Cleaning and reusing blow off tubes

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I brewed yesterday.  This morning, I’ve resolved to never brew again until each and every fermenter has a blow off tube.  No more bubbler tops.  >:(

I brewed a Rye IPA from NB with Wyeast 1450 and a Hefe with WLP300.  I woke up this morning with the Hefe exploded.  Fortunately, this was kept in the garage and not the closet.  The rye was placed into a new Big Mouth Bubbler with the universal lid, which, by the way, I don’t like, and the lid was pressed out.

So, I actually had some tubes from a previous batch, but they weren’t clean.  How do you get all the crud out?

#tired

2

My last two all-grain batches have ended up with infections after using a blow-off tube that I THOUGHT was clean.

In the future, batches susceptible to giant krausens will be brewed in 8 gallon buckets, or treated with fermcap-s, or both.

3

I soak mine in hot oxyclean and rinse them with hot water followed by some starsan. The starsan after cleaning is only because I tend to get some calcium deposits with my water and the starsan rinse leaves the tubing sparkling making it easy to find left overs.

4

I used hot water to rinse it and get anything visible that would fall off. For anything that wouldn’t I used luke warm water with PBW in the bottling bucket for 24 hours. Rinsed with cold water (per instructions) and it was spotless. I hit it with some StarSan and it was like new.

5

Pretty much the same here with hot oxy cleaning. I often run them through the dishwasher and let the heat/steam have a go at killing off survivors in the tubing. This may not have any positive effect from a sanitation perspective but it has helped loosen up a few chunks of gunk I couldn’t get out before.

6

The only thing I would add is that it is helpful to clean it early…
I generally replace the tube after fermentation has calmed down
and clean it out before it gets all dried on and hard.

7

I just bought 100 ft of tube and when in doubt, chuck it.  Better safe than sorry and I haven’t found a way to get crud out of the middle of a tube once it’s solidified.

8

Absolutely.  Clean the bung and replace the tubing.  I try to remember to replace my tubing every 6 months, no matter how clean it looks.

9

I soak mine in a sink full of hot water and Craftmeister Oxygen cleaner.