Sanitizing with salt

[bleme]

Today my Mom made an off-hand remark about how when she made ice cream and dumped the left over rock salt water down the drain, it seemed to clear the drain.

That got me thinking about the mold that grows in pipes and how salt has been used for centuries as a preservative. It also got me thinking about the mold that sometimes grows on the outside of my bucket when I use a swamp cooler.

I believe that if I heavily salted the swamp cooler water, it would probably keep just about anything from growing in there. Any thoughts?

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Yeah, that would probably work. What's your swap cooler made of though? If it's metal, I wouldn't do it. It it's plastic, it would be ok. Although, I don't know what would be cheaper, star san or salt. Iodophor might also be a good option, pretty cheap sanitizer for larger volume applications. Or even a little bit of bleach. As long as none of the water makes it into your beer there are a quite a few options you could choose from to control the mold.

 

[estricklin]

There are quite a few bacteria out there that can tolerate salty environments just fine, take fermented pickles for example. I'm not saying it wouldn't significantly slow down your mold problem though, because I don't have any idea bout that.

 

[bleme]

I have dumped my extra StarSan in many times and that always seems to help for a week or so. I was just thinking that salt might be more persistent.

 

[DocScott]

What's the point of having sanitized swamp cooler water?! The swamp cooler just helps maintain ferm temp. It never comes into contact with the beer. Am I missing something?


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[bleme]

I know it never comes in contact with the beer but I don't like mold growing on the outside of the bucket or the T-shirt, or really anywhere in my house for that matter.

 

[MaxStout]

I know it never comes in contact with the beer but I don't like mold growing on the outside of the bucket or the T-shirt, or really anywhere in my house for that matter.

Unless the t-shirt you use is one you might want to wear later, why not dump a cupful of chlorine bleach into the swamper? That'll keep the nasties at bay. But your t-shirt will bleach out.

 

[Queequeg]

I used a very low does of bleach this time around. no problems thus far. It only has to be bactiostatic not bacteriosidal

 

[Cottonmouth]

I've always used a little bleach in the water when I used a swamp cooler.