Help Me Clean My Long Dirty Hose!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kejsport

Active Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2008
Messages
31
Reaction score
0
Location
Chicago
I am just wondering the best way to clean and sanitize my hoses. I have racking cane, a hose the same size and an overflow hose. I am just not sure how to clean out the inside. Thanks!
 
I generally soak mine in a solution of water and oxyclean for about 30-40 minutes (1 tablespoon of oxyclean to gallon of water). I also sanitize with starsan before each use. I clean my autosiphon the same way.
 
While I'm still a noob, what I do is fill a small bucket with an oxyclean solution, then put my autosiphon and hose together and siphon the oxyclean water up through the autosiphon tubes in through the hose, back into the bucket. This will let the solution sit on the inside of the hose and do the cleaning magic. After a few hours (or overnight), I dump out the solution, fill the bucket with clean water, and rinse everything the same way (autosiphoning the water through the tube). When I'm ready to use them, I'll sanitize in a similar manner.
So far it's worked pretty well at keeping the crud off the inside of the hose. Just don't let it dry after using it on wort.
 
The best way to keep those vinyl hoses clean is to flush with hot water IMMEDIATELY after using. Even after just a couple minutes junk can start to accumulate inside, and it is almost impossible to get out. Oxyclean or PBW can help, but only so much. If there is any doubt about the cleanliness, it's cheap so just toss it out and buy some more! Better to spend a couple bucks on hose than to risk an infection of a $50 batch of beer.
 
A while back I bought a small bottle of stuff labelled beer line cleaner from the LHBS. It's essentially sodium hydroxide, which is one of the main ingredients in Drano. I have no doubt you can probably find it in a cheaper form somewhere besides the LHBS. Anyway, I recently let the hose to my autosiphon sit too long without rinsing, and the beer line cleaner worked very well in clearing the junk out of it. I also found that it worked very well in cleaning up one of my air locks, which had gotten a lot of hop crap in it from a vigorous fermentation. I agree with the suggestion to clean your hoses with hot water as soon as possible, though.

P.S., be careful with it and dilute it well, because that stuff can burn skin. It seemed to me that a little bit went a long way.

P.P.S. Is it me, or does the title of this thread sound like a line from a really bad porn movie? :D
 
+1 on Beer Line Cleaner, either the liquid stuff or a powdered form. It eats through beer stone and other crud. Oxyclean works pretty good but BLC is the way to go. I get some powdered stuff from micromatic that I like a lot.
 
Back
Top