Scratching food grade bucket during aeration

[BansheeRider]

I realized while I was aerating my wort in my bucket that I may be scratching the sides and bottom of my bucket. I was using a stainless steel spoon to stir the wort. Since the bucket is food grade, do I have anything to worry about? This is my first batch and I am a little paranoid lol! The bucket was sanitized with StarSan prior to pitching my wort, and the wort was about 90 degrees when I was stirring.

 

[iambeer]

Wow, I never thought about how impossible it is to aerate wort in a bucket before.

 

[Krovitz]

You should be fine. I've dinged the side pretty good with a paint stirrer on a drill and the beer turned out great. Proceed as usual. After you clean out your fermenter, check for any decent scratches. If there are any, just grab a new bucket.

 

[BansheeRider]

Wow, I never thought about how impossible it is to aerate wort in a bucket before.

Sarcasm a bit much?

You should be fine. I've dinged the side pretty good with a paint stirrer on a drill and the beer turned out great. Proceed as usual. After you clean out your fermenter, check for any decent scratches. If there are any, just grab a new bucket.

Thanks! It's a brand new bucket that came with my new kit. Hopefully no dings or deep scratches have occurred. If so ill make sure to clean and sanitize extra thorough. It was something that occurred to me as I was stirring the wort.

 

[masterfool101]

In the future, I would recommend one of three things:

1) Get a second bucket. Sanitize it. Pour the wort a few times between the sanitized buckets. No stirring necessary.

2) I hear that pouring your wort through a strainer is often enough to aerate it . . . and it gets some of the junk out of your beer.

3) If you siphon your wort from your brew kettle to your bucket, they have a nifty little attachment you can put at the end of the hose that "sprays" the wort, thus aerating.

 

[C-Rider]

Go to a paint supply store, one that the pros use and get a few paint strainers that fit over a 5 gallon bucket. Then you can pour your wort thru the strainer into your fermenting bucket and give it air and catch a lot of the trub from hops and grains.

 

[unionrdr]

There are all different sizes of dual layer fine mesh strainers around. Walmart,midwest,& NB to name a few. Got my $20 digital 10lb scale at walmart too. Lots of good stuff in there kitchen needs isle. Also,you can polish out some bigger scratches with a GREEN scotch bright pad. The different colors of these are different coursneses. The Brown ones are courser than the green. I used to use the green ones for polishing comutators on armature shafts. Great for getting out scratches if you don't rub too roughly. Even a dobie is pretty decent inside a bucket if you're gentle. Only use these things inside a bucket with stubborn gunk,or cutting down scratches. Soaking in cleaner & sanitizing well will negate any negative effects.

 

[BansheeRider]

Thanks for the replies. The problem was I didn't cool the wort as fast as I wanted. I forgot to buy a bag of ice for an ice bath in the sink. I poured 3 gallons of ice cold water in the fermenter but that only brought the temp down to 90 degrees. I put the fermenter outside where it was 40 degrees and waited until the temp dropped below 80. Then I started to stir because it had been sitting for almost an hour. Next time I need to plan better and make sure I have bags of ice to cool the wort in under 30 min. Pouring through a strainer is a good idea. That will also help with all the gunk left over in the pot. When I took a sample with the beer thief I saw some gunk in the sample tube, strainer is the way to go.

 

[zeg]

Nothing to worry about on this batch. Anythiing that might get into that scratch was already in your beer. So no worries at all this time around.

For future batches, it's conceivable the scratch will provide an unsanitizable crevice where bacteria can lurk. If it's deep, you might be able to sand it out. However, I don't know how to say how big such a risk would be.

 

[unionrdr]

Also,when pouring through a strainer,pour in a circular motion. It makes the liquid coming out the bottom like rain & aerates & mixes better. Then stir roughly for 5 minutes straight with a plastic paddle. That should get it aerated well,& give accurate OG readings.

 

[BansheeRider]

Nothing to worry about on this batch. Anythiing that might get into that scratch was already in your beer. So no worries at all this time around.

For future batches, it's conceivable the scratch will provide an unsanitizable crevice where bacteria can lurk. If it's deep, you might be able to sand it out. However, I don't know how to say how big such a risk would be.

Nah, I was just wondering if it could be an issue. If anything there are light surface scratches. There is no way that I could have created a large deep scratch. I was stirring lightly trying to avoid the sides and bottom of the bucket. I'll know if its something to worry about in a week when I transfer to secondary. Hopefully it's fine because its a brand new bucket.

 

[unionrdr]

Ya know,I've had some lite scratches in mine,but never were they unsanitizable. Not like the scratch closes itself off. I try to avoid scratching them,sure,but mine clean up fine & never had an infection.

 

[zeg]

Light scratches should be ok, I suppose. The issue is if you get a spot where a thick film of bacteria or gunk can build up. In this case, your sanitizer will do a fine job of killing the surface, and then your beer will dissolve the dead stuff on the the surface and expose the happy stuff living inside.

I'm not sure how deep it'd need to be, but if faint scratches caused problems, no one would ever make homebrew in a plastic bucket!

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,light scratches are ok. But deeper ones,well,you need to soak your plastic fermenters clean like I do. I put 4 TBSP of PBW in the FV,then fill with water,stirring along the way to dissolve. Letting it soak for a week gets everything dissolved or very loose. No dirty scratches either. Soaking clean in this instance would be better than scrubbing. Soaking them gets everything off.

 

[RonnieBBrewer]

You should be fine. I've dinged the side pretty good with a paint stirrer on a drill and the beer turned out great. Proceed as usual. After you clean out your fermenter, check for any decent scratches. If there are any, just grab a new bucket.

Just wondered, what kind of paint stirrer did you use? I have a 'painted' stirrer I have use on my last 3 batches with no problem. But I've noticed some spots on the attachment that looks like the paint has chipped. Now I'm paranoid and I've tried looking for some stainless steel stirrers, but most are designed to prevent air bubbles. I know keeping it near the top of the wort really churns it up. I really want a stainless steel. What do you use?

 

[flars]

Get the mixing tool designed for drywall joint compound. They will stir and aerate because of the paddle design. Stick with plastic. Less chance of scratching plastic buckets.

 

[Krovitz]

Just wondered, what kind of paint stirrer did you use? I have a 'painted' stirrer I have use on my last 3 batches with no problem. But I've noticed some spots on the attachment that looks like the paint has chipped. Now I'm paranoid and I've tried looking for some stainless steel stirrers, but most are designed to prevent air bubbles. I know keeping it near the top of the wort really churns it up. I really want a stainless steel. What do you use?

Mine has enamel coating or something on it. I'm also worried about chipping it, but so far so good. I wasn't able to find stainless but I've heard people talk about plastic ones that are good and can even fold up to fit inside a carboy.

 

[unionrdr]

I use my 24" plastic paddle to stir the wort & top off roughly to mix & aerate a bit more. The only way deep scratches can become a problem is if the fermenter is scrubbed clean rather than soaked clean. Soak all that stuff loose for 3-7 days. When you see most of the gunk has soaked loose & settle,then take a bottling brush & lightly go over the inside surfaces to get the rest of it. It'll be very soft at this point.
I leave it on the fermenter stand to do this after rinsing the heavy stuff out as much as possible.
After brushing it,I place my homer cheapo bucket under the spigot & let it drain. Dump & repeat till empty. Rinse out the fermenter in the same fashion. This helps wash & rinse out the spigot at the same time.
After all that,remove & soak,brush,sanitize & replace the spigot in the now cleaned mounting hole.