thewildirishgirl

Recipes 

I'm sorry to gross everyone out, but I'm not sure what to do! After my last brew I rinsed out all my equipment and stored it in my basement. I went down there to gather all my materials, and found a bunch of earwigs (pill bugs? silverfish? disgusting critters!!) in the tubing for my autopump. What do I do now? Should I boil it? Bleach it? Will just some starsan work? I would hate to throw it out, but I'm so grossed out now I just might...ugh!

DrummerBoySeth

Recipes 

A thorough washing, followed by bleach, followed by Star San will kill anything that is living in/on that equipment. If you clean like the dickens, then you should be safe from an infection/microbe/bacteria standpoint. However, you really need to decide if you can personally trust all that cleaning to get rid of the germs. If you do not feel comfortable about re-using equipment that had been in contact with insects, I can respect that, but if it were me, I would clean and sanitize it to death and keep right on brewing. Star San and bleach are much less expensive than replacing all my equipment.

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"Give a man a beer, and he will waste an hour. Teach a man to brew, and he will waste a lifetime!" Bill Owen

evrose

Recipes 

Free Protein!

atooraya

Recipes 

Can you dry hop the insects?

brewmonk

Recipes 

for your next batch, include a protein rest ..... not sayin, jest SAYIN'!

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-I'm not getting older, but the floor is getting further away.

bighorn_brew

Recipes 

They don't eat much........

beergolf

Recipes 

Better yet...they don't drink much.

A good soak in Oxyclean followed by Starsan will do the trick.

Bamsdealer

Recipes 

Yeah... I had one in my tubing and one under the false bottom in my mash tun while it was outside drying. Sanitized the hose and didn't worry about the mash tun... no problems yet.

Had a moth land in my porter while it was chilling outside at night and a bee fly in my honey IPA (no joke) while it was boiling. Just a part of homebrewing. No flies yet thank goodness...

BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

That's funny as shi$. I have a bunch of earwigs around my place and I find them in my siphon tubing and blow off tubes all the time during the summer (while not in use that is). I brew in the basement as well and they love it down there for some reason. Not a big deal. Just sanitize as usual and you'll be fine.

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Slots Down Brewery
Stick with the plan....not the sparge.

Never Ending Liquid Yeast - How to Farm Yeast and Freeze it.

davekippen

Recipes 

Had a couple in my bottling wand last week. Cleaned it, sanitized it, used it. No worries. They are nasty little critters though. Seems like we have a LOT more than normal this year.