Babby's first infection! Is steeping in boiling water enough to sterilise plastic?

hatrickpatrick · 11-08-2018 05:46PM #1

So I brewed a pilsner a couple of weeks ago, dry hopped it last weekend, took a gravity reading on Monday and it wasn't finished yet, so left it until Thursday and, BOOM! Infected.

I've already tossed the beer, I'm aware that infections can sometimes still turn out ok especially when they appear late in the process, but as this particular beer is intended to be given as a present for a promotional kind of thing I decided not to take any risks. Will get the same kit again and brew this week.

My question is, after cleaning out all the krausen, would filling the fermenter to the brim with boiling water and clamping the lid on, sloshing it around a bit to make sure all the headspace and lid are contacted, leaving it for an hour, then pouring it out and doing a standard run with milton sanitiser be enough to allow me to re-use this equipment? Many online talk about how plastic equipment once infected has to be replaced, but that's usually in the context of not boiling it - I took a gamble with my fermenter being strong enough to take boiling water without melting and turned out to be right. Didn't even warp the shape.

Having done this, and an extended sanitisation with a lot of sloshing the sanitiser around inside (lid on) again to make sure all of the inside was cleaned, is it reasonable to assume that the fermenter is now sterile and suitable for re-use with my next batch? Obviously I can't know for sure until I've done it, just looking for general opinions.

I've included photos of the infection if anyone's interested. Only the surface of the beer was infected - underneath the relatively thick surface (which "cracked" in a liquid sort of sense when penetrated) the beer looked normal and the whole thing smelled like ordinary beer, so I obviously managed to catch it quite early on in the process. I'm *pretty* sure the cause of infection was not sealing the lid entirely after taking a hydrometer reading Monday. Only realised it wasn't properly sealed after several hours and clamped it down. This would mean that the infection was at most four days old before the equipment was cleaned, as I can say with 100% confidence that the beer was clear and healthy on Monday for sampling.

Thoughts?

https://imgur.com/a/IRmUmKC

BeerNut · 12-08-2018 03:59PM

Once it's sanitised it should be fine. I'd give it another go; you'll know for sure if the next batch doesn't work out.

Idleater · 12-08-2018 04:56PM

Re the lid not being tight on, my (kit) bucket came without a breather hole (and breather) and when I asked if I should make one the guy in one of the kit shops said it didn't need to be sealed tight as the carbon dioxide layer from the fermentation process should keep it clean.

I've only done two batches, one sealed and one loose.

Not that it helps your question mind, I'm curious on responses too.

hatrickpatrick · 12-08-2018 06:45PM

Idleater wrote: »

Re the lid not being tight on, my (kit) bucket came without a breather hole (and breather) and when I asked if I should make one the guy in one of the kit shops said it didn't need to be sealed tight as the carbon dioxide layer from the fermentation process should keep it clean.

I've only done two batches, one sealed and one loose.

Not that it helps your question mind, I'm curious on responses too.

This is correct. The trouble is that the brew I was doing involved dry hopping quite a fair bit into fermentation and then letting it sit for a few days after, so the fermentation would have completed and therefore stopped spitting out extra co2 during the final few days, which is when the lid was loose.

Unless you're doing something like this which involves opening the lid a fair bit into the fermentation process, and then leaving the beer to sit in primary afterwards before bottling, you're probably fine. My first ever batch had a defective fermenter lid which didn't seal at all, but no infection issues to speak of after a three week primary with no secondary.

irish_goat · 13-08-2018 12:25PM

The white, spider web looking thing on top of the beer is called a pellicle and is caused by bacterial or fungal infection in your beer.

Anytime I've had an infection or an old bucket needed cleaning I've given them a soak in bleachy water as bleach will kill pretty much everything. I've a fermentation bucket that's about 10 years old that is still going strong using this.

hatrickpatrick · 13-08-2018 01:03PM

irish_goat wrote: »

The white, spider web looking thing on top of the beer is called a pellicle and is caused by bacterial or fungal infection in your beer.

I'm kinda loving the fact that this is an actual living thing, which has spent its entire life from beginning to end, absolutely sh!tfaced on beer I made

Anytime I've had an infection or an old bucket needed cleaning I've given them a soak in bleachy water as bleach will kill pretty much everything. I've a fermentation bucket that's about 10 years old that is still going strong using this.

Interesting, when you say bleach is there a particular brand or "food friendly" type you mean? We have a fair bit of bleach lying around as in household cleaning supplies, but I'm assuming that kind of thing would be unsuitable for cleaning a bucket one intends to make any kind of consumable food or drink in?

beans · 13-08-2018 01:13PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Interesting, when you say bleach is there a particular brand or "food friendly" type you mean?

I use Milton in solution with vinegar. Never fails me

BeerNut · 13-08-2018 02:24PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Interesting, when you say bleach is there a particular brand or "food friendly" type you mean?

Standard thin bleach is fine. That's all Milton is, really.

hatrickpatrick · 13-08-2018 03:10PM

BeerNut wrote: »

Standard thin bleach is fine. That's all Milton is, really.

So one final question - one full milton tablet is good for 5L of water, or so says the label. In terms of letting it soak as opposed to rolling and sloshing it around for a few minutes, with for example a 30 litre fermenting bucket, does this mean I should fill it to the brim and then put a total of six milton tablets in, as 1 tablet = 5L and 30/5 = 6? Or does the amount of sanitiser / bleach required not "scale" as simply as I'm trying to scale it here?

EDIT:

beans wrote: »

I use Milton in solution with vinegar. Never fails me

Any particular benefit from adding vinegar? I usually just use milton on its own, but can add vinegar easily if this is necessary?

beans · 13-08-2018 03:20PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Any particular benefit from adding vinegar? I usually just use milton on its own, but can add vinegar easily if this is necessary?

It's touted as a no-rinse solution. However, Milton is a no-rinse solution anyway, so I reckon the vinegar is not strictly necessary. You've also got to be careful of mixing the two, as you can create clouds of chlorine gas.

I mix the bleach with water, then add the vinegar at that point.

BeerNut · 13-08-2018 03:32PM

I'm pretty sure it scales. The standard no-rinse sanitiser recipe is 30ml each of thin bleach and vinegar, added separately to 19L of water. The bugs don't care if you don't get the proportions exactly right when you scale it up or down.

mvl · 13-08-2018 10:22PM

irish_goat wrote: »

The white, spider web looking thing on top of the beer is called a pellicle and is caused by bacterial or fungal infection in your beer.

how could you determine which one is it ?

Ipso · 14-08-2018 08:07PM

Had a few strange ones. Last year I made two batches that shared some similar malts and were brewed with Windsor yeast.
The first one (a stout) started fermenting great for a week and then stalled for about four days, I shook the carboy and it took off again.
Wort tasted great when I took gravity readings, but when I opened a bottle after a couple weeks I got a gusher, there was a metallic type taste to the beer. The next batch (an English Pale Ale) had the same issues.
I don't have great temperature control so maybe the east got stressed (as it was very hot at the time).

Tried another couple batches with S-04 yeast, one of them had horrible efficiency so was a write off. The other one was a gusher and the dented part of the bottle cap was pushed up, so I kind of knew something had gone wrong.

The last one I had was strange, another attempt at the stout I tried originally (Terminator Stout from an Oregon brew pub called McMenamins), this turned out quite good, however with one of the bottles I happened to leave it sitting for about 25 minutes and when I opened it I got a very slow gusher.

Babby's first infection! Is steeping in boiling water enough to sterilise plastic?

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