Primary fermenter smells sour

[dhutchings]

I've got a sanitation question - I had to move a lot of stuff out of my house and into storage because I was listing it for sale. One of those things was my fermenter. It was cleaned (or so I thought) before I put it in storage. I just got it out yesterday and the inside smells like sour beer.

So I guess I didn't clean it well enough before storing it? I cleaned it out with PBW. Should I give it (and all component parts - lid, spigot, airlock, etc) an overnight PBW soak again and then another good scrub? Will that get whatever is in there that's causing that smell?

 

[flars]

Plastic will hold odors. If you had the lid on the odors will be concentrated when you first open the bucket. It doesn't mean the plastic is contaminated. A simple cleaning may be in order after storage in case there were mold spores in the air. I'm not sure, but a long soak in PBW may leave a hard to remove residue.

 

[dhutchings]

Okey dokey. I gave it a rinse last night with water and a wipedown afterwards. I'm leaving it to air out while I'm at work today, then I'll give it a PBW wash rather than a soak.

 

[dhutchings]

I washed all parts of my fermenter out with PBW last night, gave a good wipedown and left them to dry overnight. The smell is much less than what it was, which is a good thing - my hops are ready for harvest tonight and I'm planning on brewing with them!

 

[Homercidal]

My plastic fermentors smell like hops all the time. I wouldn't worry about it. Just clean it and sanitize it. Hopefully you will be adding plenty more hops to the fermentor soon anyway, right?

 

[madscientist451]

PBW is a cleaner, not a sanitizer. If its already clean, use starsan or something similar to sanitize. My plastic bucket fermentors hold some slight odors, nothing to worry about. Glass or metal ones shouldn't have any smell.

 

[dhutchings]

This wasn't a slight odour, this was pungent, hence my desire to re-clean it with PBW prior to (sanitizing with StarSan and) using it tonight.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Got any sunshine up there?

Set them in the sun for a day, it'll drive out some odors!

 

[dhutchings]

After a second cleaning, wiping and drying, everything smells much better. Time dictates I have to brew on Saturday now but the hops will last on the bine another day or two.

 

[Homercidal]

Hot airflow will help drive odors away too, just takes a bit of time.

I have found my fermentors still smell like hops and beer after a few months of sitting in the cold garage.

 

[dhutchings]

Thanks for all of the feedback, guys - I'm a little paranoid about it because my previous plastic fermenter got infected despite the fact that I try to be pretty anal about my cleaning and sanitizing. This is a new one that I've only got one brew in and I was worried that I'd screwed it up already.