Wort colored ale pail

I just bottled my first batch of beer yesterday and gave my equipment a good oxiclean soak overnight. I wiped down the insides of the ale pails and gave them a good rinse today, but my primary fermenter still has a wort coloring and smell. Will giving the fermenter a soak in bleach solution remove the discoloration and smell/aroma? If so, how long is recommended?

Thanks for your help!

Don't sweat it. You'll only be making more beer in it, and it will only keep getting discolored. All my ale pails have a light beer tint to them, but it doesn't affect the next batch in any noticeable fashion. I only give them a quick wash with some dish soap and THOUROUGHLY rinse them. And of course a good Starsan rinse.

If you insist on a bleach soak, anywhere from overnight to a week with a couple tablespoons of bleach should help the color.

Not sure what brand you have - my Brewcraft plastic primary has been thru 3 batches of amber - dark brown ale - and Blonde Ale and is still white ...

Maybe tell us what brand it is, and what type of plastic. I have brewed a few in mine, and only have a very faint discoloration. I wonder if the type of plastic is aiding in allowing it to accept the stains.

Not that the discoloration is an indication of a problem, but you will want to use a food grade bucket at any rate.

I actually only use my pail my for bottling but I have used it many times and it is white as snow. With no smell. The smell would concern me more though. Have you scoured that surface with a scratchy pad in the past because maybe there are avenues for these substances to get into the surface of the plastic now.

I use an oxyclean soak and that gets rid of all smell. I did not think staining was even possible.

Did you pour hot wort into it? I wonder if that may have trapped more of the color...

I'm not sure what kind of plastic it is, but it's the standard Brewer's Best ale pail, if that helps. It's very slight discoloration, like a faint yellow hue and I'm not worried about it, as long as it doesn't affect future beer batches. The smell is still there, though. Nice and hoppy. The surface has not been scoured - for scrubbing/wiping down during the Oxiclean soak, I use a non-abrasive dusting cloth. Also, I cooled my wort down to 70F when I poured it in, so there's no way that hot wort could be the problem.

I've got the same coloration on my ale pail. I do use iodophor though, so that may be the source of the light staining.

I let my pails get a bit discolored, and I USED to soak them in bleach for a few days, but then I had a batch turn up with a phenolic taste, which is essentially band-aid flavor, and it likely came from the bleach not being rinsed out well enough. I would suggest you don't use bleach on any of your brewing equipment, because the tiniest amounts of chlorine come out in the beer.

I use the same type of pail and got that sort of staining from iodophor as well. I think in my case it happened because I let the iodophor solution soak too long, maybe an hour or so. After a few batches the color started to fade, so I didn't sweat it.

i have a brewers best ale pale that has a slight discoloration to it mine is almost a light green tint im assuming because my first 2 batches i forgot to leave the hop sediment in the brew kettle when dumping the wort into the pail so my hops were sittin in the bucket for about a week and a half but ive brewed 4 batches so far and ive not worried about the discoloration, if it gets any darker i might bleach it and rinse it really good but it hasnt gotten worse so im not sweatin it for now

Thanks for the feedback. I'll just give it a good starsan soak right before the next batch and take it from there.

snailsongs said:

I USED to soak them in bleach for a few days, but then I had a batch turn up with a phenolic taste

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+1. Two tainted batches here. Apparently buckets can hang onto chlorine as well as beer stains. I pretty much only use bleach in my fermentation water bath -- it keeps the ice bottles from getting slimy.:cross: