cleaning equipment that may of been contaminated.

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.

wgonfan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2012
Messages
62
Reaction score
0
Location
texarkana
I just bottled a batch that has some stringy growths and possibly a little tiny hint of sourness. I'm going to ride that batch out, but I'm brewing this weekend and don't have time or money to "throw out and replace all soft plastics" nor do I think that is necessary at this point. I just want to clean the S**t out of the equipment & hope I've got the bug. if the next batch shows sings of infection I'll buy new plastics. How do you guys go about thoroughly cleaning and sanitizing your plastic brewing stuffs? I have 4oz of starsan, some oxiclean & bleach (though I'd rather not use bleach because of past experiences) on hand. I want to sanitize my racking cane, autosiphon, hose, bottle wand, turkey baster, air locks & stoppers, ale pail, better bottle & bottling bucket. Is a two day soak in a strong (2oz/5gal) starsan solution after a good clean & rinse with oxyclean adequate?
 
I would start with a "bleach bomb" first. Soak 24 hours in diluted bleach solution... Rinse the crap out of it to get as much bleach residue out as possible. Then follow the bleach with a good oxy clean scrubbing. After that, do an overnight star-san soak. I cannot guarantee that this will kill the infection, but if I had those 3 cleaning supplies, and a possible infection, that is what I would do.
 
I would start with a "bleach bomb" first. Soak 24 hours in diluted bleach solution... Rinse the crap out of it to get as much bleach residue out as possible. Then follow the bleach with a good oxy clean scrubbing. After that, do an overnight star-san soak. I cannot guarantee that this will kill the infection, but if I had those 3 cleaning supplies, and a possible infection, that is what I would do.

you'd want the bleach to be at about 100ppm.

Start by putting about 1oz white vinegar per 5 gallons of water in whatever vessel you are gonna soak in, then add the water, then add 3oz household bleach per 5 gallons. That should get you between 100 and 150 ppm of hypochlorite.
 
I'd hit it with the Oxy-clean or some other alkaline cleaner first. This will help to remove any organic material. Once it is clean, then you can bleach it. It is always better to sanitize a clean surface as any crud could potentially block access of the sanitizer to the surface.

To help remove the bleach afterward, dissolve a camden tablet (or similar dechlorinator) in your rinse water. It really helps to remove any bleach residue. Then proceed with starsan before brewing
 
pjj2ba said:
I'd hit it with the Oxy-clean or some other alkaline cleaner first. This will help to remove any organic material. Once it is clean, then you can bleach it. It is always better to sanitize a clean surface as any crud could potentially block access of the sanitizer to the surface.

To help remove the bleach afterward, dissolve a camden tablet (or similar dechlorinator) in your rinse water. It really helps to remove any bleach residue. Then proceed with starsan before brewing

Well, bleach is continually corrosive to biofilms, so 24hr in bleach is called for after cleaning is called for regardless.
 
+ 1 on the bleach bomb and the vinegar + water + bleach is the best combination.
Here is something to think about, both the vinegar+water+bleach combination and star-san are acidic and could cause surface etching on plastics so some caution is advised.

If it were me I would be looking for some Iodophor.
 
BrewerinBR said:
+ 1 on the bleach bomb and the vinegar + water + bleach is the best combination.
Here is something to think about, both the vinegar+water+bleach combination and star-san are acidic and could cause surface etching on plastics so some caution is advised.

If it were me I would be looking for some Iodophor.

I soak all my plastics (that will fit in a 5gal bucket) in 50+ppm bleach when not in use. All i've noticed so far is that my siphon hose gets cloudy and it corroded the natural gum bulb on my dollar store turkey baster.

Keep in mind that bleach and metal do not get along for long soaks, and that mixing bleach and star-san will result in chlorine released into the liquid which is very corrosive.

Metal and glass can be autoclaved in a pressure cooker at 15 atmospheres for 15 minutes. Just make sure you don't boil off all of the water.
 
just oxiclean & starsan should be enough, i use the same equipment with brett/bugs & clean beers without doing anything special and havent had any contamination. if its scratched up or makes u feel better, the bleach will certainly help, just make sure to rinse alot.
 
I'd hit it with everything I could, bleach or otherwise, and rinse really well.

Actually, I'd ditch anything plastic without much hesitation. Only exception would be a Better Bottle; other than that, a lost batch of ingredients is close enough to a full replacement cost of the plastics that I'd pretty readily swap out. (Actually just had to do this with a racking cane and some siphon hose because I foolishly failed to clean them out immediately after use, then left them soaking in Saniclean for too long... the Saniclean lost its power and crud started growing on/in them.)
 
Back
Top