Bleach

[Deerhunter]

Can I use bleach to sanitize my fermentation buckets and equipment. If not, what would you recommend. I remember 20 years ago when I brewed a few batches of beer I used iodine which was included in the kits back then. Now I see they use some type of powder.

[S-Cackalacky]

Not sure about the bleach. I'm sure it's been mentioned here before and if you do some searches you might find something. I think these days the go to sanitizer is StarSan. It's a liquid you add to water and a little bit goes a long way. It's also a no rinse sanitizer. You can buy it at the home brew store or order it online at ebay or Amazon and probably any online brew supply site.

[sdpoage]

I use bleach to clean everything but the still. Rinse really good and shouldn't have any problems.

[pfshine]

If I get a bad infection or if it has sat a while, I bleach the bejesus out of it and rinse and rinse and rinse and repeat. No problem with the next batches at all.

[bitter]

I would like to add if you use bleach ensure it has no scents etc.. Rather than bleech I perfur the pink or white power used for wine makeing but it does require rinsing.... but as said above starsan rocks! I recently started using starsan and its so much easier!

B

[Deerhunter]

That's what I saw for sale on most distillers websites. I guess I'll order some of that. But in the mean time for cleaning my old buckets I'll use bleach the first time around. I remember when I used the iodine you really had to rinse your equipment quite a few times.

[bearriver]

I wouldn't let bleach touch stainless or copper

[Deerhunter]

I agree with you on that. Extremely corrosive. This is only used to sanitize my fermenting buckets and utensils. Not to be mistaken with doing a cleaning run on a still.

[ranger_ric]

I use pool water to cool my Liebig.. The pool pump is running anyway. I also sanitize my transfer buckets with pool water. a little bit of bleach goes a long way in killing the invisible army. As far as bleach on copper, ALL pools used to be plumbed with copper and most pool heaters have copper heat transfers. As long as your pH is good it isnt that corrosive as long as you are under 5ppm or so. In fact most pool heater warranties dont mention chlorine but will void your warranty if the pH gets out of whack.
I might be leery around stainless, I never studied up on that.

[cranky]

I use an iodophor (Iodine) which you can mix for either no rinse sanitizing or mix like I do for hospital sterile but I think you can't use it on stainless steel like you can with star san. I personally don't like using bleach but have no reason why.

[InglisHill]

Can't remember when I last sanatised a fermenter. I usually clean them out straight away or leave the airtight lid on till I get around to it. Rinse it, throw some hot water from the tap in for another rinse then use it. No problems in years of doing it.

[BentJar]

Spray cleaners with bleach from the gro. store works for me.

[bearriver]

Bleach will damage the anti corrosive layer on the surface of stainless steel. Once it gets to a point, rust will ensue and you will have to passivated the stainless again. It may work for you, but advising others to use it puts their equipment at risk for damages. There is a large amount of alternatives to bleach for use on SS that are cheap and readily available...

However, diluted bleach is fine with copper and is often used in recirc condensers to keep the water from getting funky when stored. Other than that, I see it as an inferior choice for maintaining distillation equipment. Just my .02

[humbledore]

+1 to what pfshine said, if you get an infection, bleach is the thing to use, fill the bucket with water and strong bleach and let it sit. In brewing I've known some to throw out infected buckets rather than try to save them. I haven't had many infections, but lately I've had a few. I've got a bucket soaking in bleach right now. For cleaning just use oxyclean. Or you can make homemade PBW which I do. I posted that link here somewhere. Two parts oxyclean free to one part Red Devil TSP 90 phosphate free.

Edit: I guess that's for cleaning not sanitizing. I use StarSan for that.

[InglisHill]

Sodium per carbonate, I think that is what most of those cleaners are.

You might be able to buy it in bulk someplace way cheaper.

Just a thought.

[NZChris]

I use it for cheese, but not for brewing. It has to be thoroughly flushed out of brewing equipment as residue results in soapy flavors.

[woodshed]

Sodium percarbonate aka Oxyclean will clean and sanitize anything in your brew setup. Get it with no additives of course and limit contact with stainless. Or spend your money on Star San instead of grain.

[ranger_ric]

I defer to Bear River on Bleach and Stainless...
I am not sure what I am going to do when I finish studying on my new still build.. I want to put copper around the vapor but Stainless in the condensor but the pool works so well for cooling that I am in a conundrum.... Can I cool a stainless condenser with my pool water????
My pH is almost always 7.4 and Free Chlorine is between 3 and 6ppm.... What to do???? I guess study some more..

[moosemilk]

I use bleach in my pails only if I have to. The way I see it, if I have to rinse it out, I use tap water, and any sterilizing I just did is totally nul and void...my tap water is clean, but you never know...could be something on the faucet, something that snuck through, etc. Local stores where I am have very little, not even starsan. Haven't had a major infection yet with anything I make distilling. I did have an infection on a beer, and everything was sterilized well with bleach.

My still just gets a good rinse after each run, and I blast some through my lyne and worm as well. If I have to clean it, vinegar run if it's bad, or just some diluted foreshots (work great cleaning after doing a bunch of rum runs).

[bearriver]

Ranger, stainless doesn't rust and fall apart under the chlorine ppm levels in tap water. From the Australian Stainless Steel Development Association . "Chlorine is bleach and stainless steels can only tolerate exposure to a few ppm continuously."

Source: http://www.assda.asn.au/component/conte ... ent-effect" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

If your pool chlorine levels are the recommended ppm of 2.0 to a max of 3.0, I would venture to guess that the stainless will be just fine. You can always run a test with pool water and a SS bolt to be certain.

My concern is for what gets suggested. Someone may stop at "bleach is fine", then go home and wreck a new stock pot. Bleach can be fine depending on what you use it on, and how you use it.

[Hound Dog]

Ranger-Ric, try taking a peice of CSST and tossing it in your pool for a week or two. Maybe put it in your strainer where it will get a constant flow of water across it and let us know how it looks. If it is undamaged, proceed!

Edit: Hmmm. I guess that's the same thing Bear was saying with the bolt....

[Greig56]

Can't remember when I last sanatised a fermenter. I usually clean them out straight away or leave the airtight lid on till I get around to it. Rinse it, throw some hot water from the tap in for another rinse then use it. No problems in years of doing it.

I'll pass on a story. As a brewer, doing time (Dang and well paid for it!) in the second land of Beer -Germany, Belguim is 1st! There are more than one or three 'house breweries' basically no more than a Gasthaus w a long long grandfathered 'ticket/right' to brew on site for their own Pub! Old School Home-Boys!
They are known around their area for their own House Flavour! No wonder and this however is because they are intrinsically if that's the right term here infected! Infected and they are going to stay that way unless someone at the helm is going to take the bull by the horns and make it so! If you want a generational flavour fine but an infected beer/wine/spirit will show itself as infected generally in more than one way or the other! YUCK!!
In Brewing same as in wine making cleanliness is next to Godliness! I should expect doing this activity it should be much the same! As in Brewing you can re-use your lees for your next batch -well just a few times really but you need be filling it with fresh new wort as soon as you siphon off what you're bottling or putting out as draught. If you let it sit aside even for the shortest while you are going to get infected!!!! Same reason either sport, with a fresh yeast you make a starter to get the yeast you want to make use of to refresh and populate that it will overpopulate that what you DON'T WANT to flourish!!

If you don't clean it you're going to pay for it! All those pink/white powders are the same as bleach just arriving powdered! It's not if you use it but when you use it you need to rinse rinse and rinse again! A nessessary right of passage, no more no less!!

[Hound Dog]

Hey RR, did you ever check and see if your pool water damaged the SS?

[ranger_ric]

No HoundDog, I dont have a piece of SS laying around to try. I will keep my eyes peeled for a piece of scrap around here. I have been to the Lowes a few times but I always forget to grap a SS nut or bolt.. Thanks for the reminder...

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Hey RR, did you ever check and see if your pool water damaged the SS?

Fwiw: A while back I had the "joy" of installing a great deal of new heat exchangers for a city swimming pool (chlorinated) All the new exchangers were 100% stainless.

[yeast]

There are many kinds of ss, some with almost no iron. However bleach is very effective even at low concentrations. If you're really concerned, boiling water kills most things.

[bentstick]

Was passed on in another forum 500 ml of water add 1/4 teaspoon of bleach, mix well let set! Add 1/4 tsp vineagar put in a spray bottle for sanitizing! Cheap easy and available ingredients available in house,it is good for 24 hrs in bottle but is a no rinse sanitizer,have been using it for 2 yrs and no issues yet! Just dont mix the bleach and vineagar together please it will not be a good result!

[andybear]

I defer to Bear River on Bleach and Stainless...
I am not sure what I am going to do when I finish studying on my new still build.. I want to put copper around the vapor but Stainless in the condensor but the pool works so well for cooling that I am in a conundrum.... Can I cool a stainless condenser with my pool water????
My pH is almost always 7.4 and Free Chlorine is between 3 and 6ppm.... What to do???? I guess study some more..

Hey Ranger_ric, where I used to work there was great concern using normal grades of SS in services that had elevated temps above 55deg C and contained Chlorides (salt). I don’t know the effect of Chlorine vs Chloride. You can google Stress Corrosion Cracking in SS. We had to use really fancy SS that cost about 7 times the price of 316SS. Metals like Super Duplex SS , or Moly 6 SS. Okay if you’ve got money like an oil company has, but not realistic for us. And I don’t know of the effects on copper either. BTW is there salt in your pool?
You could design a recirc system that uses fresh water and cool it with a radiator in the pool, this way you won’t need additional water storage and you won’t have chorine at your still.

[corene1]

Interesting post. I have used bleach water to clean my fermenters and wash down my boiler for a couple of years now with no bad effects on the stainless. typically my wash water is about 2 ounces of bleach per 2 gallons of water, then rinse thoroughly, and my boiler is made of 304 stainless. I will grab a piece of stainless from work and soak it in a bleach solution for a few weeks. we have a few grades so it will be interesting to see what happens. Just thinking we used bleach water to clean my friends boat after tuna fishing also. lots of stainless on it also.

[Danespirit]

Only thing i use bleach for, are my fermentation jugs.
Of course they are flushed with luke warm water afterwards.
My still is stainless and i never distill with solids in it.
After finishing a run, i drain it and flush it with water.
That's all it takes as it is already sanitized from both stillcharge and the heat applied.
Nothing on earths surface survives that and i don't have them prokaryots living near the "smokers" in the ocean...they can live in 400 C water.
Some stainless grades can rust, as seen in the pools.
Typical they rust on and nearby a welding. That happens when it's not treated after welding.
Same thing with what is called "marine grade" (AISI 316).
Correctly treated after welding, it will be just fine.