Sanitizing the racking cane

[ESPY]

I'll be doing my first secondary fermentation in a couple days. I'm just curious how some of you sanitize your racking cane considering it's too long to be submerged in the sink. Bathtub?? Bottom half then top half? Lets hear it...looking for the easiest method.

SP

 

[uglygoat]

i rinse mine off after each use immediately. then i stuff it in the big bucket with a bleach solution and let it soak... then i pull some bleach water through it and rinse it again and again and again...

 

[Uncle Fat]

When sanitize the secondary fermenter (carboy or bucket), I fill it with solution. Then I throw in the air-lock, hose cane, and whatever else is going to touch the beer. Let it soak for 20 min. Then I use the cane and hose to drain the solution into the sink (this takes care of sanitizing the entire length inside of the cane).

 

[Janx]

I use Iodophor, which is no-rinse. Rinsing with my spring water would not be a good idea. Here's what I do:

- Fill a cooler with Iodophor solution...we use coolers a lot for sanitizer, holding ground grain, whatever...no reason. We just have lots of coolers

- I siphon a bit of it through the cane and hose and then stop the flow with the cane and hose full of sanitizer.

- I shove the bottom of the cane into the end of the hose so the whole thing is a closed loop full of sanitizer.

- throw the whole loop back in the sanitizer and make sure the whole thing gets splashed with sanitizer.

When I go to do my siphon, I use the sanitizer inside the racking cane to start the siphon. Much cleaner than sucking on it. Pull the cane out of the hose, plug the end of the hose, stick the cane full of liquid in the beer to be racked and in one fluid motion release thumb to start siphon. Just collect the sanitizer that runs out at first in a throwaway bucket and once beer is flowing transfer the hose to your fermenter.

 

[DeRoux's Broux]

I'll be doing my first secondary fermentation in a couple days. I'm just curious how some of you sanitize your racking cane considering it's too long to be submerged in the sink. Bathtub?? Bottom half then top half? Lets hear it...looking for the easiest method.

SP

i use a wallpaper tray. fill it with sanitizing sollution and put my racking cane, tubing, bottle filler (if needed), etc. it works good. or when i fill my primary bucket to sanitize it, i'll stuff everything i can in there. when i sanitize my carboy, i use my racking cane and syphon tubing and syphon the sanitizing sollution out of the carboy. sanitizes the inside of the cane and tubing, plus you don't have to lift a heavy carboy and take a chance on dropping and breaking it.

DeRoux's Broux

 

[smorris]

I sanitize the bucket/carboy what have you with iodophor and then rack to another container. That seems to do the job quite well.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I put it in the sink and suck the bleach water into it until it's full then I let it soak a bit. At rinse time I usually pull the shower head off of the wand to force a stream of hot hater through it.

 

[torpshootr]

I use a wallpaper tray. Just a couple bucks at Home Depot. Just add the sanitizing solution of your choice and put in all those long items like racking cane, stirring spoon, etc.

 

[ctrlfreak]

1. just rack from your bucket into the next container ... secondary, keg etc.
2. just soak one end then turn it over and put the other end in the solution.
3. before you use it use a spray bottle after you have done 1 or 2 and spray the outside.
4. DON'T use bleach, use iodophor or starsan or any other no rinse sanitizer. IMHO bleach is nasty stuff that should be left to cleaning swimming pools and turning hair orange

 

[arachnyd]

I use a wallpaper tray also - it is great for anything long and skinny that won't fit in the bucket - racking cane, bottling wand, stirrers...

it is also easier to get other small stuff out of than the bucket - my rubber gloves do not come far enough up my arm to dig to the bottom of a full 5 gallon bucket without getting a glove full of water and sanitizer.