the ring is attached to the bucket.

Cool. Thanks Frank. Will definitely look into those when my standard lids fail.

Matt

It's good to hear these are available from Home Depot!

I have about 6 of these courtesy of Doug's (my neighbor and brew partner) wife Laurie. In fact I was going to bring one to the next "gadgets" meeting. I'm not sure what the cost was.

Anyway, they are fantastic. The base ring fits VERY tight to the homer buckets. You will never get one off without destroying either the bucket or the base ring (or both). But that's not a problem...I see it as a positive. The screw on lids open easily, but I'm sure someone can strong-arm the lid tight enough to make it a pain to remove.

Ken

Good stuff. Thanks Franko!

kwgodwin wrote: I was going to bring one to the next "gadgets" meeting.

Ken

.





When is the next "gadgets" meeting, anyway???

Jensen wrote: When is the next "gadgets" meeting, anyway???

oooooh, I love gadget meetings! It's been so long since I've been to one of those my stuff will appear to be new

Gadget meeting is this month's seminar.

There is something that can be done to (in theory) prevent the cracks from propagating and the lids from failing in the first place.

Get yourself a spiral bit or round file and use it in a rotary tool to round and gently enlarge the tip of the vee. You'll want it to look similar to an old-fashioned keyhole when you're done. The reason the crack propagates is because stress is concentrated; doing this should spread the stress over a larger region and prevent the cracking.

Just how large and deep the rounded region needs to be to prevent crack propagation is difficult to determine, but in general the larger it is without impinging on the o-ring groove, the better.


Dan