How clean is your mashtun?

Another silly questions as I try not to think about my wedding on Sunday...

I use a 5 gallon round "Victory" cooler as my mashtun with a small length of copper attached to a SS braid and I drain the wort using a vinyl tube. I haven't replaced any of these parts since I've starting using it, and I know this is a dumb question, but how clean is your mashtun? While cleaning, I just tear down the mashtun, dump the grain, rinse it, dry and store it in the basement.

Does anyone actually use detergent/cleansers and then sanitize their mashtun after use? This is of course assuming you don't let your mash sour overnight...

My wandering mind is curious.

Hot Water and a short time frame are all I use to clean mine.

I used to just dump & rinse. If I forgot about leaving the spent grains inside, I would soak in Oxyclean. Otherwise, not much cleaning going on...

Usually I just use a brush and water to clean my tun. But occasionally, maybe every 5th or 6th use, I will let PBW soak them and make a session out of deep cleaning equipment and kegs.

I fill mine with oxy-clean and then drain it through my CFC. The way I see it, I gotta put oxyclean in something to get it through my CFC, this cleans my tun and allows me to just use gravity.

If its been awhile since I last brewed I rinse out the MLT to get rid of any dust that settled. after im done brewing I rinse the spent grains out and lightly wipe it with a soapy sponge then rinse the soap out. never had to soak in oxy or pbw. but my MLT is a 12.5gallon SS stock pot.

Mine is mingin.

orfy said:

Mine is mingin.

Click to expand...

That's just minger dude.

i use the hot water from my IC output to clean mine as well as all my other mash equipment. might as well put that hot water to good use doing something

I take the fitting off the end of my stainless braid every time and clean it. Gunk manages to get inside the braid and I really don't want that molding and getting into my next beer.

I just rinse mine out.

I just minge mine out. At least I think I do.

Dump it, hose out any remaining spent grain/husks, and drain and store upside.
Before the next use, I just hose the dust off. Sanitation in the mash tun isn't a big deal to me, since I boil everything that comes out of it for an hour.

I forgot to clean mine and the mash soured. Right now I have bottles soaking in a bleach solution in my tun. I think that will leave it much cleaner when I'm finished.

About every 3rd or fourth time I take my manifold apart and clean it, but normally I just give it a good rinse with hot water, wash with dish soap to get the ring at the top and then fill with hot water and oxyclean. Then maybe in a day or a week, when ever I remember to, I drain/pour out the oxy solution and give it a rise. I store it with the lid off in hopes of diminishing the chances that I'll get mildew or mold growing in it.

I fill my HLT with 15 gallons of water and heat it to 120 degrees and add Star San. While that's going on, I dump the mash tun and wash it out as best I can. Then I run the hot solution through the pump and HERMs coil, and into the mash tun. After it soaks, I run the solution back through the pump and reverse through my wort chilling station (which contains another pump and a Therminator) and into the boil kettle which I've previously rinsed. After it soaks, the solution gets dumped and pretty much everything is clean.