Home made sanitizer
 

Is there anyone who knows of something I can use for a sanitizer from ingredients found at home? Besides bleach, that is. Is there a way I can make it? I don't have any right now and I'm uncomfortable using bleach because it doesn't rinse all that well.

Besides fire (joke - definitely don't do this!), not sure. :confused:

You should be able to rinse bleach ok, just use plenty of clean water until you can no longer smell the chlorine.

According to Papazian, 1/3 to 1 1/2 teaspoons bleach in 5 gallons cold water is a no-rinse sanitizer. I don't use it, but I've heard of many people who do.

Papazian... Don't know why it didn't occur to me to look there! :rolleyes:

Thanks!

You can use heat, use your oven for glass or metal objects. I have heard of many people sanatizing thier bottles and carboys in the oven. Just put the bottles cold into the oven and turn it on to 250 degrees and let it go for an hour or 2. Remove the bottles and let them cool then fill. That's basiclly it, I don't do it so if you want to try it, maybe look it up to see if I got the temp right.

Without straying off topic, how long should a plastic Primary Bucket last?
I've used the same one for a year now, made 8 batches and the last 2 got infections.

I THOROUGHLY clean out my Primary and Glass Carboy Secondary (using bleach to sanitize), as well as my bottles, but the last two batches developed grey white stinky flakes leaving an acidic like taste to the brew.

These were extract brews and I have thoroughly cleaned my cooking area, pots, containers, et al.

help! :confused:

j

More info on oven sanitization
 

I searched this forum to learn more on oven sanitization, and landed here. I also did some more research, and the following links have more specifics on temperature and time:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-3.html
- this link from Palmer's "How to Brew" speaks to sterilizing in an oven, not sanitizing, so bake times are longer than one might expect

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue1.2/raines.html
- more on oven sanitizing, plus several other methods

My plan is to clean my bottles, rinse thoroughly, drain and then bake with a sheet of foil over the batch of bottles at 350 for about an hour, then cool and bottle. Probably overkill, FYI.

Honestly I use my dishwasher, granted its newer so it gets really hot. I wash, steam, and heat dry using no soap of course. If Papazian says you can use bleach, I say why not? The man knows more about homebrewing than all of us. Or use bleach and then run through dishwasher with no soap to insure all the bleach is cleaned off if you are paranoid or have had issues. Obviously with bleach less is more.

They should last forever. I've been using mine for 20 months and many many batches. However, if I got an infection, I'd probably chuck it and buy a new one. They're fairly cheap.

you would just assume the infection came from the fermentor? the list of possible sources of infection is pretty long, including lacto from your mouth. people repeat "chuck the bucket" all the time but have no clue where an infection may have originated. even if an infection could be traced to a fermentor (how that would be done is another problem) i know of NO beer infecting bugs that can survive a good cleaning and sanitation process. this morning i racked a 100% Brett pale ale to a keg and tonight i'll rack a clean pale ale to a keg using the same auto siphon. i do this routinely (a few flanders red ales have gone through the same siphon) and have never had a cross contamination in 2 yrs of doing it. i boil the hose and pump star san through the auto siphon. if i had a large commercial brewery i would not do this because of the larger surface areas involved but a bucket, keg and siphon should not be hard to sanitize.