Cleaning Racking Canes & Tubing

Any advice on the easiest way to clean out the insides of racking canes and vinyl tubing? I've soaked them for a while in hot water and detergent but still have some stuff in the middle of each (the tubing was used as a blow-off, so some of the stuff dried before I was able to rinse it.)

Thanks in advance!

Here's a trick that works well for me. I have one of those jet bottle washers like this one. What I typically do is soak my hoses in oxyclean for a day. Then I take a small piece of paper towel and ball it up to fit inside the hose tightly. I use the bottle washer to push the paper towel back and forth inside the hose which removes the stuck on gunk. You might have to repeat with new paper towel a couple of times, but it always works.

I usually pump iodophor solution through them with the autosiphon to get things nice and sanitized. Easy and effective

Getting to them before anything can dry is a big plus. I run water through my hoses after every use, either by using my autosiphon and a bucket of clean water or by holding under the hot water tap on my sink. I used to have a tubing brush but it was too flimsy and never worked all that well.

Try soaking it again. If that doesn't loosen the crud up enough to rinse out (or with that slick paper towel trick that McKBrew mentioned), just toss the tubing and get more. I hate wasting it, too, but tubing is your most dangerous spot in santation.


TL

I siphon a 5 gallon bucket of bleach/water/vinegar mixture through the canes and tubing. It works surprisingly well, moving 5 gallons through the tube usually loosens whatever is built up and gets rid of it. By the way tubing is so cheap, if it is really messed up throw it out and buy some new tubing it is only 20 cents a foot.

I'll run hot water through them before they dry, sometimes with a very small amount of dish detergent (which I then thoroughly rinse). I also have a turkey baster that's never seen a bird other than me that I'll use to shoot sanitizer through them; I'll soak the tubing in a flat Rubbermaid container of Iodophor/Star-San, then squirt the sanitizer through the tubing with the baster.

Thanks all -- some good ideas in here.

I soak mine in a plastic wallpaper paste tray I got from Menards or some other big box store. I also use this tray to sanitize as well as soak long objects like racking canes or tubing.

I have a 3/4" pvc tube with an end cap (cap is not glued in place, so I can clean it, too). I fill it with One Step, then put the racking cane in and let it soak. The curved end will be soaked in my bucket. The tubing soaks coiled up in the bottom of my bucket

I immediately rinse the tube and cane when finished racking/bottling.

I will also fill the pvc tube with OxyClean and let the cane soak.

Morebeer has brushes on really long wires designed to fit tubing. I've found them very useful if I don't get them rinsed well immediatly after brewing for whatever reason.

-D