I have a few carboys that I used some bugs in. Is it bad practice to boil a gallon of water in a carboy? The beer I bottled from the carboy came out pretty funky and enteric. I don’t want that to spread to other batches.
Usually I soak in iodophor before star San and haven’t had problems with contamination.
Just trying to play it safe. But also not trying to destroy a carboy.
If you are really concerned, then sanitizing with a chlorine solution is extremely effective. Of course, you would then need to rinse and assure the removal of any chlorine within the carboys.
Using an iodophor solution is nearly as effective.
There are no rinse concentrations for chlorine based sanitizers, No? I know for the application of normal sanitizing of fermenters and bottles that this works very well.
Maybe it differs in this case.
I don’t think direct heat should be applied to a carboy, as they aren’t borosilicate glass like like your Erlenmeyer flask and such which are intended for stovetop use. You can’t go wrong with bleach. A good soak with a 200 ppm solution will kill anything, and will clean thoroughly at the same time, in case you’re worried about a biofilm or other buildup potentially harboring nasties. I am a great advocate for poor, underappreciated bleach.
EDIT to clarify, I mean 200 ppm sodium hypochlorite; check the concentration on the bottle of bleach to work out your dilution. Bleach used to regularly be 5%, but 6.5-9% are more common now.
I don’t know that carboys can handle boiling water in them. I would be reluctant to pour boiling water into a room temp carboy. I think it may crack and I don’t know that they are heat treated like Pyrex. Just cautious with glass.
Maybe I will go with bleach. I guess I wanted a more natural, just heat application to kill things. I know I’ve poured hot water in carboys before but I usually have pbw in there and it’s not boiling water.
I’m pretty sure it’s just a Brett strain. But the beer was a mixed fermentation dregs experiment. I’m also wondering how I got the enteric character. And I also think I picked up some phenol. Super dry beer. Finished under 1.000. It has gotten better in the last 3 months. But I don’t think it’s ever gonna be a great beer.
Chlorine plus acid is the best value sanitizer for this task, as Martin suggested. Rinse with StarSan to get the chlorine taste out.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen pictures of broken carboys from unloading hot wort into it. I would not take the risk trying to sanitize them with boiling water.
I have a lot of equipment that I pass back and forth between clean and mixed cultures. I sanitize with bleach and use this on plastic equipment without problem–even plastic tubing. (Don’t use bleach with steel.) Here is my process:
Bleach will kill pretty much anything in brewing even acid tolerant yeast and bacteria. Heat breaks down bleach and the campden will take care of the rest, leaving behind salt and water. Rinsing out gets rid of the salts, leaving clean and sanitized equipment.
I’ve always been under the impression that you needed to acidify the bleach as well for it to be effective. When i make my no-rinse bleach solution for sanitizing on brew days, I add vinegar and check the pH before proceeding.
Obviously if you have been using it to clean mixed culture equipment, etc. then I believe you but I always thought acidification was part of the deal for it to be a “stone cold killer”
Is there a reason why you can’ just put it in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes, turn off the oven, and let it cool down on its own?
Big Monk, the acidification is specific to the “no rinse” recipe. At pH 5.0, all of the free chlorine is in the form of hypochlorous acid, the form that actually does the killing, allowing you to use a concentration of only 80 ppm sodium hypochlorite. At higher concentrations, pH is not critical,* you are relying on overkill to provide abundant killing, as well as cleaning, power, but you need to rinse.
*It should be noted that no matter your method, pH should not approach 4.0; at that point the free chlorine starts to take the form of chlorine gas.
Thanks Robert. I had a feeling it might be specific to that application but was not sure.
Dry heat (air) doesn’t have the energy content, so an hour at 350 F is what is used.
Heat will weaken the glass. I use heat for bottles, but
to be seen again.thosee get sent to completions, never
Here in California, where water is precious, filling a carboy full of sanitizer or chlorine and then dumping it is frowned upon as a waste of water. For StarSan I just use a cup or so in a 7-gallon carboy, swish it around all over the insides for a few minutes, then drain. Can I do the same with bleach? My inclination would be to swish a cup to coat the surface, let it sit for some time (10-15 mins), swish it all over again and repeat this a half dozen times over the course of a day. Would this be effective? I stopped using glass carboys because I was afraid I would drop one while doing the swishing. With a PET carboy it is easy, and not a problem even if I drop it.
The reason Star San, iodophor and the like can be swished and drained is that the surfactants they incorporate ensure full contact with the surface for sufficient time to be effective. Water and bleach, I imagine, will sheet off and not actually coat the surface for the 10-15 minutes you’re looking for. You could probably concoct a homemade, bleach-based product by including some soapy material, but you’d have to take pH into account in formulating it. But then you’d definitely have to rinse, so where water conservation is a concern the Star San or iodophor might make more sense. And remember, when, like the OP, you are trying to kill wild yeast, bacteria and perhaps the unknown, Star San is not a safe bet. Iodophor is the only thing approaching bleach in its effectiveness as a broad spectrum microbicide. My inclination, if you’re worried about bugs on equipment, would be to use bleach, give it a full soak, and figure out some gray-water application for the solution to mitigate waste. (If it helps in repurposing this solution, you could calculate the correct dose of metabisulfite to dechlorinate it.)
It’s easier to go longer on contact time than have to deal with adjusting the pH of the sanitizing solution but if you were really concerned about sanitation or wanted to sanitize faster then acidifying the bleach solution would be a better practice.
As Robert points out, bleach doesn’t have the surfactant to make this work.
You could sanitize your equipment with less water by partially filling it and rotating the carboy on its sides and bottom letting it rest for 20 minutes on every part to ensure sufficient contact time. Acidifying a smaller bleach solution and swirling it around to make sufficient contact for long enough time might also work.
I appreciate not wanting to waste water with this process. I don’t live in an area where water is as scarce but I try to wait to do this process until I have enough equipment that I can sanitize as much as possible with as little water as possible. Unfortunately dechlorinating the equipment isn’t easily done with less water. In your situation it might be better to use iodophor.
Bleach is your best solution 200ppm soak will do the job. You can neutralize the hypochlorite to chloride with peroxide (oxygen gas is released).
That still leaves table salt in the remaining water, so I wouldn’t use it to water plants, but any use that can handle salt in the water will be safe. I usually put it down the drain, so I haven’t done the stoichiometry for 5 gallons of 200 ppm.
Yea. I am in Arizona and try not to use a lot of water. Mainly to fill my hlc. Crash after boiling. And rinse/sanitize.
I’m going to start putting bottles in the over though. I don’t think I’m risking contamination in bottles as much as in carboys because I tend to wait and clean everything on brew day so I don’t use water just to clean one thing. Maybe bad practice not to immediately clean after a xfer or when a keg empties.
Bleach sounds good. Sometimes I use isopropyl and then light it on fire. The kid in me.