Greetings all!
Just wanted to share a story from today. I started brewing an American pale ale, and went to my storage area to grab all my equipment. Washed, bleached, rinsed, sanitized my primary fermenter with no hitches. While everything was warming up, I desited to take a peak at my secondary to see what cleaning needed to be done. At the bottom of my carboy, to my horror, was a dead moldy cricket. My wife works in entomology and herpatology, so our house has a few lizards of hers, and naturally she feeds them crickets. I guess one of them got out and managed to get into the carboy and died. There was no other mold anywhere in the carboy except for where the cricket was. Because I am always paranoid about sterilization for brewing, I started going down this road:
1. I poured about 12 fl-oz of Hydrogen Peroxide. I thought this might be the best place to start since peroxide causes cell membranes to rupture, hopefully destroying any mold and any leftover mold spores. After about an hour and a half, I poured out all the liquid (the cricket came out with it)
2. I poured about half a cup of straight bleach into the carboy, mildly diluted with water. Im planning on leaving it like for 6 hours. Just like the hydrogen peroxide, Im planning on gaurenteing that no spores, cricket, or anything biological survives in the carboy.
3. Tommarrow, I plan to rinse, wash and scrub with soap and water, and repeat the hydrogen peroxide bit, followed by the bleach bit.
4. Tommarrow night, I plan to rinse again and put a gallon of the normal sanitizer and let it sit till im ready for the secondary.
I may be overdoing a bit, but then again I plan to drink what comes out of there, so I am trying to make sure it is sterile. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know, or have any other (I doubt though) similar experiences.
Thanks!
Frank
Just wanted to share a story from today. I started brewing an American pale ale, and went to my storage area to grab all my equipment. Washed, bleached, rinsed, sanitized my primary fermenter with no hitches. While everything was warming up, I desited to take a peak at my secondary to see what cleaning needed to be done. At the bottom of my carboy, to my horror, was a dead moldy cricket. My wife works in entomology and herpatology, so our house has a few lizards of hers, and naturally she feeds them crickets. I guess one of them got out and managed to get into the carboy and died. There was no other mold anywhere in the carboy except for where the cricket was. Because I am always paranoid about sterilization for brewing, I started going down this road:
1. I poured about 12 fl-oz of Hydrogen Peroxide. I thought this might be the best place to start since peroxide causes cell membranes to rupture, hopefully destroying any mold and any leftover mold spores. After about an hour and a half, I poured out all the liquid (the cricket came out with it)
2. I poured about half a cup of straight bleach into the carboy, mildly diluted with water. Im planning on leaving it like for 6 hours. Just like the hydrogen peroxide, Im planning on gaurenteing that no spores, cricket, or anything biological survives in the carboy.
3. Tommarrow, I plan to rinse, wash and scrub with soap and water, and repeat the hydrogen peroxide bit, followed by the bleach bit.
4. Tommarrow night, I plan to rinse again and put a gallon of the normal sanitizer and let it sit till im ready for the secondary.
I may be overdoing a bit, but then again I plan to drink what comes out of there, so I am trying to make sure it is sterile. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know, or have any other (I doubt though) similar experiences.
Thanks!
Frank