Why Oxiclean?

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StarCityBrewMaster

StarCityBrewMaster

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I see everyone recommending it to clean their brew equipment and bottles but why? I went to Wally-world the other day to grab some and saw that it was for stains in clothing, counter surfaces, grease and whatever else. Looked more like an industrial type cleaner that shouldn't touch equipment used for making things you'll soon consume. I know you wash the equipment out real good after use but.......

Am I looking at the wrong stuff or is this truly the cleaner that everyone swears by?
 
You want OxiClean Free, which doesn't have the detergents.

OxiClean is just a percarbonate based cleaner, which will eat away at any organic deposits, (which is why it also works great for everything you listed).

You are correct, you DON'T want to drink this stuff, but it also is no more harmful than soap. You don't want to drink soap, either. Rinsing everything out well makes it perfectly safe.
 
I am thinking of buying stock in the stuff.

I bought a couple of tubs at Shopko and they were 12 bucks.

Found the same tubs at BiMart for 7 bucks. FYI.

And yeah, I use in the laundry too. It freaking works.
 
OXY-clean free is the STUFF! works great for removing labels. If oxy-clean doesn't get the label off it gets recycled.

all my plastic brew equipment gets a bath in the stuff after each use. a good rinse, then spray down with starsan and drip dry plastics clean for next bottle / brew session... ready to be sanitized in starsan bath/ spray.

My equipment seems to stay whiter since I started using oxyclean... very little staining on fermentation bucket.
 
if your worried about using OxyClean look into PBW. it has the word Brewers right in the name so you know its safe.
 
StarCityBrewMaster said:
Looked more like an industrial type cleaner that shouldn't touch equipment used for making things you'll soon consume. I know you wash the equipment out real good after use but.......
Click to expand...

If oxiclean bothers you, don't look into the stuff the pros use. That stuff can strip your flesh of your bones.....oxiclean is puppy in comparison.
 
Once you go Oxi, you'll never go back....

Filling up a dirty carboy with warm water, dumping in a scoop/scoop-and-a-half, and letting it sit overnight will make that bad boy sparkle like it's brand new. Add one of these or these for rinsing, and clean-up is a breeze.
 
Find the powder form oxy clean. It'll take any kind of sludge off your fermentor. After it's clean, rinse, and sanitize as usual. It works better than the more expensive, PBW.
 
I have tried both and while they do relatively the same thing, I prefer PBW. I seem to get a quicker clean with less rinsing. Though I don't like the price tag as much as Oxiclean, I feel it is a superior product.
 
Oxyclean's the shizzle. I'll even use it occassionally in the kitchen. Wife and I ****ed up a parsnip soup, it got completely scorched on the bottom. Like, *not* coming up at all with scrubbing pads and all kinds of soap and elbow grease. A fairly short soak in an Oxyclean mix, it came right off, barely needed a scrub. Washed it very thoroughly afterwards, but DAMN does that stuff work!
 
The stuff is just amazing. The first cleaner i used was just plain old bleach. It took forever to not work very well and the smell would not go away. Oxy clean takes no time, smells like fresh laundry, and washes away with no effort. It truly is the home brewers cleaner.
 
the_bird said:
Oxyclean's the shizzle. I'll even use it occassionally in the kitchen. Wife and I ****ed up a parsnip soup, it got completely scorched on the bottom. Like, *not* coming up at all with scrubbing pads and all kinds of soap and elbow grease. A fairly short soak in an Oxyclean mix, it came right off, barely needed a scrub. Washed it very thoroughly afterwards, but DAMN does that stuff work!
Click to expand...

Had a similar experience. After scrubbing and scrubbing to no avail, I grabbed the OC and let her sit overnight.

Got up the next morning to scrub some more and there wasn't anything to scrub. Gonzo. Rinsed and dried and put away.

The stuff works like Acid at a Dead Show.
 
Ok Oxiclean is a must no if/ands/or buts about it.

Is process behind truly just leaving a carboy, or a bottle, or brew pot or what ever filled with water and oxiclean for several hours then rinsing it off and sanitizing?

Also, once you all clean a carboy (or any brew equipment fro that matter) how long will you let it sit before cleaning it again. For example if you clean one then it sits for two weeks do you clean it again on brew day or when it's needed? Or once you clean it is it clean and sanitizing is all that's necessary no matter the length of time.

I guess you can always clean them then cover the tops so no air can get in.
 
StarCityBrewMaster said:
Ok Oxiclean is a must no if/ands/or buts about it.

Is process behind truly just leaving a carboy, or a bottle, or brew pot or what ever filled with water and oxiclean for several hours then rinsing it off and sanitizing?

Also, once you all clean a carboy (or any brew equipment fro that matter) how long will you let it sit before cleaning it again. For example if you clean one then it sits for two weeks do you clean it again on brew day or when it's needed? Or once you clean it is it clean and sanitizing is all that's necessary no matter the length of time.

I guess you can always clean them then cover the tops so no air can get in.
Click to expand...

Cleaning is really to get actual stuff off your equipment. If you cleaned it, it is probably ok to just sanitize it. Just look it up and down and feel it.
 
Clean your bottles and then plug them up with a wad of chewing gum. Seals 'em up real nice.

Kidding.

Lots of folks spritz a square of foil with StarSan and then cover the tops. Others don't bother sanitizine until the next brew day. They just "clean" afterward. There's a difference between cleansing and sanitizing.

Cleaning = get the gunk where bugs hide off
Sanitize = erradicate the bugs since there's no place for them to hide
 
I just do an overnight soak in oxyclean...then rinse and store...... when it's time to use equipment again I do a quick rinse to get rid of dust (yeah...I gather dust...I don't get to brew often enough) and sanitize and I'm ready to go!
 
Not only does Oxyclean work on brewing equipment, it works great on grease, too. I just cleaned up a drop-in range top and drip pans that I picked up on Craigslist for a project I'm working on. That thing was nasty - especially the drip pans - after trying dish soap, ammonia, and vinegar to no avail, Oxyclean cleaned it right up. So then I decided to see if it would get the grease off the filter in the vent hood over my stove - just soaked it awhile and it looks like new. Amazing stuff!
 
Last week, I transferred a batch of my double chocolate oatmeal snout to secondary... and then forgot about the primary. I'm used to my daughter taking care of clean-up as I go, and she hadn't been able to help since her accident. So, I find it a week later. Yeast cake is FUNKY. Stuff's dried on the side. The cocoa powder has turned the plastic dark brown. I go to the tub and wash it out and can't get it all off and I'm not touching the brown stain in the bottom. Fill it with hot water and oxyclean when I left for work yesterday morning. Rinsed it out when I got home. It looks brand new and doesn't have any of the dead yeast cake smell it had before.
 
Oxyclean is my favorite product to clean... just about everything!

Labels on bottle? Oxyclean + Hot water (very hot).
Cleaning the bottles? Oxyclean
Cleaning everything in homebrewing : Oxyclean...

Big wine stain on expensive white shirt? Oxyclean overnight. Clean as new afterward!
 
Erythro73 said:
Big wine stain on expensive white shirt? Oxyclean overnight. Clean as new afterward!
Click to expand...

Ditto!

Since picking some up to clean my brew equipment with, I've since used it on a couple of carpet stains that the Bissell couldn't even make disappear completely. Spray, set for 5 or 10 minutes, comeback and give it a nice quick scrub with a towel, and the stains are completely gone. I'm actually going to give a shot at putting some of the solution into the Bissell and giving the carpets a once over.

Needless to say, SWMBO (who is not a beer fan) now admits that she too has reaped some rewards from my hobby and having all this Oxiclean around the house.
 
Hugh_Jass isn't a vendor here, but I gotta tell you that he has a "oxyclean" cleaner that isn't the name brand but works great. I got a 7# bucket of it, and it's like magic. I use it in the brewery, the laundry, to clean up boilovers on the stove, and on anything in the house that needs to be cleaned. It's great, and he sells it for cheaper than I've seen in the stores. You can probably PM him for the details.

I never tried oxyclean until I read about it on here, and I am 100% converted. I even bought some for my daughter for her cleaning and laundry, even though I can't convince her to brew.
 
Both PBW and Oxyclean are great alkaline based cleaners. They both work very well for organic soil removal.

I do prefer PBW for mechanical soil removal. In other words, if you don't have the time to let either one soak overnight, PBW work better with a scrubby to remove the gunk from a brewpot.

If you have hard water, PBW is also a bit better. It doesn't require as much rinsing.

I have been using blend of 2/3 Oxiclean and 1/3 PBW to soak in my MLT, an kettle over night. It really works fantastic! All the benefits of PBW ( low amount of rinse) at a less expensive price.

I also think PBW works a bit better at removing soils from a CFC, but it is close. I do thank HBT for introducing me to Oxyclean. When I have to pay for cleaning chemicals out of my own pocket, every little bit a savings does help, as long as it works as well.
 
So what's the deal with only using oxiclean free? I gathered from this thread that it's got perfumes and dyes in it, but assuming you thoroughly rinse your equipment after you're done with the oxiclean, does it really matter?
 
dummkauf said:
So what's the deal with only using oxiclean free? I gathered from this thread that it's got perfumes and dyes in it, but assuming you thoroughly rinse your equipment after you're done with the oxiclean, does it really matter?
Click to expand...

Stinky is as stinky does.

Or something.


Dyes and perfumes are meant to work at ppm-level concentrations. While 200 molecules of soap per million molecules of water certainly won't harm you, you might be able to detect 200 molecules of perfume in a million molecules of water.

And while I love my laundry to smell like "mountain waterfalls", I don't want the same vibe from my damn beer. There's bear piss in them waterfalls.
 
What would be the point of having a perfume in something like this if it doesn't get left behind on your clothing? I'd rather not have it left behind on my fermenters.
 
Yes, but where I was going with this is I don't see how glass would absorb the perfumes where as your clothes are a bit more permeable. If my carboy absorbed perfumes from oxiclean, wouldn't it also absorb other smells, such as previous batches of beer and eventually stink. That doesn't happen, and since I would hope anyone oxicleaning a carboy would rinse the hell out of it before putting beer into it, there shouldn't be any risk or perfumes being left behind.

Or am I missing something here? The pieces just aren't adding up in my head so I'm trying to understand since I've got a box of regular old Oxiclean downstairs in my laundry room.
 
Doesn't have to absorb if it just leaves a perfume residue. Not saying it would, but why bother with the perfumy stuff when they have Oxyclean Free?
 
ChshreCat said:
Doesn't have to absorb if it just leaves a perfume residue. Not saying it would, but why bother with the perfumy stuff when they have Oxyclean Free?
Click to expand...

x2

Is ALL of your equipment (racking canes, hoses, etc) made of glass? I mean, you probably won't notice a difference using the scented stuff once or twice on your brewing equipment, but if I were you, I'd pick up the unscented kind next time you're somewhere that has it, and leave the scented stuff for the laundry. I know I certainly would, if for no other reason than peace of mind that my beer isn't picking up any off flavors from the oxiclean
 
Oxy works really well in removing labels. I used it the first time I tried to remove bottle labels. It was so easy I wondered if I could just soak the bottles in hot water for a hour or so and remove the labels. Although I was able to get some of the labels off with just the water soak, I then tried Oxy for the next batch and the difference was incredible. The labels actually floated off the bottles!

I now use the generic "Sun" brand Walmart sells. Cheaper and does the same thing.
 

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