PBW my mash tun?

Hey guys,

I recently brewed and didn't have time to clean out my mash tun afterwards. I use a ten gallon cooler... The grains have been sitting in there for a day or two now and I was wondering if I should use PBW to clean it out after removing the grain. I'm just worried about lacto and other funky stuff.

Let me know!

I don't see any reason you couldn't use PBW. I usually rinse and clean mine out with regular soap followed by a sanitizer of choice to prevent mold from growing inside.

You don't need to go nuts with the mash tun, since anything that touches it will be boiled afterward. There's tons of lacto in your grain anyway. IMO, skip the PBW. Rinse it really well, I guess you can hit it with dish soap if it still smells funky but just make sure to rinse the crap out of it afterward.

PBW would work fine. I typically fill my tun with hot tap water and mix in an ounce or so of PBW and let that sit while I finish cleaning up other things / cooling my wort. Then I run it out the spout which takes about 5 minutes. After a rinse I leave the spout and top open so it can dry. This has worked for me.

Then when I am ready for my next brew I just spray it out with hot water, which helps preheat it to some degree.

I would say there is no need to worry about sanitizing any portion of it since you will be boiling everything that touches it for at least 60 minutes after the mash. Save that sanitizer for the post-boil festivities.

One thing that helps me prevent this during brewing--since once the wort goes into the fermenter I am toast and don't want to bother cleaning anything--is to clean as I go along. Once the boil gets going I clean and rinse my MLT, while waiting for my alarm to tell me to pitch the next hops addition. This is easy because I don't have to leave the brewing area, since I brew in my garage with the door open, I'm never very far away, and never out of earshot. At each step, while waiting for something to finish (mashing, boiling, aerating, etc.) I clean whatever was used in the last step and prep whatever will be used in the next step. With the way I stack my brew day, after my fermenter goes into the closet all I have left to do is clean my air stone, air hose, a single funnel and my starter jar. I often leave the last bucket of Star San with a lid on it to use for occasional sanitizing through the fermentation process--beer thief, fresh airlock, etc. This bucket is often the start of my bottling procedure.

cluckk said:

is to clean as I go along.

Click to expand...

hehe I remember that was the "first rule of cooking" that they taught us in home ec back in middle school! I do the same thing. Once the kettle is on the burner, take a minute to clean the MLT, it's much easier to clean when the spent grain hasn't solidified.

I use PBW or 1 step in it and let it soak for 30 mins. I have no interest in dish soap touching it unless its totally needed as it can effect the next beer I make. I only had one instance where I let it sit for a few hours. And by a few I mean most of the night. I have since created a compost pile in my back yard for the spent grains. Birds and squirrels eat it up and after about a week you cant tell it was there. It required a over night soak in PBW followed by some hot water spray down and gentle scrubbing with a soft sponge. But good as new and I have not had a single issue since then with off flavors.

But yes, cleaning as you go with down time between steps is the best.