Help, my beers are under attack!

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

A bit of a drastic title, but I'm having a bit of mare...

I want to know if anyone bleaches their brewing gear?

About 5 brews ago I had this odd film on top of one of my Stouts. It tasted right, so I just decided to rack from underneath...bottled it up, weird film was on the bottle neck line, made me nervous, but well, its one of the best tasting stouts ever. Im not fragile...its still beer.

Being nervous about the weird film, I relegated the FV to a general bucket for grain etc...thought nothing of it.

Since then I've brewed two keg bound hoppy pales and two low IBU ales bound for bottle ageing.

Keg beers, not a problem. Due to high turn over, I've got them Grain to Glass in a couple of weeks. They were were my house ale so I didn't really worry about readings. One FG reading taken before kegging.

The two bottle beers a Mild and a Cali Common, both were doing fine, tasted right, left them in the primary for about three weeks in total (pretty standard for me), Grav reading taken after two weeks, no traces of weird film. Opened them up on bottling day, one week later....bam.....weird alien film again. Bottled them up and just like before, the beers taste right, but the weird film is in the neck of the bottles. These are for xmas so I'm not thrilled about the weird film in the bottles....

Now, my cleaning routine is PBW and Starsan. But I'm thinking the weird film has been transferred from the wine thief thing I use to take beer out for gravity readings. So thats going in the bin, but I don't want to bin all my other stuff for obvious reasons.

So do you think bleaching the balls out of the rest of the gear would do the trick, then well rinsing of course...or am I doomed to have this weird film infection forever?

Cheers and TIA

 

[Clint]

Hmmm,dunno but Gunge is ya fella for wierd films.

 

[braziliain]

Are you using a plate or counterflow chiller? I'm wondering if the FV is definitely the culprit?

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Are you using a plate or counterflow chiller? I'm wondering if the FV is definitely the culprit?

I'm using a plate chiller. Recently moved to one funnily enough. It's a BIAB set up with bagged hops during the boil...minimal gunk going through the chiller.

Why could that be the culprit?

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Are you using a plate or counterflow chiller? I'm wondering if the FV is definitely the culprit?

Oh wait...Yeah...just googled it. It's indeed possible it is the culprit and odd that I've not had this happen before moving to the plate chiller. I could certainly stand to up my plate chiller cleaning/care game.

So, say that is the case? I boil my chiller up and bake it. Flush it out. Back flush it with boiling water. The weird film has touched at least 3 FVs.

Bleaching everything a bit just to be safe? Good idea?

 

[braziliain]

There was a post recently by @John Holgreaves about how he struggled to eliminate infection of his brews and it turned out to be his plate chiller despite his meticulous cleaning regime.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/john-from-n-yorks.80001/

 

[braziliain]

Oh wait...Yeah...just googled it. It's indeed possible it is the culprit and odd that I've not had this happen before moving to the plate chiller. I could certainly stand to up my plate chiller cleaning/care game.

So, say that is the case? I boil my chiller up and bake it. Flush it out. Back flush it with boiling water. The weird film has touched at least 3 FVs.

Bleaching everything a bit just to be safe? Good idea?

Bleaching certainly won't do any harm. Just rinse the living crap out of it all afterwards. I used to bleach my plastic FVs when I first started out and never seemed to have an off flavour from it.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi @Hop_on_the_good_foot
It's a faff, but try the cleaning regime from this thread: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/deep-clean-for-blichmann-therminator-plate-chiller.34626/
I would certainly want to begin by running PBW or Oxi solution through the chiller several times - it clears organic deposits no bother!

 

[MickDundee]

Bleaching certainly won't do any harm. Just rinse the living crap out of it all afterwards. I used to bleach my plastic FVs when I first started out and never seemed to have an off flavour from it.

This. I used to use bleach all my stuff. I’ve switched to a good scrub and Starsan but the bleach still gets used every so often. I use boiling water on everything except my Fermentasaurus too.

 

[Cwrw666]

Sounds like a film of wild yeast. Can result in gushers though I've never had it affect the taste.
Boiling water kills it. Starsan won't touch it. Bleach'll kill it but not if it's lurking in a crevice as it won't penetrate.

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Hi @Hop_on_the_good_foot
It's a faff, but try the cleaning regime from this thread: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/deep-clean-for-blichmann-therminator-plate-chiller.34626/
I would certainly want to begin by running PBW or Oxi solution through the chiller several times - it clears organic deposits no bother!

Nice one. Cheers for that. Looks like I've got some serious cleaning to do. Might have to sacrifice a brew day for deep clean day...sad times...

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

@braziliain @MickDundee
Right, Bleach it is....'he says...slipping on the big rubber gloves'

Cheers

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Sounds like a film of wild yeast. Can result in gushers though I've never had it affect the taste.
Boiling water kills it. Starsan won't touch it. Bleach'll kill it but not if it's lurking in a crevice as it won't penetrate.

So if it's lurking in my plate chiller, it's got everywhere. Hoses, fittings, valves. A good few flushes of boiling pbw should reach all crevices of the chiller no? Or is it time to just cut my losses and go back to the immersion chiller?

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi @Hop_on_the_good_foot
Don't give up without a fight! PBW will shift it, and a follow-up application of bleach will finish it off.
I do like the idea of cooking it in a pressure cooker!

 

[Sadfield]

Starsan will kill wild yeasts, what it doesn't so is remove the biofilm they can produce to protect themselves. PWB should be enough to clean, however if Beerstone is present it may not. An acid wash (Phosphoric acid) followed by PWB with no rinse between the two should remove the Beerstone and biofilm. I think there's a problem with baking plate chillers, it makes any present organic matter, more difficult to remove.

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Hi @Hop_on_the_good_foot
Don't give up without a fight! PBW will shift it, and a follow-up application of bleach will finish it off.
I do like the idea of cooking it in a pressure cooker!

I'm going to give it a good go...not being one to give up so easily. It's just so damn convenient compared to the immersion. Now I see however, time saved on the chilling with the plate is now going to be spent on cleaning it so 6 of 1 etc...

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Starsan will kill wild yeasts, what it doesn't so is remove the biofilm they can produce to protect themselves. PWB should be enough to clean, however if Beerstone is present it may not. An acid wash (Phosphoric acid) followed by PWB with no rinse between the two should remove the Beerstone and biofilm. I think there's a problem with baking plate chillers, it makes any present organic matter, more difficult to remove.

So this is interesting as I'm assuming if there was an infection from a wild yeast, I would have off flavors/gushers...but I don't. Just the film. I hadn't even thought about beerstone. I feel like it's a wild yeast though. Phosphoric acid is a good shout though. I'll try and pick some up!

 

[terrym]

Chlorine/chlorides and austentic stainless steels (e.g type 304) are not particularly compatible since under some conditions of heat, concentration and exposure time, corrosion will result. Same with phos acid as far as I am aware. Phos acid is a component of Starsan and in its concentrated form is quite aggressive. Phos acid, assuming you can buy it 'over the counter', like all mineral acids is nasty stuff so handle with care.

 

[Hop_on_the_good_foot]

Chlorine/chlorides and austentic stainless steels (e.g type 304) are not particularly compatible since under some conditions of heat, concentration and exposure time, corrosion will result. Same with phos acid as far as I am aware. Phos acid is a component of Starsan and in its concentrated form is quite aggressive. Phos acid, assuming you can buy it 'over the counter', like all mineral acids is nasty stuff so handle with care.

I wouldn't start with that of course.....I'm sure some decent time with some boiling water, bleach, pbw and starsan will clear up any infection....I hope.

 

[LeeH]

Soak it in Antiformin S.