Plastic fermenter smell

I've used my 6.5 gal plastic fermenter for 3 batches of beer and I've used it once for bottling my first batch. I'm getting ready to bottle my second batch today. Yesterday I soaked my bucket in cold water and clorox overnight and rinsed with hot water in the morning. I've let it dry and there is still a strong beer smell in the bucket. Is my bucket clean? I've checked for any scratches and haven't been able to find any.

do you have iodophor? this stuff will sterilize the bucket real nice after you rinse it out from the bleach soak.

Plastic absorbes smell, especially after it's had whatever causes the smell sitting in it for a long time. More than likely it should be okay, but if your next batch goes sour, get a new bucket, or better yet, go glass.

I've been using the same buckets for 7 years, zero problems. No scratches or contamination, no off-flavors. I bleach the buckets whenever they get stained, but never use anything harder than a sponge to clean them.

The plastic buckets temd to hold on to the smell of the last beer that was in them. That's normal and there isn't enough there to be discernable in your next beer.

But david gives good advice when he says don't use anything coarser than a sponge for cleaning. Better to soak several times or for a long time than to scrub the dried trub off with an SOS pad.

Use OxyClean. It will smell like a brand new bucket.

seyahmit said:

Use OxyClean. It will smell like a brand new bucket.

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I have not found this true in my case but YMMV. I've soaked overnight and even several days with OxyClean and still after the bucket dries completely, the beer smell is there. I've had no problems from it though and it doesn't bother me as it did when I was a new brewer. Several batches and smells later and nothing bad to speak of.

Chad