Hey Gang,
First off, I apologize for the idiotic mistakes I made to lead to this question. I've spent a ton of time working with both commercial and home breweries, but I've never been the one that was totally hands-on brewer. I'm more of the sales/business guy. That said, I love the business and understand the science, so I thought I'd try home brewing my own batch for fun. The pieces I haven't spent a lot of time with come in the sanitizing realm....
I was short on time and needed to pitch yeast on a few 5-gallon batches of cider. I started mixing a round of Star-San in a 5 gallon fermenter bucket to clean my equipment, hoses and into a nearby carboy. I later planned to use the carboy and the bucket for fermenting the cider.
I know better than to waste Star-San by mixing in a fermenting vessel and dumping, but I didn't have another bucket or sprayer handy and didn't care on this particular evening. I got half way through filling the bucket with with water and 1 oz Star-San concentrate when I realized it was spilling out of the spout at the bottom of the bucket (it was a little loose). Not only did I have to act fast and dive in bare-handed to tighten it with a still pretty concentrated Star-San blend mixing..... but I had to move the bucket from under the faucet and lift it up out of the sink to fix it.
When I fixed the leak problem, I now needed to fill more water quickly (balancing the bucket on the edge of the sink and trying not to get Star-San on my hands), but I couldn't get the bucket back in the sink (under the faucet). So I reached for a nearby utility bucket and began filling...
I was halfway through pouring the first bucket of water into the big bucket when I realized it had bubble of it's own. It then hit me this was a bucket my wife uses for cleaning the floor with Pine-Sol!
I rinsed and rinsed about 10 gallons through the bucket/hose/carboy chain before moving forward. Obviously I was paranoid about several things:
- Pine-Sol in the cider
-Pine-Sol mixing with Star-San
- Rinsing no-rinse Star-San
So...you see where this is going.... In hindsight, I needed: more safety clothing on (gloves), separate Star-San vessel and no "mystery" buckets. I also should have repeated the whole cleaning with new Star-San, but I had already wasted a ton.
I went ahead with pitching the yeast and starting fermentation on 10 gallons of cider in the carboy and bucket.
Should I be worried about my cider having Pine-Sol in it? I know the risk I've run of un-sanitizing my sanitizing....but I'm really just concerned with the Pine-Sol.
Again, apologies for how much of a dummy I've been. It surely won't happen again. I just want to make sure I didn't ruin my cider.
THANKS!
First off, I apologize for the idiotic mistakes I made to lead to this question. I've spent a ton of time working with both commercial and home breweries, but I've never been the one that was totally hands-on brewer. I'm more of the sales/business guy. That said, I love the business and understand the science, so I thought I'd try home brewing my own batch for fun. The pieces I haven't spent a lot of time with come in the sanitizing realm....
I was short on time and needed to pitch yeast on a few 5-gallon batches of cider. I started mixing a round of Star-San in a 5 gallon fermenter bucket to clean my equipment, hoses and into a nearby carboy. I later planned to use the carboy and the bucket for fermenting the cider.
I know better than to waste Star-San by mixing in a fermenting vessel and dumping, but I didn't have another bucket or sprayer handy and didn't care on this particular evening. I got half way through filling the bucket with with water and 1 oz Star-San concentrate when I realized it was spilling out of the spout at the bottom of the bucket (it was a little loose). Not only did I have to act fast and dive in bare-handed to tighten it with a still pretty concentrated Star-San blend mixing..... but I had to move the bucket from under the faucet and lift it up out of the sink to fix it.
When I fixed the leak problem, I now needed to fill more water quickly (balancing the bucket on the edge of the sink and trying not to get Star-San on my hands), but I couldn't get the bucket back in the sink (under the faucet). So I reached for a nearby utility bucket and began filling...
I was halfway through pouring the first bucket of water into the big bucket when I realized it had bubble of it's own. It then hit me this was a bucket my wife uses for cleaning the floor with Pine-Sol!
I rinsed and rinsed about 10 gallons through the bucket/hose/carboy chain before moving forward. Obviously I was paranoid about several things:
- Pine-Sol in the cider
-Pine-Sol mixing with Star-San
- Rinsing no-rinse Star-San
So...you see where this is going.... In hindsight, I needed: more safety clothing on (gloves), separate Star-San vessel and no "mystery" buckets. I also should have repeated the whole cleaning with new Star-San, but I had already wasted a ton.
I went ahead with pitching the yeast and starting fermentation on 10 gallons of cider in the carboy and bucket.
Should I be worried about my cider having Pine-Sol in it? I know the risk I've run of un-sanitizing my sanitizing....but I'm really just concerned with the Pine-Sol.
Again, apologies for how much of a dummy I've been. It surely won't happen again. I just want to make sure I didn't ruin my cider.
THANKS!
