Better Bottle and One Step: white crud?

[adc123]

So I have been a big fan of better bottles since I started brewing. Typically after a brew, I let the carboy soak in hot water and some one step to break apart the krausen that stuck the top of the carboy. I have noticed that with my last batch, after rinsing out the one step, there are a bunch of little specks of something *inside* the BB! I think its leftover one step. I have seen this before and ignored it, but this could of been the reason my last better bottle started to taste funny. Anyone notice this with their BBs? I should note that I have very hard water. I have heard vinegar will help rinse out problems with oxyclean particulate, but that one step shouldn't need it.

Any suggestions would be great!

 

[samc]

How long a soak? They don't recommend leaving the BB in contact with cleaning solutions more than a few hours.


http://www.better-bottle.com/technical.html

 

[adc123]

People that have recommended better bottle cleaning all swear by overnight. Even though the companies website says minimize contact, I would have to leave the onestep in for quite a bit to remove the krausen.

 

[samc]

I swear by an hour or two. If you drink several pints during brewing, then you swear that overnight is easy!

Try some PBW in the recommended dose and it will clean up fast. Your hard water could also be a problem, why not buy a large bottle of the cheapest filtered, ro or distilled water and use a little of that for the sloshing cleaning method.

 

[adc123]

ive been googling this issue and I think I found a solution, but not an adequate explanation.

This thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/oxyclean-rinsing-clean-leaving-residue-92563/index4.html

talk abouts oxyclean and onestep. Now one step is made of "sodium percarbonate (which becomes hydrogen peroxide in water), mixed with sodium silicate (to make the water alkaline)."

http://www.brewingkb.com/equipment/One-Step-Sanitizer-515.html

(note: a post in that thread says not to use onestep with hard water. now they tell me! )

sodium percarbonate will become sodium carbonate once it mixes with water. This is soda ash. Now soda ash will leave crusty stuff when it plays with hard water. Probably whats going on here.

They say to remove this residue, you should use an acid. Not sure why, I do not know enough chemistry. Anyone got an answer to why? I just used some starsan in the better bottle, seemed to clean up the crud nicely! I would love to know the science.

 

[adc123]

alright, i think I got this one. When the hard water is playing with one step, it will precipitate out its hardness. These is basically a hard water stain. Acids break up hard water stains, ie scale:

http://www.chemistryinyourcupboard.org/harpic/3

It looks like onestep with hard water will do okay, and starsan (or another acid) will then dissolve the rest of the deposits gently.

If anyone can chime in here to say im right or wrong, It would be helpful. I bet other people have seen this and wondered the same thing.