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Damn Hurricane flooded us out last month, had 2 feet of water in my shop. Had a pile of fermenters and buckets, pails and jugs floating every where, still head fell over off the box it was on and was submerged for a week almost. I was working on the house and just got the weekend to go out and clean the shop. What a mess, I washed and resterilised all of my stuff except my still which leads me to a question that I want to be sure of. Floodwater is nasty as hell, should the normal first run cleanout proceedure be good enough to get out the dirt and bacteria and such? I plan on running some vinegar through the still then water run with no cooling to steam it and then a tails run that I don't mind tossing. Good enough? Any body know of anything else I should be doing or concerned about?

trthskr4 wrote:Damn Hurricane flooded us out last month, had 2 feet of water in my shop. Had a pile of fermenters and buckets, pails and jugs floating every where, still head fell over off the box it was on and was submerged for a week almost. I was working on the house and just got the weekend to go out and clean the shop. What a mess, I washed and resterilised all of my stuff except my still which leads me to a question that I want to be sure of. Floodwater is nasty as hell, should the normal first run cleanout proceedure be good enough to get out the dirt and bacteria and such? I plan on running some vinegar through the still then water run with no cooling to steam it and then a tails run that I don't mind tossing. Good enough? Any body know of anything else I should be doing or concerned about?

That was really bad luck......ethanol is pretty self sterilizing and corrosive so it sounds like you've got a good plan. If you've got any packing it wouldn't hurt to remove and replace it. I know muddy water will get in just about everywhere. Good luck to you, hope it comes out clean as can be.

trthskr4 wrote:What a mess, I washed and resterilised all of my stuff except my still which leads me to a question that I want to be sure of. Floodwater is nasty as hell, should the normal first run cleanout proceedure be good enough to get out the dirt and bacteria and such? I plan on running some vinegar through the still then water run with no cooling to steam it and then a tails run that I don't mind tossing. Good enough? Any body know of anything else I should be doing or concerned about?

Hot, high strength ethanol will kill anything. Just the heat alone will sterilise the still, though you might still have to physically remove some crap like mud, etc.

Sorry to hear you got flooded, glad the damage wasn't as severe as it could have been.

Seems like a lot of us went through the ringer this year with weather events.

Thanks guys, I thought I was on the right track but sometimes I overlook the obvious so I needed some reassurance.

UJ, yeah the prohibition gods must be angry with us and taking revenge huh? Screw em, I'm getting back to it soon so I say "Bring it on".