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Sterilizing a Carboy
I recently had a great beer go bad after a month or so in the bottle and I'm just trying to clean the entire brewery from top to bottom. Has anyone tried to sterilize a 6gal glass carboy in an oven? Obviously I would heat it quite slowly and cool slowly in the oven. Just curious, maybe I'm too paranoid, but after loosing 2 gal or so of that beer that would still be tasting great near Christmas, I just can't be too safe.
Also thinking of pasteurizing my beers once they have carbonated in the bottle, capped of course.
Ted
You carboy isn't made of the type of glass that can take that kind of heat (regardless of ramping process).
Especially a dry heat like a home oven would provide. You really need an autoclave for that type of sterilization. Regardless, carboys and bottles do weaken over time when exposed to heat sources like ovens and dishwashers; depsite that many people talk about using them that way. I think eventually it may lead to trouble.
If you are really that paranoid, just fill the carboy with a stronger than usual Bleach solution and let it sit for a couple days. Make sure its really clean first though too.
If it went bad after it came out of your fermentation process (buckets and carboys). Id stay focused on my bottle washing and sanitizing process (caps included).
I'd focus on the bottles. You can soak the carboy in PBW overnight and that will clean it up real good. How do you sanitize the carboy? I fill it with water and add 1 1/4 oz of Iodophor and let sit for a while minimum two minutes.Then when you dump it out put a sanitized airlock on it. You can use the same method for bottles except for the airlock. I soak them in the iodophor solution and put them in pans ready to fill. Caps get soaked in iodophor while I'm filling the bottles.
DC
I'll agree on the bottle/cap focus. If your beer was good at first, I would think the problem was not in the carboy, but developed after you bottled.
A hot cycle in a dishwasher, with a little PBW, and then into a case & cover the tops with paper towels works for me. Bring water to a boil, flameout, drop in the caps, leave them in the water while capping.
Recover the bottles after filling, or ask someone to cap as you fill.
I figured that the carboy in the oven might be a bad idea. I'm a pretty clean brewer, I make starters, I aerate with a hepa filter, nearly everything is wet with sanitizing solution when I'm brewing, I use new bottles every time I bottle which I run through the dishwasher then sanitize, but the fact that every beer was contaminated made me think that the contamination is in the primary. This beer one first place at recent competition out her in California, but it was refrigerated for 2 weekspost carbonation at the event location. In the mean time the beer at my home stayed at room temp (allowing the contaminates to grow faster) and contaminated after 4 weeks in the bottle. This beer was also my first attempt at all grain, and I'm beginning to learn that making wort and fermenting it is pretty easy, but handling beer post fermentation is tough.
I'll keep you posted on the next batch, but any tricks to keeping the beer clean thoughout the bottling proccess would be appreciated. Thanks
Ted
I would say that handling beer post ferment is toughER, but not necessarily tough.
You contamination may have happened at bottling too. An open lid dust, airflow, who knows.
Could have been hiding in your racking cane or tubing, bottle filler, bucket valve....
Are you sure you sanitized the caps.
Damn maybe it is tough...
what are you sanitizing with and how much? do you submerge stuf in sanitizer liquid or spray? do you boil caps, or soak in sanitizer? when you handle the caps to cap bottles do not touch inside of caps. new bottles or not, they need to be sanitized, DO NOT RINSE AFTER SANITIZING!
What is your method for primng sugar? add sugar to water, boil and add to bottling bucket? do you reuse tubing for bottling or transfer?
If contamination was in primary you would most likely notice it before bottling. Sounds like problem is with bottling.
If every batch has gone bad you need to scrap your method and start from scratch.
I had same problem when I first started and it ended up being what I was using for sanitizing. I used bleach, and it reqired a rinse after soaking and it just recontaminated the beer.
If you're using a common sanitizer you could be using too little or not exposing the bottles, caps, bottling bucket/carboy to sanitizer long enough.
DC
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