Stinky bucket question

[cbrown9064]

Hey!

So after my last brew day, I had a 6.5 gallon primary bucket of cream ale that I had transferred to a corny, during the waiting parts of brewing.

After cleanup I had the bucket to clean and wanted to soak a White Labs yeast vial to see if I could get the label off. Cleaned the bucket good with Oxyclean free, rinsed, then mixed up another batch and threw the vial in. Had to go out of town and left it for a week. Came back to dump it out and it stunk to high heaven!? Dumped it all and. Made up a batch with some PBW and soaked in hot water for a couple hours, washed , dumped and rinsed. Bucket still smelly, not as bad.

Is this something to be concerned about? Should I ditch it for a new one? Any other thoughts on cleaning it?

Thanks!
Chris

 

[Gixxer]

I use bleach for a real stinky bucket. Of course I have to be sure to get all the bleach out, and for me (uneducated opinion) a hot oxyclean soak and good rinse gets rid of the bleach. Others might say hot oxyclean soak overnight, or whatever. I am sure there are other ways to do it, but thats what I do.

 

[NMG318]

After washing in PBW if I still have a smell problem, I let the equipment soak overnight in baking soda solution. It always does the trick and you don't have to worry about bleach smell. This works really well with new kegs as well.

 

[david_42]

I use bleach for stinky and stained (from blackberry ciders) buckets. Let the bucket air out for a week before reusing.

 

[cbrown9064]

Great info...thanks!