Moving, and don't want to take my house mold/bug with me.

Hey all, I need some helpfull suggestions.
I'm moving soon, and don't want to take the house bug with me. The basement at this apartment has this white powdery mold all over the walls. I've just lived with it for the past year. I make sure everything coming from the basement gets sanitized well, but I just found mold in my kegerator.

I keep most of my equipment upstairs, but things like my carboys and my kegs are downstairs. I have to assume it was a dirty keg along the way that brought the mold up from the basement. I have damp-rid in the kegerator, but there always seems to be a small puddle of condensation on the bottom of the freezer anyhow.

I'm having a party before I move, trying to get rid of most, if not all, of my kegged beer. I find it's easier to move empty kegs than it is to move full ones. Call me lazy, if you will. So, I'll have the chance to strip all the kegs and sanitize all the parts. I'm thinking a two step process that involves acidified bleach (1oz bleach in 5 gallons of water, then add 1 oz vinegar,) then either starsan or iodaphor. I'm leaning towards iodine, simply because I've used starsan since the beginning of my brewing, and from everything I've read, it's good to change. So I can two step the kegs, and strip them down, but what about all the other parts of my pipeline?

Once I move, I can finally build the wider collar for my magic Chef and have 6 taps. Since I'm tearing down the current setup, I figured it might be a really good time to sanitize all of that as well. Taps, shanks, and disconnects all get the two step sanitize, and I'll replace all the tubing. I'm most likely going to add Y valves to my secondary regs, so I'll pull the gas disconnects and sanitize them as well. I only expect to be replacing gas lines if I find mold. Otherwise, I'm going to just sanitize and reuse the ones I have.

While I'm building the collar for the keezer, I want to make sure the bugs are dead inside the freezer. I want to spray the keez down, and then bleach it. After I'll probably wipe it down with iodine as well, just to be sure.

That's the plan for the kegging setup. What should I do about the rest of my brew stuff? I'm due for a new autosyphon and tubing, and a switch to a different sanitizer. I really don't want to take the mold with me to my new apartment. What step am I missing? Where do you see I could possibly miss a step and carry the mold over?

I have a couple of weeks, so I have time to do everything right.

Thanks
B

It sounds like you plan to do just about everything you can. Change out all the rubber in the kegs. That shouldn't cost you too much. Definitely go with new tubing, rubber stoppers, and plastic equipment.

I've heard absolutely no experimental, trustworthy evidence that switching sanitizers makes a difference. That said, I use both iodophore and Starsan (out of habit), but I always use Starsan to wipe down my coolers. I just spray it out of the spray bottle and wipe it down.

If you want to get hardcore, boil the small parts of your cornies or, even better, replace the poppets and relief valves.

Don't forget to clean and sanitize the outside of your kegs, too, especially the rubber tops and (ESPECIALLY) the rubber feet. Those things can get pretty nasty.


TL

Properly diluted bleach will kill everything. About 1 cup bleach per gallon water. Let it all soak for 1 hour. Clean it well first, so there is no solid residue left. Then rinse rinse rinse. Personally, I would then just use whatever my regular sanitizer was right before filling the kegs etc back up, but I wouldn't worry about sanitizing the keezer. And it it certainly not a bad idea to replace whatever gaskets etc you can.

BioBeing said:

Properly diluted bleach will kill everything. About 1 cup bleach per gallon water. Let it all soak for 1 hour. Clean it well first, so there is no solid residue left. Then rinse rinse rinse. Personally, I would then just use whatever my regular sanitizer was right before filling the kegs etc back up, but I wouldn't worry about sanitizing the keezer. And it it certainly not a bad idea to replace whatever gaskets etc you can.

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1 cup per gallon that's 3200 ppm Ya that will kill everything but I wouldn't leave it in contact with SS for long it may etch the SS. I used one cup for 15 gallons when my plastic fermentor got infected and that was even high, rinsed it really well and then used the Starsan.

That is about what we use in the lab, per NIH and City of Memphis regulations. [Actually, 4.8 L of bleach in 100 L water to clean out a large stainless steel fermentor at the end of each run. You have to wear a chemical mask though when dealing with that much bleach.] It might well be overkill, but isn't that he wants? 1 Tablespoon per gallon might give you "no-rinse strength", but I'd recommend he go higher.

Are you sure that was mold? Some older basements seem to absorb moisture and the powdery/flaky stuff is actually calcium...at least that was the case in one of the places I used to live...

This thread got me thinking, and I realized that there is a very effective way to sanitize that I've never heard discussed in any of the literature I've read or on the forums here, and I wanted to get your guys' take on it, because it might help the OP here.

UV light sterilization is known to be one of the most effective means of germicidal irradiation. In my VERY limited research, it does appear to be pretty expensive (much more so than a gallon of bleach), but it's food for thought. Has anybody touched on this method at all, or are any of the engineers/scientists on the forums familiar with this approach?

BioBeing said:

That is about what we use in the lab, per NIH and City of Memphis regulations. [Actually, 4.8 L of bleach in 100 L water to clean out a large stainless steel fermentor at the end of each run. You have to wear a chemical mask though when dealing with that much bleach.] It might well be overkill, but isn't that he wants? 1 Tablespoon per gallon might give you "no-rinse strength", but I'd recommend he go higher.

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Its overkill but what the hell ... I agree he should go higher too since he would have to rinse anyway.

OT :Ever see what happens when you toss two measures of oxyclean into 1 cup bleach 15 gallons of water in a Dulex barrel? It shoots out the opening like a volcano.

Good thing I did it outside . Wonder how long the grass will be brown .

Not much to add to the wisdom already imparted but a small garden sprayer would make short work out of hosing everything down with sanitizer!

DRoyLenz said:

This thread got me thinking, and I realized that there is a very effective way to sanitize that I've never heard discussed in any of the literature I've read or on the forums here, and I wanted to get your guys' take on it, because it might help the OP here.

UV light sterilization is known to be one of the most effective means of germicidal irradiation. In my VERY limited research, it does appear to be pretty expensive (much more so than a gallon of bleach), but it's food for thought. Has anybody touched on this method at all, or are any of the engineers/scientists on the forums familiar with this approach?

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Its been discussed before . Would work on buckets and clear carboys. Sanke kegs and barrel fermentors not so much

Saccharomyces said:

Not much to add to the wisdom already imparted but a small garden sprayer would make short work out of hosing everything down with sanitizer!

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All I use is a gallon garden sprayer and a quart spray bottle works great and I have cut way down on sanitizer.

thanks for the ideas guys.
Tex, I have new silicone orings for the tubes and posts. I'll have to get a few more for the lids. I plan on making a keg cleaner/rinser out of an aquarium pump, some tubing, and some disconnects. I'll run PBW first to clean all the gunk, then run bleach, then rinse, then run Iodaphor on each keg. I'll also tear apart and replace all the gaskets when I do it. Good thing the new apartment has a spare bathroom!

I had plans to pick up a gallon sprayer to make a kegerator line cleaner anyhow. I'll use it with bleach on the inside of the kegerator.

Yeah, I'm sure it's mold. I lost a one-year aged 5 gallon batch of natural apple cider (I picked it up straight from the orchard,) when the airlock went dry. I didn't notice until there were long spidery trails of bad juju going down through the almost crystal clear cider. It smelled pretty funky, so I dumped it.

Thanks guys. If anyone has any more suggestions, let's hear them!

B