Sanatize bottling wand??

[Ron_Blackhurst]

I will be bottling soon and I'm curious of what the best way to sanatize your bottling wand?

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[WI_Wino]

Same way you sanitize the hose and siphon, run star San or another sanitizer through it.

 

[241]

Or soak it. Seriously you should have a dedicated tub (my choice, shallow Rubbermaid) or bucket for sanitizing. Good to have around to toss things you don't want to worry getting infected in. Tubing, clamps, spoons, fittings etc.

 

[hlm123]

If you really want to clean it thoroughly, it does come apart. Pull the valve mechanism off the end of it which also comes apart into three pieces.

 

[ChuckO]

If you really want to clean it thoroughly, it does come apart. Pull the valve mechanism off the end of it which also comes apart into three pieces.

Most of them come apart, only some of them can go back together.

I put mine in a wallpaper tub with some StarSan along with my auto siphon.

 

[zeg]

If the valve comes apart, take it apart and soak the individual pieces in sanitizer. For the wand part, I don't like to trust soaking. I put it on the end of my racking hose and siphon sanitizer through it when sanitizing the racking equipment.

I think the best approach is to disassemble and sanitize anything that can reasonably be disassembled, then as a final step, run sanitizer in situ through any path that beer will take.

During bottling, I spritz the wand with sanitizer any time I interrupt bottling. This is fairly often because I usually fill and cap six bottles at a time.

 

[runkelia]

You have to sanitize the bucket too, right?
So I put 1/2 oz. star san and 2.5 gallons water in the bucket (probably overkill)
Then open the valve and fill a couple bottles with it.

 

[zeg]

You do need to sanitize the bucket, but it doesn't take much. It varies, but lately I mix up a gallon of star-san in a gallon bottle of distilled water and siphon out of that into the bottling bucket in order to sanitize the racking stuff / bottling wand, swirl it carefully while tipping the bucket, and then drain it through the spigot into another bucket (I also spritz thoroughly on the part of the bucket where the washer makes contact for the spigot). Then before racking, I use my spray bottle to thoroughly wet the entire inside of the bottling bucket and pour out the excess, and the rack.

As cheap as star-san is, though, I wouldn't fault anyone for using too much. In my case, my water is hard enough I don't trust it for sanitizer, and I don't like buying more distilled water than I have to, so I tend to use it slightly sparingly.