How long to leave h2o/vinegar solution in carboy

I filled my 6.5 gal carboy with 1oz of Oxyclean Free and water and let it sit for 1 week. I also put 1oz of Oxyclean in my 5 gal secondary for 24hrs. Both have the dreaded oxyclean residue.

I found a thread on here that suggested filling my carboys with a vinegar (3oz) and water solution to get rid of the residue. But I am not sure how long to leave the solution in the carboys. I am thinking maybe 24hrs?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

eh, I would never put vinegar in my carboys at the risk of acetobacter. I don't know if it's killed before they bottle it up or what. (I guess if it's distilled it would be), But I would recommend just rinsing well and using a sanitizer before you put anything in it.

It is distilled white vinegar.

I tried rinsing, shaking & using a brush, but the white residue seems to be on there pretty good.

LeftyMcGee said:

I filled my 6.5 gal carboy with 1oz of Oxyclean Free and water and let it sit for 1 week. I also put 1oz of Oxyclean in my 5 gal secondary for 24hrs. Both have the dreaded oxyclean residue.

I found a thread on here that suggested filling my carboys with a vinegar (3oz) and water solution to get rid of the residue. But I am not sure how long to leave the solution in the carboys. I am thinking maybe 24hrs?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

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I'd check the glass carboy every now and again, but 24 hours probably isn't a bad guesstimate as to how long it'd take if you had heavy deposit. Glass is one thing, it's pretty damn inert, but the plastic is something else.

You could always go pick up some CLR from the supermarket and avoid the guesswork altogether.

You also might try starsan. It's acidic, and I noticed that if I put my immersion chiller in for 10 minutes or so, it comes out sparkling clean, having taken the crud off of it.

Well the solution worked wonders on both my glass carboys. I had to use my carboy brush on the bottom of the primary to get rid of the white spots that remained. I had trouble getting off a couple of the spots and I now have it soaking in a StarSan solution.

You know what the funny thing is, star san would have taken that film off right away. The idea behind using vinegar is that it is mildly acidic. Star san is an acid based cleanser (highly acidic), it would have stripped off the scum in like an hour...

I always use a diluted vinegar solution to get oxyclean residue off of carboys and my beer bottles. I soak beer bottles in oxyclean to remove labels, and this leaves a lot of white powdery residue. Vinegar is definitely safe for removing it. It is significantly cheaper than Star San.

I usually do the diluted vinegar soak for more than 24 hours, just because I'm busy or lazy. I don't know if it really takes that long to remove the residue.

Yeah, vinegar is definitely cheaper and my secondary is crystal clean. I think if I let the Oxyclean soak for no longer than 24hrs, then vinegar is the way to go.