DarrenTheDrunk
Well-Known Member
I just noticed that the post I put up has been locked and not open for further comment which I really don’t understand why and in fact if admin could explain this that would be much appreciated. I was asked a question about my post and felt a sense of duty to reply but clearly I couldn’t as it was locked. So I have started this new post just out of respect for all those who provided their input.
Well, thank you everybody for your input into this post and as I previously mentioned, it clearly turned out to be rather emotive. Whilst I say emotive, I do not detract from the point that much of it was factual.
As requested by “Paulyg” and in fairness to everybody, I will tell you where I’m at this particular stage with the following HUGE qualification. I am but an amateur brewer, have at times tried to learn too much too quick and as a result made many many mistakes. But for the help of GRMBLZ at the start and now DAZGORE, who clearly is nothing short of a scientist when it comes to homebrewing and it is entirely up to him, but he did send me some photos of his brew set up only because I asked I must say, and when you see this, you will understand what I mean about the term scientist. I forwarded these photos onto a friend who is not on the forum because I would not have forwarded them without his permission, and the friend was absolutely awestruck and whilst he never had an interest in homebrewing or at least what I was doing in that regard, because of these photos, I think he now is starting to get a little bit excited about the prospect. I did warn him however, to have a set up like DAZGORE, he would need a second or third mortgage to build such a system. It is just bloody amazing to say the least.
I still use chlorine, that is not bleach but in fact straight pool chlorine in a Granule formula to rinse my plastic fermenters but I now use it at a much much lower dose rate. I am very scientific in how I do this in that I I use a device called a “nose” only just barely want to smell chlorine once the fermenter is full and I leave it to sit for generally about an hour. This seems to be working very well indeed.
Many of you have pointed out the risks of using chlorine in stainless steel kegs and I am here to tell you that you are spot on. One of my old kegs that I purchased second hand recently managed to develop rust and some sort of white gunk around the joins and I’m not exactly sure whether there is anything I can do to recover that keg or I need to assign it to the scrapheap. If anybody has any suggestions on saving the keg, that would be appreciated. Also, is it still okay to use the keg in this state?
I now use star San for all future kegs and beer lines and it was through the advice of people on this site that I now understand that the cost is in fact not that high. You see I read on the star san bottle that surfaces must be exposed to it for a minute or two and therefore was thinking that everything needed to be full to the top and left sit for one minute. I now know that the surface just needs to be wet for one minute.
For my beer bottling, I get a bit lazy… Or is it pissed… And forget to rinse the bottles so clearly the bottom of the bottles become a petri dish of organisms. I rinse up a reasonably strong batch of chlorine and soak the bottles generally for an hour or two and the chlorine absolutely gets rid of all those organisms in the bottles.
I have posted a question privately to the scientist, who I now call the professor only today about transferring beer from my kegerator to bottles and then putting a cap on them if I want to take beer to a party or something. The question was, will this work and I opened this question up to the rest of this group to if I may.
So in conclusion, through the process of learning and deciphering wisdom from the posts, at this point in time I still use chlorine as well as star san. I think I also mentioned in some previous post that sodium metabisulphite which was once “the go” to sanitise for homebrewing many years ago is also a no rinse sanitiser and I can get a 20 kg bag of that for $50. That would last even a heavy brewer a life time and all for only $50.
Well, thank you everybody for your input into this post and as I previously mentioned, it clearly turned out to be rather emotive. Whilst I say emotive, I do not detract from the point that much of it was factual.
As requested by “Paulyg” and in fairness to everybody, I will tell you where I’m at this particular stage with the following HUGE qualification. I am but an amateur brewer, have at times tried to learn too much too quick and as a result made many many mistakes. But for the help of GRMBLZ at the start and now DAZGORE, who clearly is nothing short of a scientist when it comes to homebrewing and it is entirely up to him, but he did send me some photos of his brew set up only because I asked I must say, and when you see this, you will understand what I mean about the term scientist. I forwarded these photos onto a friend who is not on the forum because I would not have forwarded them without his permission, and the friend was absolutely awestruck and whilst he never had an interest in homebrewing or at least what I was doing in that regard, because of these photos, I think he now is starting to get a little bit excited about the prospect. I did warn him however, to have a set up like DAZGORE, he would need a second or third mortgage to build such a system. It is just bloody amazing to say the least.
I still use chlorine, that is not bleach but in fact straight pool chlorine in a Granule formula to rinse my plastic fermenters but I now use it at a much much lower dose rate. I am very scientific in how I do this in that I I use a device called a “nose” only just barely want to smell chlorine once the fermenter is full and I leave it to sit for generally about an hour. This seems to be working very well indeed.
Many of you have pointed out the risks of using chlorine in stainless steel kegs and I am here to tell you that you are spot on. One of my old kegs that I purchased second hand recently managed to develop rust and some sort of white gunk around the joins and I’m not exactly sure whether there is anything I can do to recover that keg or I need to assign it to the scrapheap. If anybody has any suggestions on saving the keg, that would be appreciated. Also, is it still okay to use the keg in this state?
I now use star San for all future kegs and beer lines and it was through the advice of people on this site that I now understand that the cost is in fact not that high. You see I read on the star san bottle that surfaces must be exposed to it for a minute or two and therefore was thinking that everything needed to be full to the top and left sit for one minute. I now know that the surface just needs to be wet for one minute.
For my beer bottling, I get a bit lazy… Or is it pissed… And forget to rinse the bottles so clearly the bottom of the bottles become a petri dish of organisms. I rinse up a reasonably strong batch of chlorine and soak the bottles generally for an hour or two and the chlorine absolutely gets rid of all those organisms in the bottles.
I have posted a question privately to the scientist, who I now call the professor only today about transferring beer from my kegerator to bottles and then putting a cap on them if I want to take beer to a party or something. The question was, will this work and I opened this question up to the rest of this group to if I may.
So in conclusion, through the process of learning and deciphering wisdom from the posts, at this point in time I still use chlorine as well as star san. I think I also mentioned in some previous post that sodium metabisulphite which was once “the go” to sanitise for homebrewing many years ago is also a no rinse sanitiser and I can get a 20 kg bag of that for $50. That would last even a heavy brewer a life time and all for only $50.
