Post Bottling Cleaning

[kyoun1e]

Good news: Just finished bottling my first batch!

Bad news: What a mess.

What do most do here immediately after?

I'm thinking in one bucket put all small pieces and soak in oxyclean and then funnel oxyclean solution into the carboy (which is a disaster).

Missing anything?

Thanks!

 

[kyoun1e]

Well...two observations right away:

* Glass Carboy Cleaning: I've rinsed it out with hot water a couple of times and most of the crud is out of there, but all the krausen at the top is just stuck there. I'm guessing that's where I need a carboy specific brush...which I don't have. Need something angled. Maybe soaking the whole thing in hot oxyclean would do it.

* The siphoning tubing is nasty. Hoping an oxyclean soak overnight does the trick.

Thinking everything else is no big deal.

 

[flars]

I just rinse everything very well after bottling. Set everything aside to thoroughly dry.

I remove and dismantle the bottling bucket spigot and also dismantle the tip of the bottling wand for rinsing.

The carboy I rinse, then fill one-third full with some PBW in cool water. Invert for a few hours to remove the krausen ring. Brush then rinse well.

 

[passedpawn]

oxyclean will get the carboy clean. You should get one of those spinning rag attachments for a drill though... they make it easy after a day or two with the oxyclean. If you have hard water, you might want to use PBW.

Tubing is problematic. Oxyclean is best bet, but sometimes nothing gets the tubing back to clear. Tubing should be cheap though - consider tossing if it becomes troublesome. Cheap stuff on amazon.

 

[kyoun1e]

Wow. Oxyclean is something else. I filled up the carboy to the top with hot water and dumped some oxyclean in there. Shook it up. 30 minutes later the krausen was gone.

We'll see how the tubing looks tmrw but yeah, cheap anyways.

 

[violinguy]

Wow. Oxyclean is something else. I filled up the carboy to the top with hot water and dumped some oxyclean in there. Shook it up. 30 minutes later the krausen was gone.

We'll see how the tubing looks tmrw but yeah, cheap anyways.

Oxy is also wonderful for getting labels off of bottles. I have a big mouth bubbler which is a snap to clean. I rinse it out with my sink's hose thingy (don't know if it has a name or not), then soak it in PBW. I use hot water to clean everything else - tubing, lid, airlock, test tube for hydrometer, etc. - then put it all in the PBW in the fermenter (except the lid obviously).

The tough part is fighting the urge to take a break after the last bottle is capped. I take a short break, but I'm rinsing and cleaning before anything dries on its own. That crud is tougher to get off if it's dried on there.

 

[mbobhat]

If you can get to the dried krausen with a carboy brush you may not need any oxyclean. Like said before just start cleaning once you are done, at least get it soaking in some hot soapy water. The tubing I usually rinse immediately afterwards, otherwise you can ruin it really quick if you let it sit. Usually have some sanitizer handy from bottling day, so just rinse with hot water, and then resanitize or just run some sanitizer through it, let air dry, with parts taken apart as much as you can.