Mold growth in bottling bucket from storage

Hey everyone,
Long story short I had to store my brewing gear in a basement space while moving. I'm brewing today and discovered that there has been mold growing in my bottling bucket. I left a Zymergy issue in the bucket while moving and it began growing your run-of-the-mill household green, orange, and while bread mold. There was some mold on the inside of the. Bucket and where the spigot hole is. I currency have it soaking in hot water, oxyclean, and some bleach. I use starsan for brewing but I figured bleach would be best for preventing a serious mold contamination.

Will this soak suffice? Or should I just pitch it and buy a new bottling bucket? The bottling spigot and my main fermenter were clean and covered. Only the bottling bucket had mold. Thanks!

I have soaked some really funky, moldy bottles in Oxyclean for a few hours to a week on many occasion. After rinsing thoroughly with hot water and sanitizing they work great. I have yet to have an "infected" bottle!

Now if I can just start making good beer I'd have a winning combination! LOL

My personal thoughts are to nix the bleach. I know a lot of brewers use it but if you are using Oxyclean then you should not need the bleach but this is just my own personal opinon!

Good luck and I hope your beer turns out great!

Thanks for the replies!

I'll let it soak more today and then scrub and soak in sanitizer. I added a bit of bleach because I wasn't sure how sanitary the sink was that I'm soaking it in. It's a laundry sink and hasn't been cleaned in a while. I'll make sure I rinse thuroughly to remove all bleach from the bucket. I'm pretty anal retentive when it comes to cleaning and sanitizer so I think my risk of infection should be minimal.

be careful when mixing chemicals like that...

you should ditch the spigot IMO though and buy a new one

I agree with replacing the spigot if it gets moldy.

If you are using one of those plastic spigots you can get mold in there where it is pretty much impossible to clean out. I am talking about on the outside of the "spigot" part but inside of the sleeve that holds it in place. Among other places, of course.

Some of them you can take apart completely and get to those spots, but some you cannot. I would try to take it apart, and if you can get it COMPLETELY apart and are able to also clean the inside thoroughly (very tough to do in the elbow) then maybe give it a shot. Personally for a couple of bucks I think it's better to get a new one rather than risk $20+ of beer ingredients, not to mention all the time and effort that goes into brewing a batch.

for less than $1.00 at your LHBS, i would definitely replace the spigot. as per weirdboy, there are moving parts involved with it and if you cant take it apart to thoroughly clean it, you are going to have placed that indeed havent been cleaned.

pwndabear said:

you should ditch the spigot IMO though and buy a new one

Click to expand...

The spigot was not attached to the bucket and was stored in a separate location, so theres no mold on the spigot. Basically it was just bucket with the hole in the bottom that had mold on it. I cleaned out the spigot out today anyways. It was bone try, and was visibly clean of any debris before I washed it. I'll let it soak in sanitizer just to be safe.

in that case, dont ditch the spigot. instead, you should celebrate it as your very own child. create a shrine for all of its accomplishments and name it bobby.

adfirmus said:

I currency have it soaking in hot water, oxyclean, and some bleach. I use starsan for brewing but I figured bleach would be best for preventing a serious mold contamination.

Will this soak suffice? Or should I just pitch it and buy a new bottling bucket? The bottling spigot and my main fermenter were clean and covered. Only the bottling bucket had mold. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Sanitizing and cleaning are two different things. I would recommend cleaning the bucket with soap and a brush. After rinsing, soak it in a sanitizing solution. Typically I clean after use and sanitize before use.

Wyrmwood said:

Sanitizing and cleaning are two different things. I would recommend cleaning the bucket with soap and a brush. After rinsing, soak it in a sanitizing solution. Typically I clean after use and sanitize before use.

Click to expand...

I should have clarified a bit more, haha. I clean and then sanitize separately with Star-San. I have the bucket soaking in sanitizer. Thanks for everyones' responses.