Cleaning ebay plastic barrels (mash tun and boiler)

[Deebee]

Having just ordered one of these i wondered if you managed to get riid of the smell?

Also by soda crystals i trust you mean Caustic soda?

[salnajjar]

I'm about to do AG number 4 tomorrow, and I have to say, tasting the beer after checking gravity on way into the FV's, I've had zero off flavours (that I could tell at any rate).

I think I may have been a touch paranoid when trying to clean mine, but the soda crystals/caustic soda definitely did the trick.

[delta9]

This may sound a little silly but have you tried drying the tubs and then adding a handful of Bicarbonate of Soda and leaving it in the tub - lid on - overnight. I think that the stuff is supposed to absorb odours.

Just an Idea

Same what I was thinking, I'd add some salt with that too.

I clean my chip pan the same way (boil salt+bicarb in water)

[salnajjar]

The complete steps I did to completely clean and de-odourise (spelling) these darn things:

A good old clean out with a soapy water solution and sponge (no scrubbing as I didn't want to scratch up the insides).
Left full to the brim with warm soapy water for a day or so.
Emptied out and filled to brim with an alkaline/chlorine dilute powder cleaner/steriliser solution for a day or so.
Emptied out and filled to brim with a diluted soda crystals solution for a day or so.
Dry scrubbed (gently) with soda crystals and left for a day or so.

I would say the two things that made the biggest difference:
Just leaving them with the lids off for a few days (around a week whilst I was working on the fitting kettle elements and stuff)
Dry scrubbing with soda crystals

[NickP]

I would say the two things that made the biggest difference:
Just leaving them with the lids off for a few days (around a week whilst I was working on the fitting kettle elements and stuff)
Dry scrubbing with soda crystals

I agree when I got mine they were already cleaned but still smelled, but after leaving them with the lid of for a few days the smell just simply vanished. I will say however, that after fitting the elements and doing a couple of test runs, that after the boil there was a thin film on the surface of the water that looked like oil, which i can only presume came from the previous contents (mango chutney)