Sterilizing

[KegLand-com-au]

I feel that by discrediting a low cost solution proven to be effective by many home brewers over the years and instead peddling a product of your own, you are just discrediting yourself. Aside from this, isn’t active peddling of ones wares in every single thread concerning products that they sell against the forum rules? Or is this allowed for this particular retailer? I’m fairly certain if brewman or one of the others did this, they would be promptly handed a ban or at the very least a stern warning

Thanks for that. Your point is duely noted. I would only want to comment on a forum if the information we bring to the table is valuable to other readers.

As you know we sell pure sodium percarbonate as you can see here. So by all means it's not in our interest to discredit a low cost solution that we also sell ourselves. We provide sodium percarbonate because customers want to purchase it. With that said we also feel that better forumations exist as well.

When we say people are using Milton tablets this definitely was a concern as it was a product that we feared would contain Chlorine. As MHB as confirmed with the MSDS (Thanks for that Mark). It does contain chlorine. Is this not constructive for us to establish these facts?

At the time of this post we have received 257 likes to 416 messages that we have posted. This 62% like rate might indicate that the majority of people like our posts. With that said if people don't like our engagement in the forum then we would be more than happy not to engage.

What do you guys think? If you do not want us not to comment on this thread of sterilizing just let us know and we would be more than happy to leave this thread alone.

 

[Thomas Wood]

What do you guys think? If you do not want us not to comment on this thread of sterilizing just let us know and we would be more than happy to leave this thread alone.

You provided a 20min informative video in a relevant thread. I have no problem with you also linking to your wares in the same post as it's still relevant and you have provided something of use to the community. Call it a trade

 

[Nullnvoid]

I think what you are doing is fine. You are providing factual information and answering questions relevant to the topics. What I would say again though is perhaps you don't need to spam so many threads, ie posting the same sterilising video in every thread relevant. Just the once would be sufficient.

Only my opinion though.

 

[ShonkytonkBrewer]

Yeah keep it coming

It's good to still get some decent knowledge on here.

Mind you your also often the impetus for troll responses. Which is fine and often entertaining.

After all...I come here for the drama, I go to the other forum for knowledge and expertise. You should come on over, you'd fit right in

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I think what you are doing is fine. You are providing factual information and answering questions relevant to the topics. What I would say again though is perhaps you don't need to spam so many threads, ie posting the same sterilising video in every thread relevant. Just the once would be sufficient.

Only my opinion though.

Great. That sounds like a good idea. We will keep the sanitising and cleaning information to this particular thread so we do not double up in other threads.

 

[fungrel]

Great. That sounds like a good idea. We will keep the sanitising and cleaning information to this particular thread so we do not double up in other threads.

I think people have an issue on the mobile app because the app takes the last posted image/vid an uses it as the banner. Therefore it can look like you're spamming, even though you may have posted the same content weeks apart.

 

[Courtney Scott]

Not really, immediately after rinsing my kegs with boiling water, I seal them, purge them a few times with co2 and they remain sealed. I fill them straight away and I don't open them to fill, they're filled through the beer out post.

The fermenters are also rinsed with boiling water and sealed until I fill them, which is very soon after and they do have to be opened, but the length of time that they're exposed is only a few minutes, I'm satisfied that the risk, while not zero, is certainly minimal.

This sounds like a good method might have to give it a crack.

 

[Bogchops]

I used to try everything when I lived in North Qld and I was on rain water and/or creek water and no matter what I tried I couldn't get everything sterile enough. Eventually. I started throwing everything into the dishwasher and running a full cycle but fill the detergent dispenser with liquid chlorine. The dishwasher would provide a fantastic environment for circulating the fumes and sterilizing the bottles and would also rinse everything perfectly so there'd be no residue. I never had another bad batch from that moment on and if I still had to brew with dodgy water, that's probably what I'd do again. (And no - the chlorine didn't stuff up the dishwasher like I know someone is gonna say...)
Now I'm in Brisbane though, I just use Stellar-San because there are no water issues, at under $10/500ml it's dirt cheap and it's as easy as anything to use.
StarSan is the same stuff at more than double the price

 

[KegLand-com-au]

This sounds like a good method might have to give it a crack.

That's not a bad method. I would also agree that if you can avoid opening the kegs prior to filling that is the ideal scenario.

If I have the time I fill the keg full with StellarSan then use CO2 to dispence the sanitiser into another keg. This will get the best possible purge when the CO2 is displacing liquid.

I know a lot of people pull the pressure relief a few times to purge CO2 and this helps but to get O2 in the keg and it's better than nothing but to get really low O2 you have to use a lot of CO2 to get down to the desired levels. Commecially speaking if you achieve 0.1% O2 in the head space of your keg this would be considered quite high.

If you wanted to dilute the O2 in the 20L keg down to 0.1% you would have to use 3800Liters to dilute the O2 down to this level. So the cost in CO2 would be more than the cost of making the beer. If you diplace liquid sanitiser from the keg you can easily achieve lower O2 in the keg than 0.1%.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

That's not a bad method. I would also agree that if you can avoid opening the kegs prior to filling that is the ideal scenario.

If I have the time I fill the keg full with StellarSan then use CO2 to dispence the sanitiser into another keg. This will get the best possible purge when the CO2 is displacing liquid.

I know a lot of people pull the pressure relief a few times to purge CO2 and this helps but to get O2 in the keg and it's better than nothing but to get really low O2 you have to use a lot of CO2 to get down to the desired levels. Commecially speaking if you achieve 0.1% O2 in the head space of your keg this would be considered quite high.

If you wanted to dilute the O2 in the 20L keg down to 0.1% you would have to use 3800Liters to dilute the O2 down to this level. So the cost in CO2 would be more than the cost of making the beer. If you diplace liquid sanitiser from the keg you can easily achieve lower O2 in the keg than 0.1%.

I've read that other people do this also and while it might get you the best possible purge of O2, you'll also have 100+ mls of sanitiser left in your keg before filling.
I'm happy to run the very low risk of O2 affecting my beer, than be consuming sanitiser every time I have a beer.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I think it speaks volumes just the fact that Phosphoric sanitisers aren't used commercially in AU/NZ and in the EU countries.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

I just cleaned out one of my empty kegs and measured the liquid below the dip tube.

In this particular keg there's 200ml left behind. That would be sanitiser, if someone used the method recommended by KegLand above.

It's certainly not a method that I'll be using anytime soon.

 

[Thomas Wood]

In this particular keg there's 200ml left behind. That would be sanitiser, if someone used the method recommended by KegLand above.

Isn't 200ml of heavily diluted no-rinse sanitiser negligible when adding 19L of beer on top?

 

[Rocker1986]

Probably, but you could just as easily use the method with water.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Isn't 200ml of heavily diluted no-rinse sanitiser negligible when adding 19L of beer on top?

That is the question, who knows. Dodecylbenzine is my stumbling block, though I have used the Phosphoric sanitiser containing the latter on my plant pots and just let them air dry.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Isn't 200ml of heavily diluted no-rinse sanitiser negligible when adding 19L of beer on top?

With normal 'no rinse' use, you'd get only about 30 - 40ml in a keg, even that small amount I don't want in my beer, so there's no way 200ml is making its way into it.

Others might be ok with it, that's fine.

 

[Smokomark]

Here's an idea.

Turn keg upside down and use pressure release valve to get rid of reclaiming sanitiser.

 

[Smokomark]

Remaining sanitiser

 

[Quokka42]

Sorry to be late, but in answer to the original question - yes, you can. I don't remember the dilution, but you have to be careful that it's hard to find bleach that does not have scent/detergent/"inert fillers" added. you also have to rinse afterwards, but a kettle or two of boiling water usually does the trick.
I usually clean with sodium perc (or botlle washing powder for difficult bottles,) rinse and sanitise with a "Star San" type no-rinse sanitiser. Star San didn't invent it and don't have a patent - a similar sanitiser was used in breweries and soft drink manufacturers at least 10 years before they appeared. So, as annoying as Kegland can be, their product and equivalents are just as good.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Much as I like Proxitane, it takes no prisoners, I would like something that is a little more user friendly, not convinced with the Phosphoric sanitisers wondering whether the Quat may be enough after a sodium percarbonate or perborate pre wash. I will give it a go against the Proxitane and see how it fares.
http://www.industrialbearings.com.au/uploads/catalogs/cyndanaceticsanitise-proxitane_1339553796.pdf