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Cleaning with bleach?


King Ruddager

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I've got some second-hand bottles which I want to give a good proper clean before bottling and all I have at my disposal is bleach. Questions:

  1. What concentration?
  2. How long?

After bleaching I'll be rinsing and Starsaning for good measure, I just hope I can get it all done tonight.

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i clean everything with bleach now.

 

I had a couple of brews that went went bad due to infections and i am super anal with cleanliness.

 

I buy a bottle of white king unscented bleach and soak everything overnight in my FV with a decent splash of bleach. It foams up just like starsan. Then rinse with starsan.

 

My bottle cleaning now involves soaking in a fairly strong bleach concoction with the coopers sanitiser(afew hours before i intend to bottle), then i rinse it all with fresh water properly and into a weaker starsan mixture, then rinse again and bottle. I just shake out the extra water and dont even wait for the bottles to dry before bottling.

 

Hope this helps abit. I dont bother measuring out the bleach, just give a good lug of it into your water. Ive never tasted any bleach leftovers in my final beer, so i guess just amke sure you rinse out all of the bleach before bottling/brewing.

 

 

 

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G'day KR

 

I sometimes like to use bleach too instead of sodium percarbonate. When I do a 24 hour or overnight soak, I do one cup of bleach to the 25 litre fermenter. For a quicker result, I'd do 2 cups in a fermenter filled with water. Just make sure to rinse the bottles sufficiently to get rid of the chlorine smell - it may need 2 or 3 rinses.

 

Cheers

 

Ooops. It looks like A-man is getting as quick on the keyboard as some other people in here who shall remain nameless.

 

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Yep, as strong as you like if you are going to rinse it properly. I buy pool chlorine as it is the same stuff, only a much stronger concentration. It works out much cheaper in comparison.

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I recently spent $76 and bought myself one of these-

http://www.bunnings.com.au/vax-1200w-grime-master-handheld-steam-cleaner-_p4610060

and believe me it is the best $76 I have ever spent,not only is it great for getting rid of soap scum off the shower and around the house but it has made the job of cleaning the home brew stuff so much easier,I use it to clean the FV before a brew (I usually take the FV outside after a brew and hose it out) then before the next brew I use the steam cleaner then I just fill it with water and add the recommended dose of napisan and leave overnight ,I don't bother to rinse it out,I have never had a problem with infections or anything since using this procedure,the steam cleaner is great for spoons etc ,a great buy I reckon and quite cheap too.

And if like me you hate cleaning the oven this is the best thing for that job too!.

Cheers

N'oz

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I've got some second-hand bottles which I want to give a good proper clean before bottling and all I have at my disposal is bleach. Questions:

  1. What concentration?
  2. How long?

After bleaching I'll be rinsing and Starsaning for good measure' date=' I just hope I can get it all done tonight.[/quote']

 

I used to use bleach exclusively until I started using starsan and I never had an infection. I used the concentration that Palmer suggests of 4mL per litre and let it sit for 30 mins. Apparently at this concentration you don't need to rinse but I always rinsed like hell.

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I used to use bleach also.

I then had a beer - it was a wheat - with fecking horrid chlorophenol flavours.

I now use a starsan like product for sanitising.

Cleaning is done almost exclusively with hot water.

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I used to use bleach exclusively until I started using starsan and I never had an infection. I used the concentration that Palmer suggests of 4mL per litre and let it sit for 30 mins. Apparently at this concentration you don't need to rinse but I always rinsed like hell.

This was exactly what I was looking for - I thought I'd read something on that site.

 

As it turns out, though, it didn't work very well. Still got a few bottles with bits of stuff in them, and one with a massive blob of goo. I think I'll need a brush to shift them. Oh well.

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Hey Your Majesty, I also use bleach to clean bottles I acquire. There is no specific measurement, just a decent slop into a 40 litre bucket & an overnight soak.

 

Get yourself a bottle brush with a long shaft. I cut the handle off one of mine & stuck it in the cordless drill & use that for giving them a good scrub out.

 

Then give them a good rinse with water

 

Works a charm & dead easy. coolsmile

 

 

p.s. They get the starsan treatment on bottling day.

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I generally wash out my FV with Coles brand sensitive napisan equivalent, and let it soak for an hour or more.

Usually just one or two scoops or lid fulls in about 25 litres of water.

 

After that I use the tube in the tap of the FV to pour the cleaning solution into my next batch of rinsed bottles, and let them soak for a while - maybe an hour or more depending on what else I'm doing.

After that I rinse the FV, then put in about a cup of Coles brand unscented bleach, and again leave this for an hour or more; usually about a cup of bleach to 25 litres water.

I may then empty the bottles and fill them with the diluted bleach from the FV, and leave them for some time; sometimes even weeks.

I then rinse the FV again with water to get rid of any residual bleach smell; and may leave the water for some time to absorb any residual odour.

 

If I'm brewing again the same day, I'll rinse the bottles out and fill them with water and seal them (to keep the nasties out, and to keep them from deforming from atmospheric pressure).

If not, I leave them with the bleach in until the day I'm next bottling, or some time before, and fill them with water after emptying.

 

When I get to bottling, I empty the water from the bottles, then drop in the carb drops prior to filling; as I find this easier than dropping the carb drops into bottles with beer in them, as it's less messy.

This way the bottles are never sitting around empty without lids on, and are less likely to get deformed from changing temps.

I don't have a bottle tree or a place to put it, and the only time I have empty bottles sitting around is after drinking them and before I get around to prepping them for the next batch; usually only about 30 empties sitting around for a month or so.

 

If it turns out I'm not going to brew for a while, then I just make sure I clean thoroughly, keep the lid on the FV, and then give it a brief soak in bleach then rinse prior to making up a batch.

 

I should mention also that I soak all my gear in a bucket, or sometimes in the FV, and I make sure I remove the tap and give that a good wash and bleach soak; it's a great place for nasties to hide, and I often find that the yeast migrates to the tap when the sediment drops.

 

I'm pretty big on hygiene, possibly leaning towards excessive and obsessive, but I'd rather that than lose a batch that I work hard on trying to get right.

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