I have started taking the advice of others on this thread and going for a long primary. I bottled a beer yesterday that had been in the primary just over 4 weeks. I had been dreading bottling day because I knew it would be followed shortly by cleaning day.
It was a Belgian fermented in the high 70s so it generated a pretty dense krausen and some blow off. When the krausen fell, it left the predictable layer of gunk at the top of my 6 gallon Better Bottle. It used to be when I was doing shorter primaries, a good warm water soak overnight would loosen up the bulk of this crud. Then another session of sloshing warm water would break up the rest of the visible matter. A quick StarSan soak before storage was all I needed. Then sanitize with StarSan again on my next brew day and life was good.
With this sitting for a month however, it's dried pretty solidly to the inside of the better bottle. I filled it with hot tap water last night and let it sit overnight. It loosened up some of the gunk but not all.
I have a carboy brush that I use for my glass fermenters, but I am afraid that I'll scratch the plastic on the inside of the BetterBottle.
I've had success in the past with a weak bleach soak (.5 to .75 oz for 5 gal) removing the crud from glass. Will bleach work on the BetterBottle or do I risk damaging it with the bleach. I would certainly rinse after bleach and before storage, followed by another rinse and sanitation with StarSan before I used it to brew again.
It was a Belgian fermented in the high 70s so it generated a pretty dense krausen and some blow off. When the krausen fell, it left the predictable layer of gunk at the top of my 6 gallon Better Bottle. It used to be when I was doing shorter primaries, a good warm water soak overnight would loosen up the bulk of this crud. Then another session of sloshing warm water would break up the rest of the visible matter. A quick StarSan soak before storage was all I needed. Then sanitize with StarSan again on my next brew day and life was good.
With this sitting for a month however, it's dried pretty solidly to the inside of the better bottle. I filled it with hot tap water last night and let it sit overnight. It loosened up some of the gunk but not all.
I have a carboy brush that I use for my glass fermenters, but I am afraid that I'll scratch the plastic on the inside of the BetterBottle.
I've had success in the past with a weak bleach soak (.5 to .75 oz for 5 gal) removing the crud from glass. Will bleach work on the BetterBottle or do I risk damaging it with the bleach. I would certainly rinse after bleach and before storage, followed by another rinse and sanitation with StarSan before I used it to brew again.