Cleaning your kettle

[Tony L]

It's not something I do after each brew other than giving it a good rinse. I always figured that the boil kills all the nasties anyway.

But this week after cleaning a keg with PBW, I dumped it into my kettle and let it sit a few days.
Que Saturday morning, the day I brewed. Before I started, I dumped out the PBW and scrubbed the inside of my kettle. I disassembled my screen and ball valve
to give that a good cleaning also.
Man I was blown away with the amount of crud that had accumulated inside there. I won't be waiting so long before I give it a good cleaning again I can tell you.
All that crud must affect the beer in some way even if it was sanitized by the boil.

Anyway, now I feel good about this light tasting Helles that I have bubbling away in my fermentation fridge.

[jeffsmith]

Yeah, all those crevices really store a lot of nasty shit. I usually disassemble my kettle, chiller, pump, etc every for or five brews, give everything a good soak and scrub, and retape.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, I took my valve apart the other day and was surprised by the amount of crud in there. Is a stainless scrubby ok to use on the inside bottom of the kettle to remove the scale buildup?

[Tony L]

Jimmy, after a good soak with the PBW, I just used a sponge to clean it. I didn't like the idea of using abrasive to clean SS.

[mr x]

I never touch my valves or scrub my keggle.

[Jimmy]

I never touch my valves or scrub my keggle.

You use caustic on your kettle though, right?

[mr x]

I occasionally need to use caustic to clean off my element, so I have to rinse out that caustic out of the kettle, but that`s not deliberate.

[Jimmy]

I occasionally need to use caustic to clean off my element, so I have to rinse out that caustic out of the kettle, but that`s not deliberate.

So do you just let the scale build up and not worry about it?

[mr x]

so far, yes.

[Jimmy]

Good enough. I shall continue on doing the same.