hi everyone, i have been brewing on the spike system and have a cf15 fermenter. I am curious how people are sanitizing a conical of that size, any tips or tricks or ideas that people have come up with to make it simple but still being 100% sure of sanitation.
thanks
You can't sanitize something that's not clean already.
Sanitizing is the easy part. It's the cleaning that's critical. I'd add
cleaning to your question.
I mostly use plastic brew buckets, but also an older 7 gallon Blichmann conical. I clean with a stiff nylon hand brush and tenacious deposits with a non-scratching scouring pad. Using (homemade) PBW, generic Oxiclean, or washing soda, occasionally BarKeepers Friend. On plastics I use the worn out scouring pads, the wooly substrate. Brushes inside valves and bulkheads.
For ball valves I adhere to the 45-60° cleaning method. And leave them at half open (at 45°) to dry. They get taken apart and cleaned every 8-10 brews, rarely find anything in them anymore, but is for good measure.
Every 6-8 brews or so I recirculate near boiling lye-reinforced homemade PBW through my boil kettle, pump, hoses, and plate chiller (back and forth) for a few hours. The mesh hop bags get "bleached" in there too.
Aside from dunking smaller parts, and spraying liberally in awkward areas, I mostly use a few small Starsan soaked washcloths and mop all surfaces, several times. It often generates a thin foam layer which offers the best protection, IMO.
Mostly Starsan, once a while Iodophor or IOStar.