# self cleaning wine carboys



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

The widow of an old wine making friend who passed a few months back called me yesterday to come by her place and pick up his assortment of glass gallon cider jugs, 3 gallon and 5 gallon glass carboys and a box full of wine thiefs, funnels, racking tubes and siphons, water lock thumpers, drilled corks , hydrometers and beakers, yeast packs, enzymes and such.

After hauling it home and adding the supplies to my own gear as I unloaded the box of pieces I noticed a box of denture cleaning tablets so I called the widow because I knew that both her husband and her wore dentures and figured she may have packed them by mistake.

The widow told me that those denture tablets were part of her husbands wine gear and were cheaper dollar store brand not the good brand they used for their dentures.

She said as she recalled her husband would add 2 tablets to a gallon jug and 3 to 5 tablets to the larger jugs and fill them with hot water to set overnight cleaning out stuck on dried yeast and caked sugar before bleaching and rinsing the jugs for storage.

When I asked her why he used the denture tablets she told me because he hated trying to bend the bottle brush over and over again.

After she told me about it I pulled out the 3 gallon carboy I been putting off cleaning for a few days and filled it with warm water and added a few tablets and the yeast crud started floating off the sides of the carboy in just a couple minutes,


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## farmrbrown (Jun 25, 2012)

Work smarter, not harder.:goodjob:


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## Rockytopsis (Dec 29, 2007)

How large are the carboys? DH has 4 and 5 gallon ones. Did you fill them all the way to the top with water? Were they glass or plastic. 

He will ask so I thought I would have the answers, thanks.
Nancy


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

that is awesome!
those denture tablets are much cheaper than that toxic looking crap they sell at the homebrew store.
thanks!


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Rockytopsis said:


> How large are the carboys? DH has 4 and 5 gallon ones. Did you fill them all the way to the top with water? Were they glass or plastic.
> 
> He will ask so I thought I would have the answers, thanks.
> Nancy


All of my thumping jugs and carboys are glass and I filled the one I tried his trick on all the way to the neck and added the tablets and waited until the blue tint turned clear before dumping the jug and rinsing with bleach water once and water 4 times to eliminate both the toothpaste and bleach odors. 

I guess it would work on plastic jugs also considering that my fathers denture cup was a plastic one and he used polident tablets and only rinse the denture shaped cup with water after taking his dentures out and his cup was always as clean as his teeth :shrug:

The jug I cleaned had mostly dried yeast foam at the top just under the neck but the effervescing tablets appeared to get the whole inside of the jug cleaned.

farmrbrown,

The same thought went through my mind also as I tried his cleaning trick until it occurred to me that using the trick of a winemaker who was 30 years older than I when he died and still rinsing my jugs the same number of times as I always did so I guess he did make me capable of working smarter even though he has been in the grave since mid December. 

I'm glad she thought of me when cleaning out his gear because with my arthritis getting worse wrestling even the 3 gallon carboys around up on a siphoning stool is harder and with the gallon jugs I inherited I can put the wine up in gallon jugs to work, pour it off the lees if I choose and if I want to homogize the post work flavor all I have to do is set gallon jugs on the steps of a short ladder with and empty on the floor and short siphon small diameter hoses to "slinky style" siphon homogonize mix the jugs a few times to make the equivilent of a 5 gallon carboy that has uniform taste of all the bottles I cork for the wine cabinet.


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

A real nice trick to ease in cleaning. Thanks for sharing.


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## Randy Rooster (Dec 14, 2004)

Good idea with the denture tabs. I just put a few ounces of bleach in my jugs and fill to the top with the water - the bleach eats up all the organic stuff in about 24 hours. leaves them sparkling clean.


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## jefferson (Nov 11, 2004)

Wow !!!!!!!


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## Notslar68 (Mar 28, 2013)

To clean my carboys from brewing beer, I fill them with hot water and add a partial scoop of dye free/scent free OxyClean and let them sit for about an hour. Dump out about 2/3 of the water and then shake to finish cleaning and rinse. The OxyClean works the same way as the PBW that you get at homebrew store without being near as caustic.


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## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

Get a regular carboy cleaning brush, it is an essential piece of fermenting gear, and not expensive. The commercial cleaners like PBW are food-safe and don't leave a people-harmful residue or one that will effect the taste of your brew, like chlorine does, which has to be rinsed off. The point is to sanitize and not have to rinse with water afterwards, since that will make them not sanitized any more. The denture tablets aren't going to sanitize it at all. Is the Oxyclean food safe?


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## Notslar68 (Mar 28, 2013)

Both OxyClean and PBW contain sodium percarbonate and sodium carbonate although in slightly different ratios. PBW also has some TSP added to it according to the MSDS. The major difference is OxyClean works using oxidation which is why it will turn the inside of aluminum brew pots darker. PBW uses a more caustic (although food safe) reaction to clean. Both require the item to be rinsed and sanitized before using. I have a family relation (it is one of those "Spaceballs" type - wife, brother's uncle etc...) that is the master brew at a local craft brewery that told me it is the essentially the same thing.


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## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

Notslar68, Thank you for the details about the two cleaning agents. It's good to get reliable info about them. 

Thank you for explaining them. I wasn't meaning to sound negative, or nasty, please forgive if I did, I was just wondering and have never used Oxyclean at all, except to try their additive for the dishwasher to make my glasses spot free. I thought maybe they had other stuff in there to worry about, if it was for laundry use. :shrug:

I would still suggest a good brush, tho. Even with a cleaner, I still have to scrub my glass carboys of all sizes with the brush to get dried stuff loose and make the glass really clean.


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## Notslar68 (Mar 28, 2013)

If I have a particularly problem spot I add marbles to carboy; start swirling them around and tilt carboy until I get the problem clean.

Iowa, no offense taken.


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## Hollowdweller (Jul 13, 2011)

Sometimes if I don't use a blowoff tube I get a really stubborn deposit near the neck of the carboy.

Normally I just use bleach and hot water and a carboy brush, but for that type I often fill with water and use some of the acid wash I use for my dairy equip. Seems to work.

A neighbor gave me some 30 year old champagne bottles a while back. Took quite a while to get those usable!


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## bruceandis (Jan 20, 2008)

The denture tablets tip is great, as is Notslar68's suggestion to use marbles. Love both of those ideas -- and let's face it, clean up and sanitizing is the scut work of homebrewing. Anything to make it easier is welcome in my book.


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