Cleaning out your FV

[guypettigrew]

I love brewing and all the fun associated with mashing, sparging, boiling, fermenting and, of course drinking!

Except I hate cleaning my plastic FV. After a week in the bin there's a rock hard line of dried yeast round the top. It takes ages to scrub it out using a washing up brush and water. I'm cleaning a bin at the moment in readiness for tomorrow's brew, and it's boring me silly!

Is there any quick and easy way of doing it? Abrasive pan cleaners don't seem the right way, and I can't think of anything else except elbow grease.

All suggestions gratefully received!

Guy

[sunny_jimbob]

I usually rinse out all the loose stuff, then put 3 or 4 inches of hot water in the bottom, put the lid on and slosh it around for 20 seconds or so. I then rub at the crusty ring (ooh er) with my hand and it usually all comes straight off. If it's stubborn I'll repeat, but it rarely takes more than 3 goes.

[Fuggled Mind]

I leave mine overnight with a light bleach solution then clean it off the next day. Usually lifts right off.

I know many people don't like bleach so it's unlikely to be a popular answer but it works for me.

However, as much as I hate cleaning FVs after brewing, I hate cleaning bottles for bottling even more.

Cheers

Jason

[bigdave]

I transfer my brew to keg then its FV straight upstairs into the bath, rinse the trub out, 1/2 fill with hot water, swill round, leave for 5 min and rub the crust off with a dish sponge (I try not to use a scouring pad as it scratches the plastic).

[guypettigrew]

Errm--I've only ever used cold water. Always assumed hot water would be cold by the time it's swilled round the bin and covered the yeast crust at the top. Perhaps not. I'll try hot water next time.

Guy

[gregorach]

This is another advantage of having a closed FV with an airlock - the krausen ring never really dries out, and is easy to wash off provided you do it immediately after racking the beer out.

[Dave S]

This is another advantage of having a closed FV with an airlock - the krausen ring never really dries out, and is easy to wash off provided you do it immediately after racking the beer out.

I find that too. Never had a problem since I started using an air lock on my FV.

[Jimmy321]

I wash mine in the bath with hot water and washing up liquid then give it a good rinse fill it up again with water. It's sterilised again just before use.

[guypettigrew]

This is another advantage of having a closed FV with an airlock - the krausen ring never really dries out, and is easy to wash off provided you do it immediately after racking the beer out.

Oh. I had an airlock on my FV, and washed it of within 20 minutes of racking. Still all crusty round the top!

Guy

[sweatysock]

I found when doing kits the brown ring was a bugger to scrub off. I rubbed fairy liquid into it, but in some places had to almost scrape it off; however, since going to the 'dark side' of AG I have found the ring to be soft when I rack off. It just cleanly wipes off. I still use dried yeast and do not have an airlock. I fully clip the FV lid down though. As water leaks out I figured the excess CO2 would as well.

[i_am_ed]

I find the oxyn cleaners lift off most of the dried on crud without much elbow grease.

[jmc]

I find the oxyn cleaners lift off most of the dried on crud without much elbow grease.

+1

I brew in the garage, so after kegging I use outside tap with short 1m hose (just used for brewing) to spray out FV. This knocks off most of crud.

Then about 2-3 litres warm, not boiling ~50C water with 1 tsp oxyclean.
Put lid on. Give it a shake so crud covered.
Come back an hour later and use soft sponge to remove any remaining crud.
Rinse a couple of times and then I give it a quick spray of Starsan, then seal and put away (or use for next brew again)

Don't leave oxy in there too long or crystals precipitate out of oxy and you have to scrub them off too.
How do I know?

[Kev888]

My plastic conical FV can get dried-on crud in a ring around where the wort/beer surface was - partly a consequence of me leaving it in there for a while these days and partly through dumping the yeast, which leaves the crud in the ring partially above the wort to dry.

Normally after kegging I flush the FV out with a hose set to its strongest jet, which can blast away the larger bits of crud if they aren't too dried on. But then I fill with a hot cleaning solution and soak at least overnight - after a thorough rinsing it leaves the plastic FV smelling clean and fresh and i never need to scrub; the plastic cone tank was too expensive to risk scratching - at most a gentle helping hand with a soft wet cloth part way into its soak is all it gets, and even thats not common. I also disassemble my stainless taps and soak them in a similar solution afterwards.

The cleaner I use is a home-made 2:1 sodium percarbonate and sodium metasilicate mix (these days also with some calgon powder to reduce scale on long soaks) which seems pretty aggressive - supposedly its not dissimilar to PBW. Its also effective on cornies, where I don't want to be reaching in to scrub either. But I'm sure the better oxy cleaners are not far behind.

Then before use I boil the stainless tap parts, dunk them and my hands in starsan whilst reassembling, spray the FV with some more starsan and/or peracetic acid and off we go.

Cheers
kev

[pumblechook]

On bottling day, I fill a couple of old wine fermenters with sanitizer to soak my bottles.

Once I've finished doing the bottles, I keep the sanitizer.

I drain the beer from the FV into a priming bucket, then I pour the sanitizer from the wine fermenters into the FV. This is usually enough to fill past the dried in bits.

By the time I've finished bottling the sanitizer mixture has had plenty of time to soak and everything comes off pretty easy.

[techtone]

I'm another one that just fills with cold water overnight and by the morning, anything that hasn't already fallen off, just wipes off with the very lightest of touch. Certainly no scrubbing. I'm not on a water meter yet though!