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Boiling water


David Martin

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Hi David

Welcome to the Forum.

For brand new bottles I just rinse and sanitise before use.

For secondhand I soak the bottles in a sodium percarbonate solution in a fermenter (cleans the fermenter too) and rinse well.  Sanitise before use.

From then on, clean in tap water as soon as the bottle is poured.  Hang on bottletree to dry.  Sanitise on bottling day before next use.

If equipment is kept clean, I believe only a sanitise is necessary.  No infections or issues in over 40 brews.

I would go back to the sodium percarbonate if something sat unused for a long time.

Cheers Shamus

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30 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Hi David

Welcome to the Forum.

For brand new bottles I just rinse and sanitise before use.

For secondhand I soak the bottles in a sodium percarbonate solution in a fermenter (cleans the fermenter too) and rinse well.  Sanitise before use.

From then on, clean in tap water as soon as the bottle is poured.  Hang on bottletree to dry.  Sanitise on bottling day before next use.

If equipment is kept clean, I believe only a sanitise is necessary.  No infections or issues in over 40 brews.

I would go back to the sodium percarbonate if something sat unused for a long time.

Cheers Shamus

I use the same schedule. Sodium percarb and sanitise with starsan. Worked for over 100 brews.

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Proper cleaners and sanitisers are far more effective than boiling water, which by the time it gets splashed around in the equipment wouldn't be boiling anymore anyway. Would not use it for plastic bottles as it will warp them. It won't damage plastic fermenters, but as I said less effective. 

A lot of us use a cleaner like sodium percarbonate, or unscented nappy soakers, to first clean the equipment, then rinse with hot water and spray with a no rinse sanitiser like starsan, stellarsan, iodophor etc. 

With bottles, you can simply rinse after emptying but I found this didn't effectively clean them; after a while they'd built up a hazy film inside them. After than I started soaking them in percarbonate after every use and that prevented the build up returning.

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14 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Proper cleaners and sanitisers are far more effective than boiling water, which by the time it gets splashed around in the equipment wouldn't be boiling anymore anyway. Would not use it for plastic bottles as it will warp them. It won't damage plastic fermenters, but as I said less effective. 

One thing I've often wondered about is pasterization vs boiling?  🤔    Holding items to be sterilised at 70-odd ºC for a short time and then cooling is supposed to pasterize ... but is that enough?  

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1 hour ago, David Martin said:

Hi Shamus

thanks for your input 

when you sanitise what brand do you use or the product name where to buy it

Hi David

I bought a generic Phosphoric Sanitiser from a Local Home Brew Shop (LHBS) in Boronia in Melbourne's east.  This is a no rinse sanitiser.  300ml bottle.  Use 1.5ml per Litre.  Forty brews in and I have used about 1/3 of the original bottle.  On brew day and bottle day I make up 1 Litre and put half into a garden spray bottle (good for coating the inside of the fermenter).  The rest to soak other stuff like the fermeter tap, funnels, spoons, bottle caps, etc.

For sodium percarbonate I use Aldi Di-San Oxy Laundry Soaker.  I use 5 tablespoons in a full Coopers fermenter for soaking purposes.

Cheers Shamus

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It may be because splashing boiling water around doesn't hold the temperature high enough for long enough. When you think about a no chill cube, it sits above 70 degrees for probably an hour or more so plenty of time. I know it doesn't need that long to pasteurise it but obviously they take a while to cool just left to sit.

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I don't use starsan or anything in them, just a perc soak after they're emptied and a hot tap water rinse out. In previous years I haven't even bothered soaking them, just rinsed thoroughly with hot water. Not had any issues except for one but I think that was because a tap I had in it didn't seal properly.

The whole point of putting the wort into the cube at above 80 degrees is to pasteurise it, so the temperature is probably a major contributor in eliminating as many bugs as possible, but only because it's held for some time. There's a reason cool wort isn't  put into cubes for storage even if they're sanitised first.

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Yep. I just sodium perc soak my cubes then rinse them out with the garden hose before draining and dropping hot wort in them. The only problem I've ever had is forgetting to invert one and ending up with some mould on the neck when I opened it (it got dumped). I drop my wort in at about 80C. 

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4 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I don't use starsan or anything in them, just a perc soak after they're emptied and a hot tap water rinse out. In previous years I haven't even bothered soaking them, just rinsed thoroughly with hot water. Not had any issues except for one but I think that was because a tap I had in it didn't seal properly.

The whole point of putting the wort into the cube at above 80 degrees is to pasteurise it, so the temperature is probably a major contributor in eliminating as many bugs as possible, but only because it's held for some time. There's a reason cool wort isn't  put into cubes for storage even if they're sanitised first.

Fair enough.  I should not comment on something when i do not really know what I  am talking about.  I had just assumed the cube would be sanitised and that sanitising would be the greatest contributor to keeping bugs at bay.

I tend to sanitise everything on brew day so when I advance to cubing for no-chill cooling, for the sake of a little bit of no rinse sanitiser, I reckon I would chuck some in and give it a swirl around.

Cheers Shane 

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I'm not suggesting you shouldn't use it on cubes, just that I haven't had any reason to personally.

Ironically that cube with the crappy tap seal I mentioned was the only one I did use starsan in. It got infected with acetobacter and blew the tap out of its thread the day before it was due to be pitched. Wort stinking of vinegar ended up all over the laundry floor. I had a starter of 1469 ready to go and the only other cube I had ready was a Bohemian pilsner, so it ended up being fermented with the 1469. 😂

I re-brewed the recipe some time later, that time it was fine and was fermented. Turned out really well too which made it worse that the other one was lost.

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I store mine for anywhere between a couple of days and a couple of months, sometimes longer. I've taken to boiling a full kettle and tipping that into the cubes, sealing the lid and rolling/shaking them around (releasing pressure as required) about 20 minutes before flameout, but otherwise no "chemicals" are used after the initial soaking.

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Hi OVB

I get it that your advice is based on your experience.  It is clear you are not saying don't use it in cubes, it's just that you do not and it has not been an issue.  Shame about the lost brew.  I am still a beginner brewer and have not lost one yet.  I rue the day when it does happen though.  I foresee some things being thrown.

Your kettle full of boiled water sounds like good practice.

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