Is Showering With Your Brewery Going Too Far?

[PistolPatch]

When not writing silly posts here or working myself to death, I have recently been putting some serious thought into how to manage space restrictions in my one bedroom apartment and, now that Ill be doing AG brews as well, water wastage. I would be extremely grateful if anyone could let me know if my brain, in this one area at least, is functioning correctly.

Dealing With Space Limitations

I have a huge shower in my one bedroom apartment (strange eh?) and seeing as I dont seem to be having any luck recently in tricking members of the opposite sex in joining me there, I was thinking I could use the shower area to not only do my cleaning etc., but also store my brewing equipment.

To do this I am envisaging using a plastic container like a 44 gallon drum with a sealable lid large enough so that a fermenter or a keg will fit fully inside the the container. I would fill this with about 200litres of no rinse sanitizer which hopefully I could re-use time and time again. (Not too sure on this).

Such a container would easily allow me to fully submerse all my brewing equipment, even my racking cane which would be great! Smaller items could be suspended in something like a grain bag.

During the week, I could just leave all my equipment in the drum of no rinse sanitizer at the other end of my shower. Maybe I could even store my S/S pots in there???

Saving Water

The recent, no chiller, post also started me thinking. As far as I can tell, I think I will have to use an immersion chiller given my physical and currently, mental conditions! LOL. Seriously though, as I have a pond pump, I was hoping that I could re-circulate the no rinse solution from the drum to cool my brew.

I know I briefly mentioned this idea in the no chiller, post but it was probably a little off topic for there.

I am thinking the above would have many advantages including the only water wastage being that used in actual cleaning.

Could you please give some feedback as to if this idea is OK to do until I can find a living thing to put in my shower?

If so, three questions I immediately have are

1. Can I maintain the correct no-rinse strength from week to week? Maybe I can use some sort of chemical test?
2. Can I leave S/S permanently in an iodine solution or any other sort of no-rinse solution?
3. Lets say I have a 200litre drum, any idea on what this amount of water at a starting temp of about 26 degrees would cool the brew too? (I cannot put a brew in my fridge.) At a huge guess, Id imagine that the brew would get down to about 35 degrees. Is there a quick electrical way of cooling the brew the last 15 degrees or so?

Many thanks,
PP

P.S. Im going back to bed again(!) but am hoping that later today Ill check here and find that this idea may actually have some good points. Ill be wrapped if it does.

 

[Pumpy]

Keep up the good work Pistolpatch , I cnt help you ,however I think you may be due for some councelling from Ross

pumpy

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Get a biger unit....

 

[tangent]

PP, i always thought brewing in the bathroom (where i brew) is excellent! you can hose everything out if you like
blocks of ice work well
sell your washing mashine, use the laundromat and put another fridge in the space that the washing machine took up.
move into a house with a nice chick.

 

[spog]

i showers with me friends(just dont tell em its beer)

 

[Stuster]

PP

I think that keeping the non-rinse sanitiser in there for weeks on end won't really work. The consensus from Brissybrew's experiments thread was that iodophor does not keep well at room temperature. Other non-sterilisers may work though.

Why not just use a drum to keep all your stuff, but not keep it full of water. You could fill it up with water at the start of the brew day and add non-rinse sanitiser. Use for all your tasks, then when it comes time to chill the wort, pump this water through a chiller, but instead of recirculating it use the water coming out for clean up. I find that there are quite a few things to clean up with AG , so this will still be a good use of the water. If all you use in a days brewing is that water you are doing well. The average water usage per day is apparently 340 litres per day.

A ten minute shower uses 200 litres of water, so if you share that shower with somebody, you can feel ok about using 200 litres to brew.

 

[ausdb]

2. Can I leave S/S permanently in an iodine solution or any other sort of no-rinse solution?
3. Lets say I have a 200litre drum, any idea on what this amount of water at a starting temp of about 26 degrees would cool the brew too? (I cannot put a brew in my fridge.) At a huge guess, Id imagine that the brew would get down to about 35 degrees. Is there a quick electrical way of cooling the brew the last 15 degrees or so?

[post="115122"][/post]​

2 Not sure if this helps you much but I left a S/S braid manifold with a piece of copper tubing attached in some 1shot (phosphoric acid based sanitiser) for about a week recently. The copper had a nice green layer of verdigris on it and so did the S/S braid so I would be careful of mixing my metals if you leave it in something for a long time. (I ditched that manifold as I couldn't clean the green crap from the inside of it.

3 A peltier device may help, do some googling they seem to be able to maintain about 12K below ambient but take a long time to actually cool something down.

 

[PistolPatch]

Thanks for the replies so far. Mind you if they continue along the current line I'll have to ask a mod to move this thread to 'Humour and Jokes!' Don't worry I've certainly had a good laugh! If a few more serious answers come in though, I certainly won't be knocking them back!

Pumpy, Thanks mate. I probably need counselling from Ross and a mental health professional! Ducati LOL! This is the smallest place I've ever lived in and I suspect wherever I live, there will never be enough space for brewing! (See what Tangent said!)! Spog Good on ya - I won't tell!

Tangent! I do find the shower a godsend for my current brewing. Have even fitted one of those shower nozzles on the long hose - brilliant! I even had the thought of actually being able to do put my gas burner in there but thankfully this thought was only very brief! (See Mental Health Professional note!) Whilst your last bit of advice is probably the easiest solution, I will not be so easily distracted from my current mission! I just love a challenge. Imagine finding a girlfriend who will shower with you and your brewery!

Stuster Thanks for the serious consideration! I was really hoping some chemist here would pipe up with a solution as to how to maintain such a volume of no rinse as there would be many advantages such as being able to entirely submerse large or long equipment. Alas, so far, I am thinking the same as you.

But hearing your figures makes me feel a little better about tipping water down the drain. I'm pretty sure I will buy the 44 and store dry, as you say. I'm only a little bit of a greenie so I would not go to the extent of using the water to clean. I don't use much from the shower anyway (microfibre cloths are definitely the go in cleaning - from Bunnings or supermarkets.) As for your final suggestion, a girlfriend who will shower with me and help me brew! Now you're thinking.

Seriously...

Finding a solution to maintaining a large volume of no-rinse solution from week to week and storing equipment in this solution would surely benefit all brewers regardless of where they live. Recently, storing small volumes has been discussed as mentioned by Stuster but I haven't noticed any discussion on larger volumes such as 2-300 litres.

I work in the building trade and whenever we have a problem, I joke and say, "Can we fix it?" Everyone then says, "Yes we can!"

So all you clever AHB'ers, "Can we work out a way of maintaining large volumes of no-rinse sanitiser?"

In fact, I think that I'll start another thread (will put the thread in here once written) with a slighly more apt title as thanks to all of you above, esp. Stuster, I think I have realised that answering the large volume no-rinse question is most important for now.

So if anyone has any ideas on the no-rinse bit it is probably better to post them in the thread I will link above. Girlfriend and shower jokes should remain here and if anyone does have any ideas on the temperature or stainless steel (questions 2 and 3 in my original post) I'd still be very grateful for any answers to be posted here as well. (Just noticed Ausdb's post. Ausdb, you're a mind-reader and will give your post my full concentration asap - not tonight though!!

 

[tangent]

you're that bloke that talks alot in the pub aren't you!?
I've met you before

 

[PistolPatch]

Wally Never thought about that - I might! No 12 resident. Wonder if she likes beer?

Tangent Who? Me? The funniest thing is that if you met me in real life I'm pretty subdued with people I haven't met. Once people get to know me then I'll perhaps tell a few stories and crack a few jokes but I never talk incessantly. You'd never know from my posts here though, eh? God knows what Ross was expecting would arrive the other day when I rolled up! I actually told him to tell the other AHB'ers at their luch today that I was pretty normal in real life! Now, have I told you about...

 

[JasonY]

PP I can't seem to undersatnd why you want to have 200 - 300L of no-rinse sanitiser stored (or made up for that matter). If you are using an imersion chiller then there is no need to run sanitiser through it, use water save money and chemicals.

I wouldnt store my brewing gear in my shower, apart from the obvious questoins people have when they come over the extra moisture in the environment is bound to promote more bugs.

 

[Boozy the clown]

As long as you dont point out that you are talking in italics or even underlined, you'd go pretty unnoticed. Most boozies I drink with talk like this when they are in the swing of things.

All we need is a "Full of ****" denotification...


Worst of all... Yank drunks

Who talk like this...

 

[PistolPatch]

OK, geting tired now so won't respond to everyone and won't post my new topic as yet. Before I go to bed though I'll just say thanks to Jason...

JasonY Sorry Jase, I probably haven't made my goals clear and with all the laughs interspersed here, including mine, the main aims may have been lost. I'm going to very quickly convey how my thinking on this subject developed...

My original problem to solve was storage. So I thought, a 44 gallon plastic container would hold all my gear neatly between brew days which is quite important in my situation*. I then thought that such a large container would be great for sanitising as I could dip fermenters, kegs and auto-syphons in it. I obviously thought then that such a large volume of no-rinse would be of some cost. On re-reading some advice from Pint and seeing Ross's no-rinse at 1ml per litre, I thought 200 litres of no-rinse will cost only $3. Cool! Then I further thought that Ross used about 100 litres of dam water to cool a brew so I could possibly use 200 litres of no-rinse (the fact that it is sterilised is, as you say, irrelevant) to cool my brew. My final thought was that being able to return the water from the chiller to the drum would save 200 litres of water and give me huge convenience. All I'd need to do on next brew day would be to add a little chemical to my drum to restore the sanitiser to the proper level. A 'closed' system as they say.

And the idea of a drum sitting in the shower all week does not give me any pleasure either! I'm actaully pretty fastidious on cleanliness. So container would definitley be sealed between brews and the outside cleaned thoroughly, along with my shower just before opening on the next brew day. The container I envisage, looks like a huge plastic fermenter. I'd probably dump the no-rinse once a month as well.

I've been playing with this idea for quite a while and cannot see any holes in it so far. It's basically asking, how to use the least amount of water to clean and sanitise although the way I framed the question originally was probably mis-leading.

I'd be extremely grateful Jase, if you could let me know if the above clarifies what I'm asking. In my early days of posting somone abused me for not giving enough detail. I think this may have stuck with me!

* You can't have company tripping over fermenters and kegs on their way to the bathroom when you're in a one bedroom apartment.

And, Boozy, go to bed, you're just confusing me now! LOL!

 

[pint of lager]

PP, have another read of the iodophor thread.

At the correct concentration and contact time, it is effective against 99.9% of bugs.

After the solution is used, it would be almost impossible to ascertain how much top up iodine you would need to bring the drum back to the correct concentration.

If the solution is weak it is ineffective, and you may breed a super bug. If it is too strong, I am sure I read that it is also not as effective.

Also, the carrier molecule for iodine, once the iodine is released, provides nutrient for bugs.

There are other no rinse sanitisers around, such as phosphoric acid, but long term exposure to this may deteriorate your plastics.

Much better practise to use a fresh solution and throw it out.

 

[PistolPatch]

Now that definitively answers my question! A little dissapointing though it may be, thanks, as now I won't waste any more time thinking on it.

As usual, good on you Pint!

Thanks to everyone else too for either the laughs or the good advice.

The other questions I had here now are irrelevant so maybe Pint could move all this to Humour and Jokes now? LOL!

:beer:

 

[lucas]

PP, have another read of the iodophor thread.

At the correct concentration and contact time, it is effective against 99.9% of bugs.

After the solution is used, it would be almost impossible to ascertain how much top up iodine you would need to bring the drum back to the correct concentration.

If the solution is weak it is ineffective, and you may breed a super bug. If it is too strong, I am sure I read that it is also not as effective.

Also, the carrier molecule for iodine, once the iodine is released, provides nutrient for bugs.

There are other no rinse sanitisers around, such as phosphoric acid, but long term exposure to this may deteriorate your plastics.

Much better practise to use a fresh solution and throw it out.

[post="115301"][/post]​

Am I mistaken in believing iodophor is just iodine and phosphoric acid? and hence would have the same or similar effect on plastic as plain phosphoric acid?

 

[pint of lager]

Sorry about that, well spotted.

Iodine by itself is a gas. It is bound with a carrier molecule so that it stays in solution.

Iodophor is povidone-Iodine and phosphoric acid. Different companies call it different names, Iosan is another name.

Betadine, and other iodine based antiseptic solutions contain povidone-iodine.

Both would suffer from iodine being lost during sanitising and pumping.

 

[PistolPatch]

Pint, you are a brewing encyclopedia! I am actually totally dumb-founded by the depth of knowledge displayed in your last two posts and am starting to think you are supernatural! Just sent a donation to Dane today. I think I better send another so he can bribe you to stay, 'on tap.' My goodness!

I better go now as I'm writing an email to an AHB'er and using all your advice. Email is great for me as I just copy and paste all your info, give you no credit and it makes me look good.

P.S. I am actually doing the above and, as you well know, I do give you credit whether in PM's or emails! Couldn't resist the above though. I mean, this thread has now been put in Humour and Jokes.

...Hasn't it?

 

[jgriffin]

You know i've considered similar ideas before (the large storage of santiser), while i'm pretty sure taht Phos Acid is stable (and could easily be topped up) i really worry about ending up breedding super bugs that become immune to sanitation.

 

[poppa joe]

I think iodophur should be used and discarded....Only just started using it...Poured some back into a clean 2 lt bottle after using it for sterilyzing
stubbies(already cleaned not grotty) THe growth in the 2 lt after a few days was like you get i n a bottle that has been left with a little beer in it for a while...slimy crud....
Cheers
PJ