Stains in Bucket

Hey everyone,
I am new here and fairly new to brewing (2 all grain batches) but have been reading this forum for months and have learned a lot from everyone. I do have a question that I haven't been able to find much information on from searching.

I racked my beer from my primary to a keg late one night. I rinsed the primary out lightly, put about 6 inches of water in it, and left it sitting with the auto siphon in my basement by the dehumidifier. Well, I got busy and forgot it was down there for 3 weeks. Last night the bucket had what looked like some mold in the water (gray stringy matter). When I emptied it, it was stained with pink spots all on the bottom. The siphon tube is stained pink as well.

I washed everything out well, and bleached the bucket. I am going by the homebrew store today to pick up a new siphon tube. Should I replace the bucket as well? The stains are light pink and didn't come out with bleach. As a side note, my sink drain and shower drain stain pink as well if I haven't scrubbed them in a couple weeks...could it just be a stain from my tap water? Any chance of infecting my next batch from it?

ditch the bucket, it aint worth it and buckets are cheap.

It could be iron staining, but since you had mold growth, it is more likely to be something worse.

Try airating your house better, just in case.

AdamHops said:

...my sink drain and shower drain stain pink as well if I haven't scrubbed them in a couple weeks...could it just be a stain from my tap water? Any chance of infecting my next batch from it?

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Question is, how long has your water been turning things pink? If things have been turning pink prior to your previous two batches and those batches (apparently?) came out OK, then that would seem to discount the possibility of "infecting" your next batch as long as your equipment was as well-cleaned and sanitized as it could be. That said, replacing any plastic-based equipment that has absorbed the stain might be a good idea, and from now on, wash equipment immediately following use, or switch over to as much non-plastic equipment as reasonably possible (glass carboy, etc.).

You may also want to have your water tested. And/or carbon-filter your tap water. We installed an AquaPure under-sink filtration unit and I run all my brewing water through it. Maybe for now, you could run some water through a Brita and let it sit a couple weeks to see if it has an effect on whatever is causing the stain.

GHBWNY said:

Question is, how long has your water been turning things pink?

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The water has been turning my sink/shower drains pink for the past few years. The water hasn't turned any of my equipment pink so far. The only issues I had was this bucket, and that was after the water sat for a couple of weeks.

Regardless of the pink stains, the grey stringy mold is enough for me to replace the bucket and gear. The gear is cheap compared to a batch of decent beer, and better to chalk it up as a learning mistake.

Just for reference for anyone else who may get this problem, I did reuse the bucket for my latest batch. I scrubbed everything down really good with PBW, soaked in diluted bleach water for half a day, cleaned with PBW again, and then soaked the bucket in Star San. I had no issues with an infection because I racked everything over last night and everything was fine.

I think if you clean and sanitize enough, you will be okay.