On the cleaninh of carboys...

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Upship

Active Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2011
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Location
Del Rio
So I have some hard to get at gunk on the inside(duh) of my Carboy. How the heck do I get it out?
 
Carboy brush with some PBW man.

PBW usually knocks nearly EVERYTHING off my even most gunkiest carboy's on its own. Soak with warm/hot water overnight. I usually PBW or oxyclean mine after racking and then before brew day hit it again with PBW and siphon through my wort chiller into another carboy (do 10 gal batches so need 2 carboys), then rinse through chiller, then sanitize through chiller.
 
The most common cleaners used are Oxiclean and PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash). Oxiclean is fairly similiar to PBW and will work fine and is much cheaper. You can search for the two cleaners and make your own decision, but many of us use oxiclean and are completely happy with it.

Fill the carboy up with hot tap water, put a scoop of the cleaner in, and let it soak for several hours, then rinse well. If the carboy is heavily soiled it may require a second treatment, but it usually doesn't. That's it.
 
I have had a rare instance that a couple of better bottles were super gunked and still had some bits after normal oxyclean soaking, I found that I could just swirl a clean washcloth in the carboy with a small bit of the cleaning solution to finish up without scratching the plastic.
 
Here's how I deal with carboys. 1/2 Scoop OxyClean Free with 2 gallons of hot water and let it run for 30 minutes or so. Cleans everything out! Here's my build thread - nothing really that I came up with on my own as most of it I learned from fellow HBT members.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I soak with oxyclean... if there's anything in there that needs scrubing, I just shove a washcloth into the carboy with a little water, and shake it to swish it around...
 
Thank you to everyone!!! I will be acquiring some oxiclean in the very near future. And whutever, that contraption is badass.
 
Back
Top