Sanitizing aluminum kettle for bottling

[drinkingcoffee]

Hiya --

I recently moved across the Atlantic, so am in the process of rebuilding my equipment collection. At the moment, I am lacking anything for use as a bottling bucket.

My plan is to eventually pick up a carboy or demijohn to use as my fermentor, and use my plastic bucket for bottling and whatnot.

But, for bottling this weekend, I will try using my aluminum kettle as a bottling bucket (I like the idea of minimizing equipment, since I have very little storage space). I see other posts of people doing the same thing, but I'm wondering about sanitation...

I could sanitize the pot with some starsan, but that will strip off the oxidation layer from the pot, so seems like a bad idea.

I figure boiling a small amount of water in the pot with the lid on for, say, 10 minutes should kill anything that might have started growing on there since brew day. Is there anything else I could/should do? Does anyone ever have occasion to sanitize aluminum?

I'd guess iodophor would be safer to use... but I don't have any (and much prefer starsan for everything else anyway ;-)

thanks!

 

[aiptasia]

Boiling water in it would be your best method. Remember, nothing bad grows in beer and by boiling water in the pot, you should kill off or at least largely reduce any potential pathogens. Iodophor would be a good sanitizer choice for you. If you're having trouble tracking it down, look for a restaurant supply shop/company in your area. They usually carry iodine based restaurant liquid sanitizers. Our family owns an ice cream shop and we clean out our equipment and dairy lines with them all the time.

 

[drinkingcoffee]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the boiling water and steam should be enough to kill off anything worth worrying about. I figure I'll just get a few litres boiling and let it simmer away while I wash all the bottles.

To be honest, I don't expect this batch of beer to sit around long enough for anything to start growing in it anyway. I'll be lucky if I can wait long enough for the bottles to carbonate.

;-)

I haven't had any luck locating iodophor for sale in Europe, but I might just try to grab a bottle next time I am in north america...

 

[MindenMan]

Is it possible you could get a plastic bucket from a restaurant? That makes a great bottling bucket.
If you can get to a horse supply store,it is very likely they have Iodine based cleaners.