Asda smartprice bleach

winka · Post by **winka** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:30 pm

How much would I need to sterilize a fermentor. Is it 5ml to 1 litre of water. First time using a thin bleach so help is grateful.

Cheers

crafty john · Post by **crafty john** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:34 pm

5 Ml is a bit low, 10 ml per litre is what I use and I have never had any problems. 250 ml for a 25 litre FV and 300ml for a 30 litre FV. Make sure you rinse 2 or 3 times with cold water and swirl a sodium metabisulphite solution around afterwoods to get rid of any chlorine left after rinsing. I use 1 tsp in a pint of water and swill it round for a minute, no need to rinse afterwards.

winka · Post by **winka** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:11 pm

Ok cheers. Would I have to fill it to 25 liters or can I fill it to 10l and just swish every 10 minuites (like I do with the steralising powder I have) obviously making sure every surface has been covered

Cheers

crafty john · Post by **crafty john** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 6:55 pm

winka wrote:Ok cheers. Would I have to fill it to 25 liters or can I fill it to 10l and just swish every 10 minuites (like I do with the steralising powder I have) obviously making sure every surface has been covered

Cheers

I always fill my FV's to the brim and put the lid in too, leave for 20 mins then rinse etc, I don't see the point of swirling to sanitise with bleach, it takes longer and it's so cheap anyway so why make extra work, fill your buckets and get the rest of your stuff together by the time you are done everything is sanitised.

winka · Post by **winka** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:19 pm

Ok cool thanks. Only 1 more thing, wtf is a sodium metabisulphste soloution

BeerEagle · Post by **BeerEagle** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:39 pm

IIRC Campden tablets are the same thing but you can buy it in powder form.

screen · Post by **screen** » Tue May 22, 2012 10:30 am

Why oh why have I been using vwp at Â£4.65 from lhbs? Aldi bleach from now on.

Kev888 · Post by **Kev888** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:38 pm

Bleach is a good microbiological cleaner and a reasonable physical cleaner, but I find warm percarbonate or oxy cleaners better for shifting crudd so my regime had been to clean with percarbonate or oxy stuff after use and then sanitise with bleach solution (and rinse lots) before use. Both considerably cheaper than small pots of vwp.

I must admit that I've swapped starsan in place of the bleach now - mainly just for practical ease.

Chees
kev

darkonnis · Post by **darkonnis** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:38 pm

I went through a phase of using cheap bleach, first, second and third round of infections in bottles. Not entirely sure what went wrong or why it didnt work (as i mix bleach strong and give it time to work). VWP, whilst expensive has so far not let me down. I'm not saying its the bleach because I get the science, but it is the only variable and I have thus gone back to VWP.

GrowlingDogBeer · Post by **GrowlingDogBeer** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:51 am

I'm with Kev on this, bleach works but too much rinsing for me.

I clean with an Oxy Cleaner, usually from Aldi in my case, a quick rinse out then a spray with Starsan.

Wolfy · Post by **Wolfy** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:10 am

Assuming its 3% bleach (and that you are using it to sanitize not clean) - according my translation of what the guy who makes StarSan said on TheBrewingNetwork podcast - the rate to use is 10ml bleach per 5l water plus 10ml vinegar ... which works out to be 2ml/L.

Kev888 · Post by **Kev888** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 10:14 am

Yes that sounds about right, except I think it may be a slightly unsafe assumption for the basic thin bleach to be 3% or more, they only say <5% usually and I've heard some are pretty low (2.x%). So prersonally I'm a bit more cautious and use/used 'at least' 3ml/L - for 20mins - to sanitise (and up to 50ml/L where theres stuff to shift as well).

Cheers
kev

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