Damn hoses growing mould

[Kev888]

Hmm, I've got a clear braided PVC hose for pumping out my boiler, and this morning I noticed mould growing in it.

I find this surprising in the < 4wks since the last brew. I ran bleach solution through it for a good 20mins after last use before rinsing with fresh tap water, and had imagined that the cold and dark would have kept it better than that (its been in a covered pit in an unheated garage with no external windows). As light doesn't seem to be a factor this also suggests that my opaque water hose, which I fill the HLT and clean/rinse out FVs with, could be in the same state.

I was going to give my copper HLT a soak in percarbonate solution tomorrow, so i guess I'll just flush out the hoses and recirculate the same stuff through them whilst I'm at it - and then give them some starsan afterwards. Its kind of critical being post-boil but the hose is reasonably new and not cheap so worth cleaning if I can.

Not sure what I can do for future prevention though; I can find no practicable way of emptying/drying long hoses and my pump can't take boiling water so all I can think to do is fill them with starsan or maybe stayclean or something after cleaning and rinsing, after each brew. Pants - yet more cleanup faff on brew day!

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Cheers
Kev

[boingy]

Keep the hose full of water and in the dark then run off a "hosefull" of water before you use it each time.

[Aleman]

I fill all flexible tubing with a peracetic solution and seal the ends . . . It's only when I forget that I get stuff growing . . .then you need a tubing brush as little chemical wise seems to shift it

[Kev888]

Keep the hose full of water and in the dark then run off a "hosefull" of water before you use it each time.

Thats exactly what I was doing, which is why it surprised me really - I've got 3/4" BSP threads on the ends so it was easy to keep full and stoppered up with brass end stops. On inspection though there are small air pockets around the mold - maybe there was trapped or suspended gas that formed them as they're well down the pipe, not at the ends. I thought i'd been careful, I certainly tried, but maybe its partly user ineptitude then - though if so not sure how I'd do it better. Hmm.

I fill all flexible tubing with a peracetic solution and seal the ends . . . It's only when I forget that I get stuff growing . . .then you need a tubing brush as little chemical wise seems to shift it

Ah I see, so maybe my stayclean idea or something similar would be a goer then - at least more reliable than me keeping the air out appears to have been. Although it looks like cleaning the damn things may not be as easy as I'd hoped - damn, although glad it did it now rather than with the silicone hose I'd intended to get in the future. I'm probably going to show my chemistry failings once more here, but have you found a good source of peracetic?

Cheers
Kev

[Aleman]

I'm probably going to show my chemistry failings once more here, but have you found a good source of peracetic?

I've bought form This eBay Seller, Murphys also sell it as does The Malt Miller

I will be honest though and say that I either get the 5% (MUrphys) stuff from a couple of micros I know or even better the 15% stuff (peracid) from another micro . . . I just don't get there often enough

[Kev888]

Thanks! To fill stuff up with solution I can see why you'd seek out the bulk packs - I guess the smaller ones are more suitable for spraying quantities. Even then it looks more expensive than the stayclean solution but I guess its more versatile and if it saves this sort of aggro its probably well worth it. Right sold, its going on my 'to buy' list - though I'll try using starsan initially as I've got plenty to hand and it's effective long enough.

Many Thanks,
Kev

[Aleman]

If you have starsan to hand . . . fill the hoses with that, it'll do the same job

[Kev888]

Great - will do. I believe its actually quite long lasting even diluted, and in fact re-useable to a degree, so may work out quite well in this roll - I'll definately try it in any case as I need to clean the pipe sooner than I can buy any alternative. I suspect it'll make the transparent PVC cloudy/translucent over time, but I guess thats no biggie - my silicone tubes are like that to begin with.

I now just have to make some sort of pull-through to wipe off the damn mould that I didn't prevent last time.

Cheers
Kev

[boingy]

If the pipes go milky you won't be able to see the mold: problem solved.

If you have been keeping water in them I don;t see how the mold grew. Domestic water pipes don't grow mold, even if you leave them for weeks.

[Kev888]

Ah, like turning the car radio up so that you don't hear the clonks and bangs that otherwise may demand £attention.

Yes indeed, that was my own philosophy - until a few hours ago anyway. I can only guess that the difference is I'm not maintaining the water pressure, unlike the mains supply, so gas can escape suspension, and/or that with it being a non-continuous pipe somehow air is getting drawn in and I'm airating the watewr as I fill the hose, or something like that. I use proper plumbing stops specifically to seal the hose effectively and can find no leak in them, and am always careful to fill right to the brim - yet there are now small gas bubbles along the tube's length that I either missed or were not in evidence after filling. Hmm.

EDIT: the only other think I can think of is that some plastic plumbing pipe has gas barrier in it and clearly (ha! I like a good pun, pity thats a bad one) my PVC stuff doesn't - I wouldn't have thought that would have been enough to feed mould, but then I wouldn't have expected this to happen either. Its not impossible that the gas bubbles I can see may be produced by the mould too, if something let the chicken/egg cycle start

Cheers
Kev

[Gricey]

I'm glad you brought this up before I started using my hoses, christ, its a never ending battle!

[Kev888]

It does seem that way sometimes - and this one is especially annoying because I'd firmly believed the cleaning/storing regime was taking care of it.

Probably I need to spend a bit of time working out a more coherent cleaning/sanitising regime for the latest setup, I can't just stick everything in the sink these days and its all a bit ad-hoc and time consuming at the mo - especially given that its not actually working in this case. I may have grown over-enthusiastic at the low price of basic bleach too, there are better cleaners and even sanitisers that could make things ultimately easier and more reliable.

I suspect that it is possible to get over concerned about it too though, if this wasn't a post-boil hose I may never have realised or noticed any repercussions with the normal flushing/cleaning regime.

Cheers
kev

[Gricey]

I just used mine for the first time today and notice even giving them a rinse for a few mins, theres still stuff in there. I wonder if its worth just keeping them in a bucket of starsan when not in use. Having used a pump for the first time yesterday I've got the bug so really need to get my cleaning in order.

[Kev888]

I just used mine for the first time today and notice even giving them a rinse for a few mins, theres still stuff in there. I wonder if its worth just keeping them in a bucket of starsan when not in use. Having used a pump for the first time yesterday I've got the bug so really need to get my cleaning in order.

You could well be right. Aleman was spot on when he said its difficult to shift mould out of the pipes chemically - I ended up pulling a soft dishcloth through with some plastic coated garden wire - so its worth a bit of effort in prevention.

I'm trying a new process now; having (finally) cleaned the pipes I recirculated starsan as a last stage rather than just flushing through with water. To reduce the chances of letting in more nasties afterwards I left the hoses and pump assembled as a single sealed unit and bunged up each end. For good measure I also left it full of starsan (not that it would have been easy to drain it properly anyway); there are air pockets as I think the recirculation and pump cavities allow it in so I may give it a pump-around or shake from time to time, but the way I see it the starsan should have done its job anyway and there'll be nothing to grow.

it took a bit of starsan to give the pump enough head to prime but otherwise was a lot easier than dissassembling and treating the hoses and pump separately so I'll be v happy if it works - I suppose I should dissassemble the connectors and clean separately before next use, but that would re-introduce more cleaning aggro so I'm tempted to try just flushing through and using it.

I haven't done anything with the main water hose I use for filling the HLT yet though - being opaque I don't know if it has a problem. As its pre-boil I'm tempted to risk it - its a long hose to pull something through to clean. I may look at a semi-permanent setup for the future; if it or some other pipe can become essentially a part of the standard water supply then it should be permanently full in spite of my ineptitude, and will save laying out each time. I'll need to run it overground though so will have to sort out some insulation and a heating wire or something to stop it freezing.

Cheers
kev

[Trunky]