Rotten Yeast

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groovebrew

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Not my proudest moment, but I let my carboy sit dirty for two months. It smelled like death - I'm guessing it was rotting yeast. I cleaned it and let it soak overnight in iodine solution.

Does anyone know if this bit of laziness contaminated my carboy beyond repair?

I'm not sure if I should trust it or replace it.

Any insights are much appreciated.
 
It WAS death. Clean it vigorously, then clean it again, and again. then sanitize it. Cheaper then throwing it away!
 
Your carboy will be absolutely fine. If you have something like PBW from 5 star just put some of that in, soak it overnight, rinse it out, then you are good to go.
 
Culberton's correct -- this is the best thing about a carboy. Soak it in hot oxi/pbw (I generally do it for a few days because I'm lazy) and then rinse well. It's back to being just fine. More than once I've let a yeast cake sit at the bottom of a carboy for far longer than it should and go stanky (not proud, but as I said, lazy), and they've cleaned up just fine. No stress!
 
Don't scrub, you could scratch it.

I'd fill it with a mild bleach solution and leave it for a week or so. Pour in a few ozs of bleach and fill with water. Simple. Unlike many sanitizers, the bleach will also clean.

You can leave it filled until you want to use it (months, or even years). When you want to use it swirl it out a couple of times with a few pints of hot water. Bleach leaves a film, that is not removed with cold water, but hot tap water is sufficient.
 
Calder said:
Don't scrub, you could scratch it.

I'd fill it with a mild bleach solution and leave it for a week or so. Pour in a few ozs of bleach and fill with water. Simple. Unlike many sanitizers, the bleach will also clean.

You can leave it filled until you want to use it (months, or even years). When you want to use it swirl it out a couple of times with a few pints of hot water. Bleach leaves a film, that is not removed with cold water, but hot tap water is sufficient.
Click to expand...

Do not use bleach! Worst cleaner there is for brewing, imo. A good pbw soak, and maybe some scrubbing with a carboy brush and youll be good to go.
 
nicklepickles said:
Do not use bleach! Worst cleaner there is for brewing, imo.
Click to expand...

Please explain why. All my fermenters and hoses are filled with mild bleach solution whenever they don't have beer in them. Providing they are rinsed correctly, there is not a problem.

PBW is a cleaner. As far as I know it is not a sanitizer. Bleach does both, no scrubbing required.
 
Calder said:
Don't scrub, you could scratch it.

I'd fill it with a mild bleach solution and leave it for a week or so. Pour in a few ozs of bleach and fill with water. Simple. Unlike many sanitizers, the bleach will also clean.

You can leave it filled until you want to use it (months, or even years). When you want to use it swirl it out a couple of times with a few pints of hot water. Bleach leaves a film, that is not removed with cold water, but hot tap water is sufficient.
Click to expand...

If it's a plastic Better Bottle or the like, yeah, no scrubbing. If it's glass, scrub away. It's much harder to scratch the glass unless you're scrubbing it with a coat hanger. And even then, glass is harder than most metals and won't scratch easily.

nicklepickles said:
Do not use bleach! Worst cleaner there is for brewing, imo. A good pbw soak, and maybe some scrubbing with a carboy brush and youll be good to go.
Click to expand...

I'd use bleach sparingly due to the risk associated with it (some really bad off flavors if you don't rinse thoroughly), but sometimes it can be helpful. After contamination, or the like. But you need to take care. Bleach probably isn't needed in this scenario.
 
You're not going to hurt a glass carboy scrubbing it with a plastic bottle brush, there's no concern about that whatsoever. Having said that, don't work so hard -- I've NEVER had any grunge on a carboy that didn't eventually slough right off with the judicious application of hot water, oxiclean or PBW and some time to soak. Worst case scenario might be to dump some salt or crushed ice in there and shake it up to scrub it, but I've never personally had to do that.
 
I normally avoid bleach in brewing, but in this case I could see that it might be worthwhile. Just make sure you rinse the hell out of the carboy several times to be sure it's all gone.

You mention "iodine" solution, I assume you mean iodophor. Don't bother with that in the cleaning stage. Use PBW, Oxyclean, and/or bleach and some elbow grease (if, as assumed above, it's glass) and you'll be fine.
 
Yeah, iodophoer. Maybe should have used PBW. The next batch is under way (Sublimely Self Righteous clone). I'll let ya know how it turns out :)
 
Calder said:
Don't scrub, you could scratch it.
.[/QUOTE:

Nonsense. Aside from putting rocks in the carboy you are not going to scratch the inside with anything that fits through the opening.
I know this because as a collision repair shop employee we sometimes remove over spray from glass and chrome with a SOS pad.
I have a carboy brush. There are also carboy brushes for pet bottles too.
Click to expand...
 

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