Cleaning the Primary

[TheGeek]

I did a bit of searching and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

I have a 6.5gal plastic ale pail used for primary/bottling. After washing with unscented dish soap, hot water and a washcloth and allowing to air dry between washings twice, and a rinse with Star-San, it still smells of my previous batch. Its not a bad smell, but I was wondering if it will affect future batches? If not, i'm not concerned, but if it is going to flavor future batches, i was wondering how i could better clean it.

Thanks.

 

[cvstrat]

Fill it up with water and a scoop of oxyclean. Then let it air out a day or two and it should be good

 

[malkore]

the smell is normal, but not a problem. its mostly concentrated where the krausen ring sticks to the bucket, but even then it doesn't really affect beer flavor or aroma.

it is, however, the reason you won't want to use beer buckets for wine-making, and vice versa. glass is cool to interchange but the food grade plastic...not so much.

a soak with oxyclean or baking soda will help pull more of that smell out.

 

[TheGeek]

Great! I'll give the oxyclean a go. Thanks for the information.

edit: The Oxyclean works great! 4 scoops in 4 gallons of warm water, shaken and left to sit over night. Wiped the sides down with oxyclean the next day and dumped. Bucket smells like new.

Thanks again.