HDPE conical - to bleach or not to bleach?

Okay Ladies and Gents, I've got an infection in the beer presently residing in my 30 gallon high-density polyethylene conical. Don't ask me what type of bug it is, I don't know sour beer at all, and that's beside the point.

I'm planning to go ahead and keg up the beer this weekend. I'll probably just trash and replace the miscellaneous cold-side tubing, etc. that could have been involved in the infection, but I really don't want to shell out another couple hundred $$ for a new conical.

So. I'm seriously considering a multi-step sanitization along the lines of:
1. soap and water with gentle scrubbing
2. Oxyclean soak
3 10% bleach / cold water soak
4 Thorough rinse and starsan soak.

Your thoughts? Would you risk the bleach in HDPE, even with cold water? Are these steps redundant?


p.s. Please don't tell me to replace the fermenter with a stainless one unless you have a 30 gallon conical you're willing to sell me for ultra cheap.

You could probably skip the soap and water step, but otherwise that is what I would do.

HDPE will take a fair bit of heat...if you have the ability to fill it w/ 200 degree water?

I don't think bleach will hurt HDPE if rinsed repeatedly w/ hot water.

HDPE will take a fair bit of heat...if you have the ability to fill it w/ 200 degree water?

I don't think bleach will hurt HDPE if rinsed repeatedly w/ hot water.

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I agree. I have a similar setup as you. Once a quarter I take all my fixtures apart and give them a through scrubbing and soaking with bleach solution.

My pre brew routine is to fill the fermenter with boiling water and Povidine and then seal it up and let sit for several hours.

You could bleach and sit for several hours. Rinse it thoroughly. Then fill with boiling water.

That should kill anything.

TD

Thanks for the suggestions guys. 30 gallons of boiling water is going to be a tall order, but I'm going to give it a go with hot tap water and bleach.

Not sure how big your BK is, but combining 15 gallons of boiling water with 15 gallons hot out of the tap should get you between 160-170f, which should be hot enough to kill of most bugs.

DrDirt said:

Thanks for the suggestions guys. 30 gallons of boiling water is going to be a tall order, but I'm going to give it a go with hot tap water and bleach.

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Not sure on this, but I believe bleach is ok at room temps, hotter temps just drive the chlorine out faster IIRC.

Per Chemical Resistance chart (link below) 10% Bleach even at high temps won't hurt the Den Hartog HDPE conicals.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/files/charts/DH CC.pdf

I would go a different route than bleach personally. After listening to many podcasts, bleach is not nearly as effective in killing as starsan and iodophor. the most important step is thoroughly cleaning every inch of it and all of the fittings. you can't effectively sanitize if it isn't clean. after you have cleaned the crap out of it, i would soak it using both sanitizers (separately, not implying to mix them) and hopefully this will wipe it out since some bugs can become a bit resistant to one sanitizer from what i have heard anecdotally.

there is no real reason, other than "I want to", to use two sanitizers back to back like that. you are just wasting chemicals.

I would eliminate chlorine from the brewery as much as possible. I would bet I could pick out a beer fermented in a chlorine-soaked plastic conical, vs an otherwise identical beer that was never involved with chlorine. Its an extremely potent flavor in beer.

look into actual hydrogen peroxide if the oxyclean isnt working.