How would you properly clean 5 gallon buckets for food storage?
Mild dish soap? Bleach?

Standard food service sanitation requires 50-100 ppm bleach.



In a non technical translation, that's one full cap bleach (from a one gallon bottle), into 5 gal tepid water, not hot, as water over 170 degrees tends to degrade the bleach.



You can add more bleach than that if you wish to be more aggressive.



Rinse with hot water to remove any bleach residuals.





edit for further clarification



Personally if it were me, I'd use soap or whatever cleanser to intially clean the bucket, and use the bleach to sanitize it as a final step

i get pickle buckets from the little local burger joint
i wish i could get the pickle aroma out of them

Here's what I did to get the pickle smell outa the Firehouse Subs Pickle buckets I got.. Found the procedure somewhere, might have been here, can't remember...

1 Pour in some Baking soda. Fill with water and swirl around.. Let set a couple days swirling now and again

2 Wash out with a clorox solution

3 Let them sit out in the sun a couple weeks..

4 Reclean with soap and clorox, dry and fill em up..

I actually left mine on the patio for about a month before I got around to doing the final clean..I used a large wash tub to soak the lids..

Pickle smell is completely gone...