Easiest way to sanitize carboys...

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aekdbbop

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just wondering what was the easiest way you guys have found to sanitize your carboys/tubing... do you fill up your carboys to the lip with water? or just a little and shake it or what? haha ... I use onestep kind of sanitizer...

thanks
 
I put 2.5 gallons of water and onestep in my carboys and shake them for two minutes. Hasn't given me any problems yet!
 
When I empty my carboys I clean them right away then store then full of Star San. I also tend to spray them with Star San and wipe the outside down prior to use . . . my dog sheds and dont want dog hair in my beer.
 
I put about 1 gallon of StarSan in my carboys and plug it with a solid stopper.

I then gently turn it on it's side and rotate it so it coats the side before gently turning it upside down. I do several times in a 15-30 minute time period before gently pouring the StarSan back into my bucket.

This method works great for me and I don't end up with a bunch of foam in the carboy.
 
I put about 2 gallons of water and onestep in my carboy and swirl it around for several minutes to make sure the entire surface area comes into contact with the solution. So far so good, although I recently went and bought some iodophor just so I can fill the whole thing up and let it sit as that seems easier than the swirling process.
 
to sanitize; it depends on how long i let them sit and how much crud is pasted to the sides of them... usually i fill them up to the brim with a bit of 'bleach' (!!! shock horror, but i dont' claim to be a real brewer..;) ) and let them soak over night... then i clean them with the brush, rinse them out many times (till i can no longer smell bleach)

to sterilize, i use the iodophor, but only use about a gallons worth of water, and only before i'm going to fill the carboy up with fresh wort or racked beer...

tubing i try and rinse immediately so nothing gets gunked up in... then they go in the iodophor before use.
 
t1master said:
to sanitize; it depends on how long i let them sit and how much crud is pasted to the sides of them...

If there is crud in them, you can't sanitize. You've got to clean them first, then sanatize. We don't need to sterilize thankfully.

Sorry to correct, but I don't want new guys getting confused by the terms
 
I'm a big fan of the idophor method - I usually fill en antire carboy with cold water / Fightin' I'dey mix and let it sit 5-10 minutes. I then dump that solution into a clean standby non-fermenting 6gal plastic tub just to have it handy during bottling/transfer/wort days. You never know when you are going to drop a stopper or something and having the 5 gal of idophor mix at the ready is a good clean-it/soak-it/let-er-dry system.

On the idophon subject, my brother (my homebrewing conspirator) is convinced that at times we have not let idophor'd bottles sit/dry long enough and that he can occasionally taste 'i'dey contamination' - so I'd say to clean well with hot water/cleaner, soak in idophor, and let dry well.
 
i thought sanitize was to clean, sterilize was to kill the microbes...

i use the iodophor to sanitize if i was mistaken then.
 
aekdbbop said:
does idophore or onestep type sanitizers lose their power after time or what?
The easiest way to deal with idophor (in my non-expert opinion) is to mix it according to it's own instructions and observe the amber/brown color it dilutes to in the correct amount of water. As/if it gets lighter, it is less effective. I have been using it for a while, I just go with the color. As long as I see some faint browns I know it is doing it's job.
 
t1master said:
i thought sanitize was to clean, sterilize was to kill the microbes...

i use the iodophor to sanitize if i was mistaken then.

Clean = get rid of dirt + slime.
Sanitize = kill almost all of the bugs
Sterilize = kill ALL the bugs (impossible to do in a homebrewing setup)
 
a friend of mine had a good system going.. he first filled his brew kettle with water and added sanitizer... and let his small things set in the kettle.. and while that was sanitizing, transfered sanitizer to the carboy with his autosiphon, thus sanitizing the autosiphon, and then swirled around the couple of gallons in the carboy...there ya go... thought it was a good way...
 
About a half gallon to a gallon of star san solution into a clean carboy (I store mine clean and dry, inverted on the shelf). Shake vigorously for 30 seconds. Pour liquid back into sani bucket. Put carboy on a carboy dryer while I brew. The carboys drains some of the bubbles out and when it is time to put the wort in it I flip it over and drop teh beer on top of the star san, which has nothing in it to cause off tastes and apparently breaks down into things that are good for beer anyway.

Star san bubbles will sanitize just fine, no need for liquid contact, just bubble contact.

Things that will infect your beer don't 'fly', especially up. Thus an inverted carboy or bucket won't get contaminated in most enviornments.
 
What is with this star san, I have been making wine for years and have always used potassium metabisulfite as a sanitzer. When I started brewing I just kept using it. It is cheap and reuseable for about six months. Is star san the best way to clean?
 
I bought a big Rubbermaid container to hold all my gear, all the hoses and racking canes and bungs and carboy caps and airlocks, all the small stuff. On brew day, I sanitize the fermenter with 2.5 gallons of Iodophor solution (one capful), then pour that into the Rubbermaid tub holding whatever gear I'm using that day. I can just let stuff soak (it's already clean) until I need it. When I need something to dry out, I also have one of those adjustable collanders that I set up to let things drain (keeps it sanitized so I can use it to aerate my wort on the way into the bucket). Works well, and I only need one capful of Iodophor for everything.
 
thank you guys for the clarification! not up on me lingo :)

you'd need an autoclave to sterilize everything lol
 
I just put 2.5 gals of mixed water and star san (bubbled) in my "clean" carboy and swirl it, turn it upside down, swirl it again, make sure the whole inside gets wet then dump the star san into an empty bucket and throw everything else needing sanitizing in there. I don't shake, I just make sire it all geys wet.

Tommy
 
From my limited experience I just add a gallon of water with the correct amount of iodophor ad swirl around till it completely coated. Dump into clean sink for santizing everything else. Put the carboy in a carboy dryer.
 
Stove-top steam pressure autoclaves (they look like pressure cookers for canning) are inexpensive. However, they are tedious to use and they have a relatively small capacity. They will also destroy many plastic objects along with the sundry bacteria, molds, yeasts, etc. And they are not really practical for carboys.

Where they might come in handy is if you want to culture you own yeast under much better conditions than the simple washing and storing methods that most people use. You could really get those test tubes sterile before inoculating them with your yeast cultures.
 
I fill my CLEAN 6.5gal carboy with a mixture of c-brite & hot water, let sit to sanitize.

This then drains via auto-siphon into the bottling bucket sanitizing all of my small items, (funnel, strainer, spoon, airlocks, bungs, etc).

That drains into my small 5gal carboy sanitizing that.

Airlocks go in place to preserve sanitation until needed.

Brew, add wort to 6.5gal carboy, pitch, ferment, xfer to pre-sanitized secondary, etc...
 
I use the one step method after each use then after it drys I seal it with plastic wrap. Then on brew day I pull the top rack out of my dish washer so it will fit and run it through the rinse and dry cycle. Its the first thing I start when I brew. That way when Iam ready it has cooled enough to use. Works for me! :mug:
 
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