Container for Sanitizing Long Brewing Equipment

Sanitizing equipment used in homebrewing is a fundamental part of the brewing process.  Difficulties arise when trying to sanitize long equipment such as stirring spoons, mash paddles, wine thieves, thermowells, and O2 wands.  Even the tallest buckets sold by companies such as MoreBeer are insufficient for the task.  To date I have muddled through sanitizing this type of equipment by sanitizing one end and then reversing it to sanitize the other end.  I've not had any infections by following this regimen, but I've never been satisfied with the process.  Having recently redesigned my conical fermenter to accommodate an immersion chiller from Brewhemoth, the issue became much more important.  Given the tight coils and the length of the chiller, and the diameter of the tri-clamp cap, having an appropriate sized container for cleaning and sanitizing the chiller was unavoidable.  I determined the optimum sized container usable for all the long equipment I own would be 6" diameter and greater than 26.5" long.  For durability, price, ease of fabrication, and chemical resistance to base (PBW) and acid (Star San), PVC appeared to be the best choice.

My initial research at my local Lowe's and Home Depot yielded unsatisfactory results.  Home Depot carries no 6" diameter PVC, and Lowe's only carries 2' sections of 6" PVC and no fittings.  To help the prototyping process, I purchased one of the sections from Lowe's.
Exhaustive research on the internet resulted in a greater selection of both pipe and fittings, but the material cost, shipping cost, or a combination of the two was prohibitively expensive.
The internet is not very helpful when trying to source locally sold items, so I "let my fingers do the walking".  A series of phone calls with referrals eventually led me to a couple of local suppliers.  While the price per foot from these vendors was much better, and the lack of shipping costs also helped lower the total cost, it was necessary to buy 20' sections which drove the total cost up to almost the same as internet pricing.

With my PVC pipe from Lowe's in hand, I visited one of the local vendors (Corix Water Products) which had the lowest fitting prices.  They stock a slip cap with a flat profile which was perfect for one end of the pipe.  They also stock a slip coupling.  When the cap, pipe, and coupling are assembled using standard plumbing PVC cement, the overall length of the container is 28".  Since the total cost for all parts was less than $30 and I met my design parameters, I consider this to be an effective solution.  A better solution is if eight brewers each want a sanitizing container.  In this case, it is only necessary to buy a 20' section of pipe and eight caps from Corix.  The per unit price before tax is $10.38.

My solution

Qty.	Unit	Description	Supplier	Part No.	Price
1	ea.	NDS 6"  x 2' PVC Basin	Lowe's	110875	$15.27
1	ea.	6" Slip Cap	Corix	SFSW447060	$4.75
1	ea.	6" Slip Coupling with Stop	Corix	SFSW428060	$5.40

Group solution (to make eight 30" containers)

Qty.	Unit	Description	Supplier	Part No.	Price
1	ea.	6" x 20' Green SDR35	Corix	SP43506	$45.00
8	ea.	6" Slip Cap	Corix	SFSW447060	$4.75

Corix is located at 3750 Bassett Street, Santa Clara, CA 95054 (408-988-3311).  Zavier Rosales gave excellent customer service and said he would be happy to help other homebrewers.  

The finished product: