55 gallon plastic drum smell removal

[dye4me]

I've got 4 55 gallon drums, they are food grade and have only had food products in them. Problem is the food product they had was bags of fish oil. I got them in January, pop the lids, and left them outside for 5 moths open to the elements. They still smelled. A couple of weeks ago i washed 2 of them with a steam cleaner, then rinsed and scrubbed with a gallon of vinegar, filled with water and let vinegar water solution stand for a week. Rinsed and it didn't seem to smell, so i put the lid on and checked the next day and it still smelled. So yesterday I took the one and put a gallon of water and 1lb of baking soda in it, let it stand a couple of hours and then I added a gallon of vinegar to the mix and let that eat away at it for a few hours. I rinsed and let stand full of water. The other one i dumped a gallon of straight bleach in swished it around and added 54 gallons of water to bleach, and its still soaking full.

I'm going to drain them this morning but i have a feeing they will still smell. I was going to try to a gallon of isopropanol, before i order new ones from a supply company (for $250 shipped) Was possibly gonna try a power soak with star san or filling with old keg leftovers for a six month soak to see if old beer can destroy the smell. Any suggestion would be appreciate.

 

[masterblaster]

Fish oils are based, acids should work (vinegar, Lemon juice). I don't know of any commercial cleaner, but it shouldn't take months. I would go with vinegar a few times. Also make sure to get all parts of the barrel. You might be smelling a small section and it getting stuck in your nose.

 

[IslandLizard]

If you could make a paste that clings to the walls it would be stronger and possibly more effective. Oils and particularly the ones that have soaked into the plastic are hard to remove. A good degreaser (e.g., lye) may help to draw them out, followed by acid (HCl) and then definitely bleach.

Vinegar has acetobacter, so you need to kill those before you can use them for fermenting/storage.

Not sure but I think the amino acids are the main cause of the fish scent.

 

[dye4me]

So the vinegar baking soda was a looser, I could smell fish before i got all the water out. The Bleaced barrel looked great, the water was dark brown and it brought all sorts of crap to the surface, so i power scrubbed the barrel with hot water and PBW then Hot water and star san, drained and sealed and left over night. When I closed it up I thought I had it beat, but this morning I found out I was wrong. So Ive ordered 2 new ones. On a side note If anyone need a deluxe rain barrel (slight fish odour) with lid and ring in the Cranbrook area shoot me a pm